Improvements to 12 Volt Batteries and Required Dealer Steps

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Infiniti strives to deliver Top Level Product Quality in our vehicles and improving customer satisfaction is our ultimate goal. As you may be aware, customer satisfaction surveys identify battery issues as one of consumers’ top concerns. In a coordinated effort to increase overall battery quality and address customer concerns with battery performance, Infiniti continues to implement improvements in our vehicle design, operations and policies.

Twelve volt vehicle batteries, by their nature, require maintenance during extended periods of storage. Failure to properly maintain the battery during these periods can result in a shortened battery life. Over the past year, Infiniti has collected actual battery data and competitive benchmarking information to determine where we could improve our vehicle designs, manufacturing & shipping processes, warranty and dealer processes. The resulting changes were made to improve overall battery health for customers. These include:

Design
- Extended Storage Switch and BCM transit mode were added to reduce battery drain during shipping
and dealer storage.

Manufacturing/Shipping Process
- Battery charging activity was started for all vehicles received at our sea ports.
- Battery voltage is confirmed at the end of the manufacturing line and prior to shipping to ensure dealers are shipped vehicles with good batteries.

Warranty
-Starting with 2011 Infiniti vehicles, original equipment batteries are now covered under the Basic Warranty Coverage provided by the new vehicle limited warranty and are no longer pro-rated.

Dealer Steps
- New software will be released for the battery tester tools which will support inventory management of battery conditions and also save time in customer battery situations.
- Process changes will ask dealerships to check batteries soon after vehicle receipt (within 14 days of wholesale) and then to maintain the battery until retail delivery. Dealers that receive vehicles from Infiniti with discharged batteries will be eligible for recharge reimbursement.

Beginning this month, your dealership team will begin receiving communications regarding these new processes, tool updates and claims policies relating to battery issues. There is no single cause for battery issues that may be experienced by vehicle owners and automobile dealer service departments. However, Infiniti has identified and is acting on multiple internal opportunities for improving battery longevity. Our retailers play a significant role in this effort also. Together we believe that substantial improvements can be made in this area and result in increased overall customer satisfaction.


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