Customer Buys $18K CPO Nissan Pathfinder, Faces Shocking $31K Repair Bill In 10 Months

Certified pre-owned programs can offer buyers a solid deal and warranty coverage they wouldn’t otherwise get in the used-car market. That’s one reason that the customer in this story picked out their 2017 Nissan Pathfinder.

After slapping down $18,000 upfront, they were confident it would be a solid investment. Now, less than a year later, they’re facing a $31,000 repair bill, a combative dealer, and doing so reportedly with no help from Nissan corporate.

That customer, who we’ll refer to as BK for purposes of anonymity, says they had put about 10,000 miles on the car since buying it. On May 15th, things took a serious turn for the worse. They heard loud sounds from the engine bay and it sputtered to a stop. A day later, the dealer quoted them $30,952 to repair the damage.

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According to a document BK posted on Reddit, the car needed a new engine, a new transmission, a new battery, a new alternator, and while they’re at it, four new tires. $18,509.17 is for the engine while another $7,430 is allocated for the gearbox. Again, those costs alone are far more than what they paid for the entire vehicle less than a year ago. Shouldn’t all of this be covered under the CPO warranty though?

Speaking to Carscoops, BK says the dealer “mentioned… the previous dealership by Nissan’s guidelines shouldn’t have certified that car, as it did not meet their qualifications.” Specifically, Nissan requires a CPO car to have fewer than 80,000 miles and be less than six years old at the time of certification.

This Pathfinder barely missed both marks. It had 80,152 miles and was produced in December of 2016 but was certified in part because its registration was in January 2017.

Of course, it’s the dealer who is responsible for certifying the car to begin with so in theory, it should still cover the warranty as it was their mistake. Instead, it basically told BK to kick rocks because it had intended to certify the car as “Certified Select” instead of “Certified Pre-Owned” and that difference is gigantic.

CPO buyers get a seven-year or 100,000-mile limited warranty while Certified Select buyers get just six months or 6,000 miles of limited warranty coverage. That means that BK’s warranty actually ended in January and nobody made them aware of that they say. As of June 12, things became increasingly tense with no clear way forward.

“They are offering $0 and a big middle finger,” BK says of Nissan Corporate. “Originally a few weeks ago the new dealership’s boss said they could auction off my car for parts and I might get around $5,000 for it but I never heard anything about that later, and then fast forward to now, a new manager is calling me and telling me I need to vacate my car from the lot or sell them the car he told me directly “it doesn’t run, I will offer you $0 for the car… just drop of the title overnight.” Now he is saying he might be attempting to charge me for a diagnostic and for having my car there for so long.”

Hopefully, Nissan itself can do more to help out and this whole story ends up with a happy ending. Either way, it’s an excellent reminder to be 100% sure of what you’re buying when you sign the dotted line for a car. The difference between “Pre-Owned” and “Select” can save you or cost you tens of thousands of dollars in the end.