Dicky

Very good info, thanks. It boils my blood that they quote offer figures from data the public aren’t privy to, so you can only used current sal/forcourt prices. Admirals Policy docs state they will replace like for like (in so many words) they also quote “Market Value” will be offered. That’s defined as the price a buyer is prepared to pay and a seller is prepared to accept. If a car is offere for sale at £15000 I believe it’s reasonable to agree that a final agreed sale price might be £14000-£14500, so why they quote unrealistic prices from Glasses guide angers me!

Who?

Anyone know where to buy used Coil packs?

Well I’ve already done those things. They’re aware it’s a low milage Black Edition and I’ve quoted the sale price of those on Auto Trader. Your right in your assumption that they are offering trade/part ex prices and not market value as their Insurance document states they would do. Im not threatening court action as yet simply that I want to esculate matters to an independent arbitrator. They suggested the Motoring Ombudsman but their customers reviews are appalling in fact Trust Pilot reviewers rate them 2% good, 98 % useless, so I won’t be using them! A Nissan dealership I have my 350 serviced at, using a Glasses guide, suggested they would put it on their forcourt at £13750 while trade in prices would be £10.2k-£11k

The only low milage Black editions I can see are on offer for £15k & £16k? Just read Admirals definition of terms and Market Value is defined as “The cost of replacing your car , with one of similar make, model, year, milage and condition based on market prices at the time of the loss” Google defines market value as “The highest estimated price that a buyer would pay and a seller would accept”. I would interperate this as...if someone asks £16000 for his car and I turn up and offer an acceptable price of £15500 then that’s the market value?? What do you think?

Does anyone have any good rule of thumb as to what difference 1000 miles would make to a cars value. Also has anyone taken an insurance company to court over such a matter.

Just had Admiral call regarding their offer. By the way I was miles off on the milage I quoted earlier, the car had 60600mls on the clock. They said they could only offer Glasse’s guide valuations and started at £10600 based upon the fact that the car had been bought privately rather than from a dealer. After some negotiating he finally increased his offer to £11500 saying he had increased the valuation as if it had been bought from a dealer. What are your thoughts, do you think there’s more scope for improvement or is it a fair offer.?

Thanks everyone for your valuable input, I really appreciate it. Admiral rang today to take details, condition, mileage, extras etc. I will be contacted later with their offer price. Ive also looked at current replacement costs and advised them I’m expecting an offer around £15k, so we will see what happens. I wouldn’t care but the car was in excellent condition. About 6 moths ago I paid over £800 to get Falcon Performance to upgrade the oil gallery gasket to prevent engine damage if the original failed, and just before Xmas I paid over £800 to have a failed steering lock replaced. Sods law she decides to write it off after all that. Buggar !!

Thanks all. Any further Insurance company negotiating advice would be welcome

Buggar!! Thought it might be. does anyone know if the pop up bonnet cylinders can be reset (ie pushed back in) or do you have to replace them ?

My daughter had a a slow speed accident in traffic in her 2010 Black Edition (46K ish miles) a couple of days ago with all of the damage being at the front ( see attached pic). The Nissan repairers have just quoted a repair cost of £13,300, they said their labour costs were only £800 but the Nissan parts cost were high. As far as I remember it needs a new bonnet and hinges (although the hinges are fine) new front bumper, headlight (possibly 2 although I think ones ok), 2 headlight washer jets and a near side wing Do you think they might write the car it off ? The car has been well maintained and the engine, chassis and all the rest is undamaged. This repair cost seem extremely high to me. What do you think. If it is written off how does that work.Do they offer the market value and if so where do they get that value from. Can you buy the car back in some way because used parts are quite reasonably priced an I think the car is repairable for a lot less than this. Any advice welcome

Many thanks young man, will do,

Thanks for the reply. I live in the North a East and to be fair, up here, winters ain’t what they used to be but the car belongs to my dentist daughter and getting to work is essential. The best winter tyre option appears to be buying another set of alloys to fit them to, then there’s the storage requirements. I tend to agree with your reasoning but if those who have fitted all season tyres find them adequate then their an easier option. Lets see if anyone can provided a user review.

Anyone used these for driving in snow? Do they perform well or are winter tyres a better option

Unfortunately I know what a brick wall looks like. You just can’t get through to them, there a huge lump of talking marshmallow that soaks up your complaints and when your finished repeats it’s pre recorded message time & time again. If you ask for a line manager name to escultae your complaint they refer you to the Motoring Ombudsman then revert to marshmallow mode again. Im thinking of raiseing it as an interest article in the Which magazine and will write to the ombudsman.

Well Nissan customer Services ran true to form and washed their hands of my problem on the basis I had not demonstrate brand loyalty in that I bought the car second hand from a private individual rather than a Nissan garage and secondly because my lock failure wasn’t the same as the original lock failures. Now I bought my 350 from a Nissan dealer and had it serviced for 12 yrs, my daughter 370 has been serviced by Nissan for 8 yrs. The original locks replaced on recall around 2013 were done because of to much grease applied to the mechanical parts of the lock while my fault appears to be an electro mechanical fault where by the lock isn’t feeding back positional information to BCM. Thin ice stuff to me! I have escalated the issue within Nissan CS on the basis that the lock appears no fo for purpose. I base this on the obviouse facts that lots of UK, European and USA cars have many many lock failures. There have been several locks with different part numbers issued by Nissan, the ones I’m aware of are, 48700-JF00B and C apparently these locks were replaced by lock 47800-JF00D these were back in 2013. Lock D was super ended by another iteration 48700-1NC2A sometime after 2013 and the new lock quoted for my car is 48700-1NC1B. Heaven only knows how many others I’ve missed out. In my opinion a steering lock should last the life of the car not 3 to 5 yrs (I read of another owner who having his lock replaced under recall had the new one fail 3 yrs later) for which Nissan took nonresponsibility. If anyone knows of other lock numbers please feed them back as it would strengthen not only my case but that of others yet to fail.

Thanks for your input. Ive been thinking over the last two lines and wondered if that doesn’t just apply to 2013 cars. The insurance company may take the view that since the car is a 2010 model, and supplied with the lock it should then be operational at all times?

Unfortunately the car was recovered direct to the dealers so didn’t get a chance to try this. I did stumble over a couple of YouTube videos showing this trick but as I said the car was already in the garage. I can see the benifit of getting the car running again but wouldn’t like to sell the car on with this fault still present, so guess I’ll just take the hit. I will however pull the fuse once the lock is fixed. I can update this thread now that I’ve got more info. Through my investigations I discovered that the car had the lock replaced under recall in April 2013 but not sure of its serial number just yet as the garage can’t see it until they remove it. Oh, and by the way the lock is on back order from Japan an may take 3wks or more to arrive. I suppose most of you recognise the emensity if this Nissan problem. Loads of Nissan cars in the states are experiencing the problem as well as owners are here in the UK and Europe. Even the Qashqai up here in Geordie land. I called Nissan Customer Services to lodge my complaint, received a reference number and am now awaiting a call from one of their case handelers. Not holding out much hope after reading of another 370 owner who had the lock fail and replaced free under recall and for it to fail again 3 yrs later. He contacted Nissan and was told this was fair ware and tear!! Surely a component like this should last the life of the car! If the same happens to me I’m going to insist on a copy of the design statistical data to see what the designers/suppliers believe a fail wear and tear period to be. For Nissan to just pluck a figure out of the air and call it fair just won’t cut it. They may as well say 1 yr is a fair wear perod. I did a bit of statistical study many years ago when a maintenance manager for a large company and recall MTTF and MTBF (meant time to fail and mean time between failures) calculations from which the probability of failure and time to failure can be calculated. If Nissan believe that 3 to 5 yrs is a fair wear tear period then they must be operating at the wrong end (beginning) of the well known “Bath Tub Curve” when you’d expect most failures to occur, before moving into the flat “Useful Life” portion of the curve. Apologies for the rant. I need a cup of tea now!!

Yep I’ve seen that one, but in the top right corner is says North America so I assume it doesn’t count in the UK?

Hi, can you expand on that a bit more for me please. i assume you bought your car new in 2009 so how long after did you get the steering lock work done. Was it under warranty at all and do you have any details that might help, typically the garage who did the work. I could call them to get more info on their reason for doin the work

No, apparently there haven’t been any recalls nor TSB in the UK or Europe only in the states. The service manager, whom I trust, checked the car history ref recalls and anything that may have needed doing has been attended to. But steering lock not mentioned. Defo a fuse pull job when it fixed. There doesn’t appear to be any suitable alternative to the garage cost. It would take a fair time to buy second hand items, if available and then you couldn’t be sure they would work separately or together and the labour cost would increase if they had to first install then remove again. Also the lock and or BCM have to be installed before the cars computers will allow the engine to be started. So pulling the fuse now doesn’t help. I’m just going to have to SUCK IT UP.......Buggar...any body need their lawns or hedges cut...cheap rates..ha ha

Just been on to the garage, looks like the lock is the fault and possible the BCM.The want to Fit the lock first then if it still isn’t right then fit a BCM modular. Cost for the Lock only £1583.76, if BCM required then total is extra £ 528.80. Hang on a mo I’m feeling a bit faint!! Anyone help with this ? ie cheaper locks or BCM ? If I have to pay full price then the Fuse pull mod is the first thing I’m going to do, sod any insurance worries

Thanks for the reply. I did come across the Will370z post and hoped the recall might still be available. I also read about the fuse removal which sounds like a plan but I suppose I’ll have to see what the dealership have to say tomorrow. The car went in late Friday so I doubt if much has been done yet. I was wondering if the fuse removal ould work now but I think it may not until the lock is sorted so that the BCM knows what state everything is in before it will let the car be started.

My daughters 2010 370 failed to start after filling up at a service station. The RAC guy traced the problem to a steering lock issue. He suggested that when she stopped the lock should have engaged but didn’t since he was able to turn the wheel. After lots a fuse checking, tapping things and other more technical tests he felt that the lock must have tried to engage but didn’t and so the controlling computer wouldn’t have got a signal back saying the steering wheel was locked and therefore through its dummy out the Pram. Car removed to main dealer and now awaiting big bill. “UNLESS SOMEONE KNOWS BETTER” ? Because I noticed in previous 2013 posts there was a Steering Lock issue which Nissan fixed for free. Anyone know if this is still available? Hope someone can shed more light on this issue for me!

Mine’s the same. Any update from Alex?