Titan Recall coming soon ???

[Orange Crush]

Nissan says quality crusade yields results

Nissan Motor Co. says it has redesigned hundreds of parts in vehicles built at its new Canton, Miss., plant in an effort to fix quality problems. About 200 Japanese engineers descended on the plant in May after three models built there fared poorly in the latest J.D. Power and Associates Initial Quality Study.

autoweek.com

Nissan struggling with Quest minivan's slow sales, quality issues
By KATHY JACKSON | Automotive News

LOS ANGELES -- Nissan North America Inc. is recalling its slow-selling redesigned Quest minivan to address several quality problems.

Nissan began issuing recall letters this month to thousands of 2004 Quest owners, informing them that dealerships will fix the defects free of charge.

The repairs include:
>>> Fixing a noisy sliding door.
>>> Replacing the driver's power window switch, which has a high failure rate.
>>> Repairing faulty interior reading lights.
>>> Replacing second-row seat levers that are prone to failure.

Those quality problems aren't helping Nissan get Quest sales off the ground. A year after its launch, Nissan is still struggling with the redesigned minivan.

First-half sales totaled 25,791 through June, well below the company's goal of 80,000 to 85,000 units for all of 2004.

June sales were 4,640, up from 4,501 in May. But after chipping away at quality problems and taking steps to change the sales mix, Nissan had hoped for a bigger increase in the monthly sales by now.

Nissan appears to be having trouble positioning the minivan in the market. The company plans to offer a lower-priced version for the 2005 model year - a change in strategy, because company executives had said that a prime reason for the slow start was a lack of high-end models.

Sticker prices for the 2004 Quest start at $25,130. High-end models have a sticker price of $33,530. Prices include a destination charge of $540.

Company executives this year admitted that they miscalculated demand for the top-of-the-line SE model. They said that sales of the lower-priced S version were below expectations; sales of the mid-grade SL were on target; and sales of the SE were not as strong as they could have been because demand was underestimated.

Nissan spokesman Kyle Bazemore says the recall is mainly a response to the Quest's poor showing in the 2004 J.D. Power and Associates Initial Quality Study. The April survey rated the Quest last among minivans in consumer perceptions of quality during the first 100 days of ownership.

The survey placed Nissan's Titan full-sized pickup and Armada full-sized SUV last in their segments. All three vehicles are built at Nissan's new plant in Canton, Miss.

"We are not happy with the (Power) scores," Bazemore says. "If a part has a high failure rate, we're doing whatever we can to fix it. We realize the importance of customer satisfaction."

About 3,500 units - all of the low-line S models - have the power window problem.

Bazemore says the reading lights will be modified on about 7,500 S and SL models. He did not have figures for other problems.

The company also has asked dealers to make the fixes on vehicles in inventory, Bazemore says.

In April, Nissan issued a recall on the SL and SE Quest models to check power sliding doors that might not latch properly and open unexpectedly.

Ray Vrscak, a partner at Michael Jordan Nissan, Durham, N.C., says the 2005 model line will include a lower-priced Quest. Vrscak, who is chairman of the Nissan Dealer Council, says the company plans to come out with a value package to produce more vehicles in the $26,000 to $27,000 range.

"The dealers are happy about that because that's where Chrysler and Honda are," Vrscak says.

Regarding quality problems, Vrscak says: "Most customers are understanding, but this is definitely straining their view of the Nissan brand. Hopefully we're getting that behind us."

http://autoweek.com/cat_content.mv?p..._code=08567795

[rrumaner]

This has nothing to do with the Titan and everything to do with the Quest unless I read it wrong.

Every fix is for the Quest. They mention the Titan and Armada but do not state anything about a recall on them.

[alw]

Maybe it could be read between the lines that since the Titan and Armada are not as screwed up as the Quest, they in turn are also suffering with slower TSB times (radio fade, engine tick, brakes etc.) because all of Nissan's resources are bailing out the Quest.

[Orange Crush]

I think the implication is that since all the vehicles produced in Canton have significant QC issues (reflected in their poor IQS scores), leading to home office engineers having to redesign hundreds of parts; It’s only a matter of time before recalls are issued for the Titan, Armada & QX56.

The Quest was the first Canton produced vehicle to come to market and therefore the first to have these types of issues raised. Now that it appears Nissan has gotten a handle on issues regarding the Quest, why wouldn’t the rest of the Canton produced vehicles follow the same path?

[chazz1202]

Yep that's the gist I got too. Thanks for the info O.C.

[JAOHN]

I'm not going to quote the full article from autoweek because of copyright issues (mods, full article copies should not be allowed on the site, but links and clips from them is usually legal), but here's an article...

http://www.autoweek.com/cat_content...._code=09310365

From the article...
------------
In March, Nissan North America Inc. recalled 13,700 Quest minivans after complaints of the airbags being off when they should have been on. An indicator light illuminates when the passenger-side airbag is shut off.

To repair these vehicles, dealerships must remove the passenger seat from the vehicle and ship it in a special container to a repair center. While the seat is out, the vehicle cannot be driven.

Nissan says the repairs take about a week.

The automaker is arranging for owners to rent vehicles while their vans are being repaired.

Nissan would not say how much the recall will cost. Nissan spokesman Eric Booth said the airbag supplier, which he would not identify, is paying part of the recall cost.

Several owners of the Nissan Titan pickup also have reported malfunctions with the airbag cutoff systems, but no recall has been issued.

-------------

This is more like a possible recall issue for the Titan than anything else that was mentioned in the article posted at the top of this thread. The linked article also talks about the quest van and a recall on the advanced airbags of those vans. I imagine that the original poster of this thread may have seen this article, then clipped the text from the 2-day older atricle on the titan on he same site.

This definitely shows that the quest, also built in canton, has a documented issue on the advanced airbags, and they're recalling (perhaps) every one of them. Evidently, the titan, which is built in the same plant may be susceptable to the same problems.

I'm going to test my seats this week. If I've got an issue, then it's to the dealer and a note to the NHTSA. anyone else????

[Orange Crush]

Nope, no cut-n-paste! Those are 3 separate articles. I even posted the above in another thread. (http://titantalk.com/showthread.php?t=13596) but I don’t have access to the full article about the redesigned parts.

But if you want to continue to believe that those hundreds of redesigned parts apply only to the Quest and or the airbag sensor, go right ahead.