A work colleague, genuinely. I was in a meeting earlier and they were moaning because their car is bust and they have to get lifts or buses everywhere, and it is a PITA getting school and nursery runs done (pushchairs on busses in rush hour, etc)
I asked a bit more and seems it's a 1.3 Qashqai where the thermostat housing breaks, engine overheats, and if not caught can destroy the engine, and that's happened here. It's a known issue, loads on the internet referring to TSBs but (parallel to the Vauxhall timing chain?) no actual recall. Sufficiently a Nissan problem that they are doing the repairs out of goodwill (not in warranty any more as a 2019 car) but because they have so many to do it's going to take 6-8 weeks
So - I said they should have a courtesy car in the meantime, they've asked but (because there's so many) they don't have any to offer. So here's the thinking - my colleague is being massively inconvenienced through no fault of their own (entirely at Nissan's door for not doing a recall) and so i think should be provided with a rental car if they can't supply a courtesy car.
But - what is the obligation really? Is it enough to be fixing 'out of goodwill' (cop out to avoid liability) and be grateful for that? Usual rules would apply - get smallest car possible and minimise costs to the garage, etc. If they want to arrange it, let them, and so on.
They're not the best at fighting their corner, consequently reduced to inconvenient bus trips and being late for work / moaning about it hence I suggested I would draft a complaint 'either sort it or I'll sort it myself and claim it from you' letter for her.
I can't help with the legal obligations, but because of the inconvenience for many weeks I'd be looking into how much an indy garage would charge for the repair.
If it's a few hundred quid I'd just pay it and carry on with my life!
New engine, several thousands.
Wow, seems to be a big issue. Glad we've got the older 1.6 which has been perfect, as was a 1.8 QG18 engine that I had 22 years !
I don't know for certain but I should imagine Nissan are pushing their dealers to fix this and they are quite stressed out by this as they suddenly have no capacity for chargeable work and no cars to lend their real customers. You ;friend' may have more luck approaching Nissan UK rather than the dealer.
Just my thoughts and without any insider knowledge or context
With it being out of warranty and Nissan throwing in a new engine for free I wouldn't be rocking the boat. Plenty of other manufacturers would have left them to it.
Id not rock the boat as you may find the goodwill disappears ?
New engine, several thousands.
Misread your post, sorry.
As others have said above I'd probably be very grateful it's being done FOC in that case. You could spend six weeks arguing about a courtesy car.
If she's got all-singing and dancing insurance it may be worth a call to them. It's sort-of a break down and some policies may cover a courtesy car in this situation. Very slim chance but worth a phone call.
TBH they are already winning, if they are getting a new engine. I'd look into renting something, if the inconvenience is that great, keep the receipt and try for a refund later?
Chances are pretty much zero unless the dealership doing the work suddenly gets a spare car and are feeling benevolent.
Even in warranty there is no legal obligation on the dealership to keep a customer on the road, only to fix the car. Many dealerships offer a courtesy car but it is exactly that - a courtesy.
Renting something is really the best option here - but it might be worth your friend having a word with the dealership to see if they have any preferential rates available with one of the hire firms. Last time I found myself in a difficult vehicular situation due to repairs I ended up getting a hire car for about half the public rates from enterprise as a result.
Good tip ^^^
I'll mentioned my partners Nissan garage promised her a courtesy car, for every service when she bought her cashcow, & have failed to provide one in years...
Nissan UK are footing the bill for all this. The dealerships aren't required to provide any kind of courtesy car and generally don't except for work within warranty. For regular servicing/repairs it is pretty common now for main dealers to charge a fee for a customer to use one of their cars. You can write a letter and see what they say but absolutely do not tell your friend to hire a car and 'claim' the cost back unless they are prepared to foot the cost themselves.
Buy a banger for sub £1000 , run it till the Nissan is fixed then sell it on. Any old snot box will do if its got a decent MOT and tryes with 3mm of tread . Or a luxo barge from the likes of Merc or Jag , harder to move on but it will be comfy. Honda Jazz fits the bill. Way cheaper than renting a car for 3 months. 1 carefull lady owner , never raced or rallied . Loads of them on FB market sub £800.
But - what is the obligation really?
In my experience zero obligation.
Courtesy cars are exactly that - If you want one you have to wait for one to become available.
I think the situation has become worse since COVID.
Buy a banger for sub £1000 , run it till the Nissan is fixed then sell it on.
This.
Thanks all. That wasn't the advice i wanted, where should i throw my toys 😉
It's a known issue,
Interesting - did your research suggest theres a solution to the thermostat housing breaking in the first place - can it be replaced with an upgraded components? (you'd hope/assume Nissan aren't spending £thousands on replacing engines and sending them back out with the same vulnerability)
Asking as my sister in law has the same engine in her Dacia
where should i throw my toys
Just make your way to any of the forum's Rage Rooms / Politics Threads
You're getting a new engine in a six plus year old car replaced for free and are complaining? If you want it done quicker then pay an indi to put in a reconditioned engine.
Sounds great service by nissan to be fully funding the fix on cars well out of warranty or other legal obligation.
It is yes, equally it's a known fault subject to TSBs for dealers to repair the known fault with a crappy plastic thermostat housing, that they haven't done a recall on. So while replacing engines out of goodwill is nice they could have avoided the need, and inconvenience to my colleague (genuinely) and thousands of others.
Macruiser, lots on the web if you Google it, I'd definitely get it checked out. Others, thanks, my opinion differs but I'm ok with being told my opinion is wrong. Helps me to advise my colleague.
With a consumer law claim they'd be obliged to make good without significant inconvenience to the customer and absolutely should be providing a courtesy car for an 8 week repair. But that's not what's happening here.
With a warranty claim it's whatever it says in the warranty's small print. This is in addition to statutory rights, there is no legal obligation to provide any warranty at all so there is no legal redress other than if they renege on their own promises. But that's not what's happening here either.
There is a reason they're using words like "goodwill." They obviously know there's an issue, but they cannot admit there's an issue because that would be publicly accepting liability. Can open, worms everywhere. In offering the repair ostensibly as a favour they are making it wildly unlikely that anyone will go "we'll sue you then." It would be reckless to start court proceedings when a free repair was on offer, one that you could easily lose after rejecting the repairs. On the other hand, Nissan not offering the repair and being taken to court over it, they stand a good chance of losing which would be absolutely disastrous for them.
TLDR: your colleague has no rights here beyond what's being offered, I'm afraid.
Tell her she can have my ****ing ****ing shitting ****box Alfa Romeo for free.
Few examples
etc.
So yes, while I agree to the reasoning why they are doing it as 'goodwill' (to avoid admitting issues) does feel to me like they should be admitting issues, doing a proper recall and absolutely should be fixing at their cost. Which then would make paying for inconvenience a kind of obligation too.
Whilst I don't disagree that they "should," well, so what? They aren't, so "should" gets you no nearer unless you're planning on lawyering up against Nissan.
It's times like this I wish Class Action existed in the UK.
Isn't there also a tiny degree of liability from the end user . Unless the engine is eating the thermostat housing and destroying itself then usually the coolant level drops. The engine temperature goes up. A warning light comes on the dash. The car smells sugary as the glycol coats the engine.
Then steam occurrs. These are not normal car behaviour patterns and the end user should notice they now own a steam engine and stop driving before irrerepairable engine damage occurs.
Unless the daft Nissan engineers placed the thermostat in a place where water is ingested if it fails causing hydrlock , but that's highly unlikely.or failure to fit any sort of coolant level sensor or over heat protection at all , again highly unlikely.
Have a free engine because you ignored all the obvious signs something bad is happening and kept on driving up the motorway at 80
IANAE but the various sites with owners reporting the issue say not. It's not a leak, the housing is a 2 part plastic piece that is glued / welded and that fails and it dumps all the coolant.
If it's anything like the last thermostat failure i had (housing split straight down the mold line), it dumps the entire volume of coolant in under 10 seconds and thanks to the temp sensor then being out of the coolant, you get little or no indication of any overheat and all the coolant is mostly on the road behind you...
6 - 8 weeks is two months...
General question for this scenario. Can you pause insurance while the car is at the dealer and undrivable then add the paused bit on again when it's fixed? Currently its paying for 12 months insurance and using 10.
and thanks to the temp sensor then being out of the coolant, you get little or no indication of any overheat and all the coolant is mostly on the road behind you...
I'm pretty sure engine ECU's don't depend on just the coolant temperature to determine the engine temp - there's probably one in the block also and that would trigger a shutdown/limp mode.
Can you pause insurance while the car is at the dealer and undrivable then add the paused bit on again when it's fixed?
Never heard of that - but I would expect the insurance needs to be maintained or the car SORN'd.
And I doubt you can "pause" insurance.... you'd have to cancel it and then take out a new policy (which would lose any NCB for that year)
Isn't there also a tiny degree of liability from the end user .
I think if Nissan thought they had any sort of leg to stand on in that scenario they'd be standing on it rather than funding so many all these full engine replacements
It seems clear the problem is sudden total coolant loss and it seems obvious that the cars preventative measures like engine management limp modes aren't saving the engine for whatever reason. Certainly when I've had sudden coolant loss in engines in the past the temp dial has gone down rather than up. Nissan seem to feel the combination of factors is their fault rather than anyone else's
I mean obviously if theres a woman involved we should blame the woman and ignore the volume of failures that have clogged up the dealer network with lengthy repairs than Nissan is pocketing the bill for. They've obvs gone woke. 🙂
In terms of the OP's specific query which is the time/consequential loss aspect rather than the specific fault. I think the key issue is - dealer networks can't cope.
We seem to be in an era where a bunch of engines across several manufacturers, in turn shared across multiple brands and platforms all have potential massive engine-wrecking flaws.
There are just more failures and more recalls than the dealerships can actually handle. This particular Nissan one would at least be a fairly quick and simple thing to have re-emptively replace the housing - compared the Stellantis self-dismantalling timing chain - but dealerships can't even cope with the simplest recalls in any kind of sensible timeline. So a recall could be issued but it would take so long to implement that many of the failures you're trying to pre-empt would happen anyway
I had a recall that was literally a quick software update - took well over a year - with three cancelled appointment during that time, each cancelled the evening before. It was even difficult to maintain regular servicing to stay in warrantee becuaue just basic service appointments can have a 3 month lead time
Isn't there also a tiny degree of liability from the end user .
I mean obviously if theres a woman involved we should blame the woman and ignore the volume of failures that have clogged up the dealer network with lengthy repairs than Nissan is pocketing the bill for. They've obvs gone woke. 🙂
There could be a massive red stop light, sirens and fireworks going off on the dash and Mrs f will ignore it all and keep driving. Mechanical failures? She'll ignore those too. Snapped springs that have taken a chunk out of the side wall and nicked the brake line? Flat tyres? Horrendous noises like you're dragging a kitchen appliance along behind you? Doesn't notice/ignores them. In her case, the stereotype is bang on 😁
Big scrolling letters on the dash " The engine will stop running in 10 seconds 9. 8. 7. 6. 5. 4. 3. 2. 1.
Should be long enough to stop driving 1mtr from the car in front and finda safe place to stop.
Big scrolling letters on the dash " The engine will stop running in 10 seconds 9. 8. 7. 6. 5. 4. 3. 2. 1.
Should be long enough to stop driving 1mtr from the car in front and finda safe place to stop.
You'd think that having a blacked-out dashboard at night would be sufficient to have people switch their lights on, but this too is seemingly optimistic.
It's times like this I wish Class Action existed in the UK.
It does. By the way, have you been missold car finance...?
https://www.leighday.co.uk/our-services/group-claims/
I have a Vauxhall Combo identical to Bikerevivesheffield's. I was aware of the camchain issue. After his snapped, my tolerance for worry snapped too, and I paid £2300 to get the top end of the engine replaced. Prevention is better than cure.
This was in May 2025.
In July 2025 Stellantis announced the recall, and also a scheme to reimburse those who paid out their own pocket. I applied to the scheme. I met all the conditions except the work on my car, which was over 4 years old, and out of warranty, had been carried out at a non-Stellantis workshop, therefore.my claim was rejected.
It was acceptable for routine servicing to be carried out by non-Stellantis workshops, but not the specific repair. This smacks of double standards, especially as the car wasn't under warranty at the time of the work, hence why they launched the reimbursement scheme.
Mandating that servicing and repairs has to be carried out at a franchised network is not legal.
The irony is that NOW (since the recall) to he chain is warrantied for 10y/100000miles.
I haven't encountered anyone who has successfully claimed, leading me to conclude that the "reimbursement scheme" is a hollow,.fake PR exercise.
I can see why, playing devil's advocate.
They don't have to offer a reimbursement scheme, though as above it's probably in their best interests if the alternative is being successfully sued. If they do offer a scheme then they can set whatever qualification terms they like.
If then they allow any random Spanner to do the remedial work it becomes an unknown quantity. You then present them with a previously "repaired" car which is a right bodge cowboy job and they're suddenly on the hook to make it good. I've had plenty of computers on the bench over the years where I've thought "I wish you'd just come to me in the first place, now I have to un**** it before I can even start fixing it."
Of course, the real reason is to wriggle out of as much responsibility/expense as possible. But that doesn't help you any.