[drcookie]

Hi Folks,
I did some searching on this forum and it turned out I am not the only person that have this problem. I took the delivery of a 05 Armada LE about 2 weeks ago and soon as we drove off the lot and hit the freeway, the steering started to vibrate around 65-75mph. I said "fine" I will just bring it in for service and the dealer will take care of me; not knowing that my nightmare has just started. :damn:
Long story short, the service advisor was not helpful at all and not willing to work on my issue. After balancing the 4 tires twice and have the tech rode on the Armada with me to show him the problem (which I did), I was told to come back when the truck hit 1000 miles without explaining to me why. I requested to do a road force balance and the tech told me they don't have the equipment. The service advisor event asked me what was the road force balance. WTF ???
I will be calling the service manager tomorrow to escalate this issue one level higher. In the mean time, I would like to find out how your guys fight this "battle". I love this truck but I just need to get the problem to go away.
Please advice.

Thanks in advance.

 

[schneid]

You are out of balance or out of round

At my 22,500k dealer service, they kindly unbalanced my tires. I had to get off the road 7/4 weekend in Bishop, CA, to get them redone. All four were way off the mark. My dealer admits their machine was out of calibration and they had other complaints.

The guys in Bishop also found one tire out of round making it put 60 lbs more pressure on the road at one spot on each revolution. They replaced it with the spare. My dealer says it's fine but it isn't. Anyway that's my problem and we are talking about yours.

If your dealer won't fix it, I'd find a tire shop that has state of the art and regularly calibrated equipment. If it's out of balance, I'd send Nissan the bill. If it's out of round the tire manufacturer will replace it.

You might call Nissan consumer affairs as your dealer is not treating you the way they intend him too. Nissan is on a roll right now and they don't want any bad press.

Don't drive it much as the condition you state will destroy your new tires. If it has to be replaced, the pro-ration will be bad as the tire will show wear indicating many more miles then it has actually rolled..

The new tire machines are so sensitive residue weight tape is detectable. They are also a real pain and must be checked for accuracy often.

Richard

 

[drcookie]

Thanks Rich for the info.

Do you happen to have the phone number of Nissan Cosumer Affair? I will probably give them a call and b**** at them for having such a bad service advisor.

Thanks again.

 

[drcookie]

OK, some update. Sorry for continuing to vent. :damn:

I spoke to the service manager yesterday. I complained about the bad treatment that I received from the service advisor. She said she has heard the shimmy effect and they are getting a more sensitive wheel balancer and wheel alignment gears next month. Once they have the gears installed on the dealership, I would get a call to bring in the Armada again.

Is this another delay tactics and BS they provide so I could eventually forget about the issue?

Dang ... this is my first bad experience on a brand new SUV. I had a Jeep Grand Cherokee which did not give me any issues at all.