Hi,
I'm new to this board, and new to Nissans in general. I've had an '04 Quest since August, and it's been a troublesome nightmare. I was apparently the first one in the country who had the radio problem where the radio wouldn't have volume when turned on. I've also blazed the trail on other issues, most of which have resulted in TSBs being issued.
The latest is an intermittent transmission issue where the van is in drive, but pressing on the gas doesn't get the van moving. It reminds me of the good old days when you actually had to shift yourself, and you missed first and tried to start in 3rd or even 5th gear.
It's only done this twice, and, naturally, it's never done it at the dealership. Twice it's been to the dealership and I got back the "could not duplicate".
I filed an NHTSA complaint back in January on this. Yesterday I noticed another one with exactly the same symptoms; has anybody here heard of something like this?
I wish Nissan would just replace this van with another. It's been a nightmare, and it definitely does feel like the quality that everybody told me Nissan has. I have a '94 Volvo with 130,000 miles on it that's been more reliable and in the shop less than my new "reliable" Quest.
Any help appreciated.
2004 Quest Transmission Problems
Ok first off welcome to NICO glad to have you aboard!
Now lets start with quality issue. Please do not let this vehicle be your basis for nissans quality. All of their other models are awesome in quality [not without the occasional problems that all car manufacturers go through] It seems nissan is not meant to build a van on thier own. I know most of you either dont know about or ever experianced a van nissan made back in the late 80's that was plagued with problems. It had several recalls but the final recall on the 3 yrs production vehicle was to buy them back off the road [ All of them] and crush them at a wreaking yard! Mind you the problems on this van will not result in that and after a year of production all the bugs will be worked out and fixes for your vans will be generated. I know these problems are cumbersome and frustrating at the moment but rest assure nissan will do right by you. All you need is to express a little patients on this for the time being and they will handle your needs. As I mentioned in another post there is more then one engineering crew working on the quest right now. A rough guess would be at least 20 engineers between the 2 crews I know of. They are dead set on making these quality vehicles. Take a step back and look at what your van has to offer over all without focusing on the problems you have experianced. compared to other minivans in the market what do you see? look at the cargo spage created without having to remove seats from the vehicle,its the size of a truck bed with the seats folded!! the doors open by them selves(with a remote even) Some of you have skyveiw windows! In the back seat!!! some have DVD's hanging from the ceiling!! Pop the hood and you have one of the highest rated HP engines in its class and its chain driven( no T-belt to change...ever) My opinion on this is wait it out as frustrating as it might be and when all is said and done your vehicle will be fixed and you will really enjoy it.
Now for you trans issue I have not yet seen your incedent yet But if I do I will post immediatly. I will take a look at asist on monday and see if there are any incedents posted and post back.
Scott
Now lets start with quality issue. Please do not let this vehicle be your basis for nissans quality. All of their other models are awesome in quality [not without the occasional problems that all car manufacturers go through] It seems nissan is not meant to build a van on thier own. I know most of you either dont know about or ever experianced a van nissan made back in the late 80's that was plagued with problems. It had several recalls but the final recall on the 3 yrs production vehicle was to buy them back off the road [ All of them] and crush them at a wreaking yard! Mind you the problems on this van will not result in that and after a year of production all the bugs will be worked out and fixes for your vans will be generated. I know these problems are cumbersome and frustrating at the moment but rest assure nissan will do right by you. All you need is to express a little patients on this for the time being and they will handle your needs. As I mentioned in another post there is more then one engineering crew working on the quest right now. A rough guess would be at least 20 engineers between the 2 crews I know of. They are dead set on making these quality vehicles. Take a step back and look at what your van has to offer over all without focusing on the problems you have experianced. compared to other minivans in the market what do you see? look at the cargo spage created without having to remove seats from the vehicle,its the size of a truck bed with the seats folded!! the doors open by them selves(with a remote even) Some of you have skyveiw windows! In the back seat!!! some have DVD's hanging from the ceiling!! Pop the hood and you have one of the highest rated HP engines in its class and its chain driven( no T-belt to change...ever) My opinion on this is wait it out as frustrating as it might be and when all is said and done your vehicle will be fixed and you will really enjoy it.
Now for you trans issue I have not yet seen your incedent yet But if I do I will post immediatly. I will take a look at asist on monday and see if there are any incedents posted and post back.
Scott
Hi, Scott,
Thanks for the welcome, and the reply.
I'm not judging all Nissan quality by the quality of my van. As a matter of fact, I've told Nissan Consumer Affairs many times that it's not that I don't want a Quest, but rather that I've lost confidence in *this* Quest!
Even though I'm not judging all Nissan quality based on this product, I *am* judging Nissan's customer service and customer dedication by my experience. First-year products have more problems, and I was aware of that when I purchased this van. What I did not expect was systemic denial of problems, treatment as if I'm dreaming up problems, and general disrespect. That is the behavior that makes me never want to interact with Nissan again, except perhaps in the court system.
I appreciate your looking this up. Nissan has exactly one more opportunity to turn around my feelings on this experience and then...anybody have any Missouri Lemon Law experience?
Thanks for the welcome, and the reply.
I'm not judging all Nissan quality by the quality of my van. As a matter of fact, I've told Nissan Consumer Affairs many times that it's not that I don't want a Quest, but rather that I've lost confidence in *this* Quest!
Even though I'm not judging all Nissan quality based on this product, I *am* judging Nissan's customer service and customer dedication by my experience. First-year products have more problems, and I was aware of that when I purchased this van. What I did not expect was systemic denial of problems, treatment as if I'm dreaming up problems, and general disrespect. That is the behavior that makes me never want to interact with Nissan again, except perhaps in the court system.
I appreciate your looking this up. Nissan has exactly one more opportunity to turn around my feelings on this experience and then...anybody have any Missouri Lemon Law experience?
-
kblast523
- Posts: 81
- Joined: Wed Jul 09, 2003 2:42 am
- Car: Bikes with motors, golf, woodworking, car restoration
Your post reminds me of my "affair" with Turbo'd MoPars in the mid 80's. Greenspoint Dodge on I-45 North in Houston bought a car back from me instead of trying to "battle" the lemon law, then new in the US. I bought a 1984 Dodge Daytona Turbo (special ordered) Crimson/Crimson automatic with cloth (hey, it was Houston) and after spending 194 days inb the shop in 11.8 months, they wroote me a check. I R O C K E T E D to Mort Hall Ford and purchased a Medium Cadet Blue Metalic (30th aniversary color) 1985 Thunderbird, and even though it was a Fairmont in disguise, its 3.8 6 ran nicely, it was comfortable, and was almost 8 years old when it had its first "problem"....Long story short, it was a dealer nighmare that caused my switch, and for the same reason I am now driving an Infiniti. I traded a Volvo for my I30 two years ago, much to the delight of my wife, kids, friends and family. The banker who arranged my loan bought the car from the Infiniti dealer I traded it to....
Welcome to NICO,
It sounds to me like you have a shift solinoid going out, on my '96 Cutlass had the same symtoms that your van is showing. I would pull off the interstate and attempt to pull onto the road and my car would still be stuck in 4th and would only creep along till I manually shifted it down to 1st gear, and when I would accelerate on an up hill it would not shift down to third even if I floored it. I found after doing this a couple of times that it finally showed a service vehicle light and logged a code in the computer, I took it to the dealer and they fixed it. I can also sympathise with you on the way you are treated at the dealership, as I work for a Chevy dealership here in Nashville and there are just some people it seems that no matter what we do we can't make them happy, it just frustrates you when you try to do your best for a customer and can't make them happy so there is a tendency to believe that it must be in there heads. But in your case its obvious that you have had documented problems before and that your not trying to get something out of them, you just want what you paid for, a problem free vehicle.
Aaron Rivers
It sounds to me like you have a shift solinoid going out, on my '96 Cutlass had the same symtoms that your van is showing. I would pull off the interstate and attempt to pull onto the road and my car would still be stuck in 4th and would only creep along till I manually shifted it down to 1st gear, and when I would accelerate on an up hill it would not shift down to third even if I floored it. I found after doing this a couple of times that it finally showed a service vehicle light and logged a code in the computer, I took it to the dealer and they fixed it. I can also sympathise with you on the way you are treated at the dealership, as I work for a Chevy dealership here in Nashville and there are just some people it seems that no matter what we do we can't make them happy, it just frustrates you when you try to do your best for a customer and can't make them happy so there is a tendency to believe that it must be in there heads. But in your case its obvious that you have had documented problems before and that your not trying to get something out of them, you just want what you paid for, a problem free vehicle.
Aaron Rivers
Quote »It sounds to me like you have a shift solinoid going out[/quote]
The last time I took it into the dealer, it was because it had similar symptoms again. They wanted me to just wait 'til it did it more regularly, but I managed to convince them that they should at least take a look to insure that things like the shift linkage and transmission-related electrical connectors were all solidly connected as they were intended. The tech didn't find anything out of the ordinary, but his hunch was valve body or "something electrical".
Scott/NISTECH, here are the details of the failure. Maybe this will help jog some brain cells...
First failure: I was parked in a Target store parking lot. Typical suburban sprawl parking lot, so I had to back out of the space. I backed out, put the car into "D" (as the car still had a slight roll, i.e., not completely stopped), and pressed on the gas. I got RPMs, but no movement. I pressed the gas again and got the same thing.
I looked at the gear selector to make sure it was in "D"; it was. But, I moved it into "N" then back into "D" and tried the gas again. This time I let it rev higher. At about 3500rpm the van finally started to move forward. My next destination was another Big Box store about 2 miles away (through several parking lots), so I drove there. While driving, I called the Nissan sales/service dealer and spoke with the Sales Manager, who indicated that I shouldn't drive the car any further and that he'd send a tow truck for it (remember, it was a Saturday).
The tow truck driver came and he felt it (at this point, the van had been turned off for at least an hour). The following Monday at the dealership, it didn't act up at all; they tried again for a few days to no avail.
Second time: about three weeks later, my wife dropped the kids off at daycare. As she went to leave, she had to back out of a parking place (just like at Target). This time, it did it in reverse, where the van just wouldn't go anywhere in reverse. She finally got the van to move backwards far enough that she could put it in "D" and move forward again. In "D" this time, it had no problem. She then put it into "R" to try backing out again, and it worked just fine.
I don't know how this transmission works. Is it completely electronically controlled? How does it know which gear it's supposed to be in? I presume that there's an actual switch that corresponds to the selections on the gear selector, but what about forward gears inside the transmission?
I also presume there's a torque converter; is there anything simple that could fail there?
Just prior to the transmission acting up, I was ready to say "you know, maybe we got the kinks worked out and things will be okay". The engineer in me wants to get this solved, but the consumer doesn't want it done on "my" time.
I wonder if Nissan would just give me another van to drive while they got all these issues worked out on mine, then I'd be happy to take mine back :-)
If you made it this far, thanks for your perseverence and any ideas.
-cj
The last time I took it into the dealer, it was because it had similar symptoms again. They wanted me to just wait 'til it did it more regularly, but I managed to convince them that they should at least take a look to insure that things like the shift linkage and transmission-related electrical connectors were all solidly connected as they were intended. The tech didn't find anything out of the ordinary, but his hunch was valve body or "something electrical".
Scott/NISTECH, here are the details of the failure. Maybe this will help jog some brain cells...
First failure: I was parked in a Target store parking lot. Typical suburban sprawl parking lot, so I had to back out of the space. I backed out, put the car into "D" (as the car still had a slight roll, i.e., not completely stopped), and pressed on the gas. I got RPMs, but no movement. I pressed the gas again and got the same thing.
I looked at the gear selector to make sure it was in "D"; it was. But, I moved it into "N" then back into "D" and tried the gas again. This time I let it rev higher. At about 3500rpm the van finally started to move forward. My next destination was another Big Box store about 2 miles away (through several parking lots), so I drove there. While driving, I called the Nissan sales/service dealer and spoke with the Sales Manager, who indicated that I shouldn't drive the car any further and that he'd send a tow truck for it (remember, it was a Saturday).
The tow truck driver came and he felt it (at this point, the van had been turned off for at least an hour). The following Monday at the dealership, it didn't act up at all; they tried again for a few days to no avail.
Second time: about three weeks later, my wife dropped the kids off at daycare. As she went to leave, she had to back out of a parking place (just like at Target). This time, it did it in reverse, where the van just wouldn't go anywhere in reverse. She finally got the van to move backwards far enough that she could put it in "D" and move forward again. In "D" this time, it had no problem. She then put it into "R" to try backing out again, and it worked just fine.
I don't know how this transmission works. Is it completely electronically controlled? How does it know which gear it's supposed to be in? I presume that there's an actual switch that corresponds to the selections on the gear selector, but what about forward gears inside the transmission?
I also presume there's a torque converter; is there anything simple that could fail there?
Just prior to the transmission acting up, I was ready to say "you know, maybe we got the kinks worked out and things will be okay". The engineer in me wants to get this solved, but the consumer doesn't want it done on "my" time.
I wonder if Nissan would just give me another van to drive while they got all these issues worked out on mine, then I'd be happy to take mine back :-)
If you made it this far, thanks for your perseverence and any ideas.
-cj
the shifter is not directly connected to the trans it is electronically controlled. you may have an input problem at the shifter. I take it the van is in your presence right now and not at the dealer. when and if it does it again[ from the sounds of it it will] have them check codes in the trans control module. It would really help the tech if it would act up while in their presence that way they could moniter the shifter inputs with consult and see if the shifter is infact telling the TCM that it is in a gear.
I have to tell you though about the biggest problem us technicians face at the dealer when it comes to warrenty work. Most people dont know how the tech gets paid when it comes to warrenty. If you bring your car in and the problem is not verified the technician gets paid zip, nada, nothing for his time on that vehicle. As flat rate technicians we get paid by what ever the job pays. if a problem is not verified the dealer nor the technicain gets paid for it and they loose money since they are an independant company and not part of the conglomerate[sp?] Nissan north america. Nissan determines what the dealer gets paid not the dealer for warrenty work. Now nissan says the dealer can claim strait time for repairs and no verifies but the dealers shy away from claiming that time since Nissan runs a points system when these points climb the dealer faces the risk of being audited by nissan and during an audit the auditors have no intention of leaving the dealer till they claim at least $10,000 back to the dealer in most cases it is much more then that. So with the fear of an audit over head the dealer or the tech will not spend an enourmous amount of time attempting to verify the problem since they know they will not be paid for their full time on thier car. You know the survey you get from nissan after you have your car repaired?? that survey is used to judge the dealer on their performance. Now this survey is the most stupidest way to judge a dealers consumer satisfaction for 2 reasons reason one and the reason its stupid if you dont check every circle excellent the dealer gets a 0 on their survey[ does that make any sence at all??] the second reason is the above mentioned paying method if they are not going to pay the techs to verify the problem where is the techs incentive to even try??
Now dont take this the wrong way we dont think you should have a car that doesnt work right and we do believe you have a problem but unless we can make it happen we are not getting a pay check to take home to our families.
I honestly hope they find your problem and I hope that explination helps explain why you might not be getting it taken car of right away due to the very intermitten condition of the failure.
I have to tell you though about the biggest problem us technicians face at the dealer when it comes to warrenty work. Most people dont know how the tech gets paid when it comes to warrenty. If you bring your car in and the problem is not verified the technician gets paid zip, nada, nothing for his time on that vehicle. As flat rate technicians we get paid by what ever the job pays. if a problem is not verified the dealer nor the technicain gets paid for it and they loose money since they are an independant company and not part of the conglomerate[sp?] Nissan north america. Nissan determines what the dealer gets paid not the dealer for warrenty work. Now nissan says the dealer can claim strait time for repairs and no verifies but the dealers shy away from claiming that time since Nissan runs a points system when these points climb the dealer faces the risk of being audited by nissan and during an audit the auditors have no intention of leaving the dealer till they claim at least $10,000 back to the dealer in most cases it is much more then that. So with the fear of an audit over head the dealer or the tech will not spend an enourmous amount of time attempting to verify the problem since they know they will not be paid for their full time on thier car. You know the survey you get from nissan after you have your car repaired?? that survey is used to judge the dealer on their performance. Now this survey is the most stupidest way to judge a dealers consumer satisfaction for 2 reasons reason one and the reason its stupid if you dont check every circle excellent the dealer gets a 0 on their survey[ does that make any sence at all??] the second reason is the above mentioned paying method if they are not going to pay the techs to verify the problem where is the techs incentive to even try??
Now dont take this the wrong way we dont think you should have a car that doesnt work right and we do believe you have a problem but unless we can make it happen we are not getting a pay check to take home to our families.
I honestly hope they find your problem and I hope that explination helps explain why you might not be getting it taken car of right away due to the very intermitten condition of the failure.
Regarding codes on the TCM, they tried pulling them both times and found none (so they told me).
Regarding how the gear selector is connected to the transmission, I suspected it was drive-by-wire. Seemed kinda silly to me to run cables to something that was just going to twiddle a switch anyway. My Volvo runs a cable to the gear position switch, and I always thought that was kinda of dumb--put the switch closer in, and just run the wires to the controller. Anyway...
Is there any place I can read up on the theory-of-operation on this transmission combo? I've turned several wrenches back before I had kids and a house, and am a computer engineer by training and trade, so it's not beyond me to dig in and get my hands dirty. I've even contemplated buying a code reader (http://www.odb-2.com) so I could check codes myself, but wasn't sure how much information I'd get from the standard OBD-II codes, and whether I'd need the actual nissan codes in order to gain useful info.
Finally, that is the DUMBEST system of remuneration I've ever heard of. Are you seriously telling me that if the tech doesn't find the problem, you don't get paid?! Plus, if you were to take the time to fault-trace my problem and it turned out to be something that was a 1h book time, you'd only get paid for 1h as opposed to however long it took you to deal with it? That is some kind of backwards-assed system, and explains a lot. It also makes me like Nissan corporate even less (as if Consumer Affairs wasn't doing a good enough job at souring me already).
I suppose that sort of system makes a twisted kind of sense for established vehicles. But it makes little sense for first-run models, where hard-to-find problems are going to be more common. The system you have in place now just encourages the factory to let problems come out and let techs find them--because it's cheaper. Maybe on first-year vehicles they should have a special way to charge back work of techs debugging issues that the factory should have found in the first place. (And I won't hold my breath for that to happen.)
At one point when I was having one of my other intermittent problems (no radio volume), I offered to help them debug the problem if they could give me a manual set. "No", said Consumer Affairs. "That would open up a whole set of liability issues." "Okay," I said. "How about giving me $250 so I can buy the manuals myself?" "No, we can't do that."
Argh!
PS Sounds like, based on the compensation model they've got set up for you, me bringing a pizza or leaving a cold case of brew or something like that on the seat for the tech that traces down the problem might not be unwelcome whatsoever.
Regarding how the gear selector is connected to the transmission, I suspected it was drive-by-wire. Seemed kinda silly to me to run cables to something that was just going to twiddle a switch anyway. My Volvo runs a cable to the gear position switch, and I always thought that was kinda of dumb--put the switch closer in, and just run the wires to the controller. Anyway...
Is there any place I can read up on the theory-of-operation on this transmission combo? I've turned several wrenches back before I had kids and a house, and am a computer engineer by training and trade, so it's not beyond me to dig in and get my hands dirty. I've even contemplated buying a code reader (http://www.odb-2.com) so I could check codes myself, but wasn't sure how much information I'd get from the standard OBD-II codes, and whether I'd need the actual nissan codes in order to gain useful info.
Finally, that is the DUMBEST system of remuneration I've ever heard of. Are you seriously telling me that if the tech doesn't find the problem, you don't get paid?! Plus, if you were to take the time to fault-trace my problem and it turned out to be something that was a 1h book time, you'd only get paid for 1h as opposed to however long it took you to deal with it? That is some kind of backwards-assed system, and explains a lot. It also makes me like Nissan corporate even less (as if Consumer Affairs wasn't doing a good enough job at souring me already).
I suppose that sort of system makes a twisted kind of sense for established vehicles. But it makes little sense for first-run models, where hard-to-find problems are going to be more common. The system you have in place now just encourages the factory to let problems come out and let techs find them--because it's cheaper. Maybe on first-year vehicles they should have a special way to charge back work of techs debugging issues that the factory should have found in the first place. (And I won't hold my breath for that to happen.)
At one point when I was having one of my other intermittent problems (no radio volume), I offered to help them debug the problem if they could give me a manual set. "No", said Consumer Affairs. "That would open up a whole set of liability issues." "Okay," I said. "How about giving me $250 so I can buy the manuals myself?" "No, we can't do that."
Argh!
PS Sounds like, based on the compensation model they've got set up for you, me bringing a pizza or leaving a cold case of brew or something like that on the seat for the tech that traces down the problem might not be unwelcome whatsoever.
The only source I know of is the Factory service manual. As for the code reader most of those are generic scanners and will pull codes but are not much use for monitering systems operations. They will pull codes you can use. The federal goverment had made it manditory in 1996 that all codes for all manufactures meant the same thing. so a code P0301 for examble means cyl 1 misfire for nissan as well as ford and chev and volvo and honda and so on. That was done mainly for emissions reasons.
It is dumb but anytime I try to bring it up and figure it out or make suggestions it gets reasoned away [ similar to your experiance with consumer affairs] Or scolded for even muttering the words. Some dealers will step up and pay some of the time lost to the tech but it is out of the dealers pocket and not the manufacturer of the faulty component(Nissan). You are correct if I spend 3 hrs figuring out that the failure is the ECM I get payed .5 hrs to swap the ecm and no diagnostic time [if theres no codes which has happened]
Your last little tid bit is funny but yes it probably would help out a bit. But its not the brew or pizza thats the incentive its the gesture that makes him want to go the extra mile. It gives the tech a personal feeling of appriciation which can be very hard to get in this buisness. I have recieved brew from a customer before[ not warrenty related work just basic maintence] I gave it all away since it wasent really my brand but the fact he brought it to my was a kind gesture on his part and I appreciated it. He got the special treatment right back. I find it difficult to turn away from a challenge on a car so if I verify the problem is there I will chase it cause it is a challenge. Sometimes I loose money on the job but the feeling of satisfaction I get from finding the problem and fixing it is awesome,for me nothing beats that feeling of concuring it.
It is dumb but anytime I try to bring it up and figure it out or make suggestions it gets reasoned away [ similar to your experiance with consumer affairs] Or scolded for even muttering the words. Some dealers will step up and pay some of the time lost to the tech but it is out of the dealers pocket and not the manufacturer of the faulty component(Nissan). You are correct if I spend 3 hrs figuring out that the failure is the ECM I get payed .5 hrs to swap the ecm and no diagnostic time [if theres no codes which has happened]
Your last little tid bit is funny but yes it probably would help out a bit. But its not the brew or pizza thats the incentive its the gesture that makes him want to go the extra mile. It gives the tech a personal feeling of appriciation which can be very hard to get in this buisness. I have recieved brew from a customer before[ not warrenty related work just basic maintence] I gave it all away since it wasent really my brand but the fact he brought it to my was a kind gesture on his part and I appreciated it. He got the special treatment right back. I find it difficult to turn away from a challenge on a car so if I verify the problem is there I will chase it cause it is a challenge. Sometimes I loose money on the job but the feeling of satisfaction I get from finding the problem and fixing it is awesome,for me nothing beats that feeling of concuring it.
Scott,
Thanks for the tips. I'm hoping that the transmission will have a failure with similar signature soon and I provide more details, both to you and to my dealer.
I know what you mean about the challenge of solving the problem--my job is similar, except that I do it for software systems.
I may try the brew or pizza--or maybe Krispy Kremes. It certainly can't hurt relations.
Sounds like I might be looking into purchasing the factory manuals (ouch!)
-cj
Thanks for the tips. I'm hoping that the transmission will have a failure with similar signature soon and I provide more details, both to you and to my dealer.
I know what you mean about the challenge of solving the problem--my job is similar, except that I do it for software systems.
I may try the brew or pizza--or maybe Krispy Kremes. It certainly can't hurt relations.
Sounds like I might be looking into purchasing the factory manuals (ouch!)
-cj