NHTSA Complaint #11596904 — 2014 NISSAN ALTIMA

The rear lower suspension link on our car cracked and completely separated causing the car to be un-drivable. My husband was pulling out of a parking lot with our son and my son’s friend [XXX] and [XXX] old) and the car started fishtailing. We were lucky this happened at a very low rate of speed. The next day my husband would have been on a highway and I’m sure we would be talking about injuries or worse instead of just a tow. Nissan knew about this issue but failed to tell their customers directly of the issue. They extended the warranty to 10 years and unlimited miles but DID NOT inform owners of the defect, warranty extension OR the ability to get it fixed (and Nissan admitted to this that they didn’t have to tell customers). They told us that in midwestern states (we are in Illinois) the rear lower link could rust quicker with the salt and break. There were no warning signs of the issue that we noticed and no one mentioned any issues when we’ve had it in the shop. Nissan however only agreed to pay half of the cost to fix it since we are 4 months past the date of the extended warranty. This is a problem that should have been communicated to us in the first place so we could have had it fixed before it completely separated. The regional specialist who made this decision was completely uncaring when expressing concerns of how this could have had a much worse outcome. We asked for towing to be re-imbursed and for a rental car and both were denied. Rental car we were told was at the dealerships discretion to which they said they would need to get approval from the person who told us the dealership decided that. So we have been without our car for 2 weeks now having to juggle around 2 kids and their activities and our own jobs. We are very lucky that this issue known to Nissan didn’t end in a far worse outcome with injuries to my family. Unfortunately we don’t have the invoice for the repair cost yet as it’s still in the shop. They said it would be around $500. INFORMATION REDACTED PURSUANT TO THE FREEDOM OF