NHTSA Complaint #11611876 — 2018 INFINITI QX30

Hello, My 2018 Infiniti QX30 slips into neutral while driving on the road at high speeds and without any warning. The message on the dash is vague “Service required. Do not shift gears. Visit Dealer.” I almost got into an accident more than once while driving the vehicle as low power to the vehicle accompanies this when it happens. I had absolutely no problems with the vehicle leading up to the first occurrence. In fact, I bought the car with less than 10k miles on it from Infiniti directly, where it was a fleet loner vehicle and well maintained. My car today has 56,000 miles and it is only a 2018. Two months and three car shops later, the issue remains unresolved. Infiniti said at first this was just a dead battery. A day later the issue resurfaced, where I also received a transmission control error. My service tech at Infiniti admitted that it is 90% Mercedes under the hood and they only have flowcharts to diagnose the issue. They recommended replacing a steering control column for $2k and could not answer me when I asked what that has to do with the error. I pulled it out for a second opinion and have confirmed nothing mechanical with the transmission, it is electrical. A quick google search for “Infiniti QX30 Service required do not shift gears visit dealer” yields an unprecedented number of complaints on forums of a widespread issue involving the transmission control unit for this vehicle. This issue needs to be looked at from a governing authority and my attempts to speak with the dealership about the issue has fallen on deaf ears. I learned the hard way that from 2017-2019, Infiniti collaborated with Mercedes on this vehicle and 90% of what is under the hood is Mercedes. It is the sister model to the Mercedes GLA who experienced similar issues, and the 2019 Mercedes GLA recalled their models for the same transmission control unit failure. A Google search for the same 2017-2019 era with Mercedes GLA yields starkingly similar forums from those owners.