Nissan's Lack of Communication on Delivery Delay

Perhaps I am the only one of the thousands of LEAF fans who is
1. Prepared to love my LEAF EV
but,
2. Who is TOTALLY disgusted with the Nissan Corporate level of feedback to those of us waiting for our ordered cars?

I really don't want slick mailers with color chip samples, particularly when it is too late to change my order color.
I don't need another T-shirt, and I still have not actually received mine either, so the T-shirt delay is almost as long as the car delivery delay?

What I would appreciate is honesty and information about WHEN my car will arrive. I log on here daily and now see 31 cars delivered, but that NISSAN CORPORATE VP was quoted on 11 December that many more than that would "arrive by the holidays." More recently another NISSAN marketing official was quoted in the San Jose Mercury News as saying "there is no delay in getting the LEAF to customers."

YIKES !

The difference between the openness in tracking my order for the Chevy Volt (which is now in my garage) and the information that keeps changing from Nissan, and has not been honest ever...is a bigger chasm than the Grand Canyon. I would have thought that a Japanese company would have had more honesty, but at least, IMHO the US NISSAN Corporate representatives might as well be working for British Petroleum and giving us updates on that last oil spill--their level of openness and accurate information is (to me) identical and both CANNOT be believed.

The highest VIN now posted on our tracking spreadsheet is 303 and there is a jump from the next highest of 265. Nobody, even with orders placed on 31 August has a VIN higher than 303, which seems like it would have been production output in the first 2-3 weeks of startup back in early October. Checking world deliveries does not suggest that massive numbers of LEAF cars are going to even Japanese end customers, so it would appear that actual production CEASED or went on hold after about 3 weeks of output....Even an early production line process would be producing around 30 cars a day, and that production line has been "up" since around 11 October. YOU do the math. We seem to be missing several HUNDRED cars from any kind of final delivery. (Note: Tracking the Chevy Volt production indicates that about 40 cars a day are being produced; my Volt is VIN #679 and numbers now coming off the line in Detroit are just over 1000).

I KNOW we will all get our cars someday, and it is better that NISSAN caught the "glitch" and is getting it fixed before delivering the cars, but where in their corporate ethos is "honesty?" or even real "customer service?"

I have said this before, but I will post it again. IF there was any other reasonable and practical EV on the market, I would WALK AWAY from the Nissan LEAF delivery; I have NEVER been treated with such callousness on any previous new car order, and I have owned Honda, Toyota, Infiniti, Mazda, Lexus, BMW, Audi, Acura and VW over the years as special ordered cars, but I have NEVER had such poor treatment by the Corporate level of my buying experience.

Stand by: Five members will be here shortly to tell you to shut up, stop complaining, and wait patiently. Of course, all five are driving their delivered cars, so.. :lol:

Then one member will be here to tell you they stood in the rain at some EV1 holding lot, so you don't know the true meaning of frustration. Of course, they sell cars..

Then two members will come ask what all the whining is about and remind you that Nissan is good people, and they're making rainbows in their factory so let them be. Consider sending a donation while you wait.

Last, I will say "You can't change your color?!?!" What are you complaining about.. at least they're building yours! Think of those of us back here in EV-Project-Delay-Land where Pending is all you get in the way of communication.

That, and today's 4-7 month rolling estimate.


PRO TIP:

Remember that when you call Nissan, you will get one of two levels of service.
The first level is for nice people who just want information. They get a quote about 4-7 months from order. Talk to your dealer, etc etc.

If you display sufficient levels of ANGST(tm), then you may get transferred to a supervisor, who can give you more information than Nissan gives to angst-free people. I highly recommend this!

Drink about four cups of coffee, read the news, check your 401(k), and give Nissan a call. Hold the phone really close to your mouth. Set aside your grown-up language for a moment. Spit a lot while you talk. Eventually you will reach one of Carolin's Information Delta Force who can tell you what ship your car is on, or when it will be built.

If you don't get this information on the first try, hit the RedBull, fuel up your SUV, and call again.

GroundLoop said:

If you don't get this information on the first try, hit the RedBull, fuel up your SUV, and call again.

Click to expand...

Holy $#!*! Remind me never to piss you off!!!
:mrgreen: :twisted: :lol:

@groundloop. That is FRIGGIN funny!!! Made coffee come out my nose... ouchy. It is all sooo true. Been there-done that-and gotten the wrong shirt!

TRONZ said:

Made coffee come out my nose...

Click to expand...

See! You got it figured out. Refill to make up for the nose lossage, then again until you are Seeing Some Strange Stuff out of the corner of your eye, and now you're ready for your ANGST call.

Hey man, I don't make these rules, but I'm willing to play.

Not surprising. Afterall, we are in the "we want it and we want it now age".

I have my car and I still say that the communication from Nissan was very poor. It really sucked for me as I was planning a trip (350 miles each way) to take delivery of my car; that is not just a simple call from the dealer and I will be there in a hour or so ordeal. By the time I took delivery (a week ago tomorrow) I was getting really frustrated and borderline really pissed off as I kept getting told about another and another delay by the supervisors at the customer care line. Or maybe they did not really know much to start with and were just saying something that they thought would appease me... who knows.

Yes, the car is worth the wait but the wait really sucks when you are not kept in the loop. You will only know the day you will pick up your car either the night before or the morning of. And that only comes from a call from the dealer when they actually have your car on the lot; not a single word from Nissan.

Nissan Japan built a great car; Nissan USA needs some work on their customer relation side of things.

I don't think the point was we have to wait, or even how long we have to wait. It is the lack of communication, which I have to agree is terrible. I understand Nissan can not anounce "We just found out we made a big design mistake and have to halt production for x weeeks", but they could be more open on what has been and what will be the expected production rate and to what countries. JMO.

@EVNOW
Actually I think we are past the "get it now" stage, as that was more the psyche of the 1980's, but we ARE, IMHO, in the age where information can be cross-checked and where it is much easier to test whether announcements are fully informative and accurate or rather "smoke."

Pretty much everything Nissan Corporate has presented about when and why the deliveries are delayed has, IMHO, been smoke rather than working information. For those of us needing to sell/trade our current cars in preparation to covering the cost of the LEAF transition, the uncertainity on delivery has been a challenging problem. For those of us originally thinking (based on announcement from the LEAF dashboard and our LEAF "customer service" calls) that our cars would arrive in December and thus qualify for a 2010 tax credit towards purchase, this has meant reconsidering purchase and weighing lease instead.

I am eager and excited and optimistic about owning the LEAF. I am NOT pleased at all with being a NISSAN pawn. I am well-experienced in buying new cars and even with the very early introduction of Infiniti in the US market. I can assure you that my experience in getting a first year Infiniti and the customer service attention to that delivery was a far, far, far cry from what we are getting from Nissan corporate today on the LEAF emergence. Petrified forests produce leafs faster than Nissan today.

I think Nissan is taking a page from the Aptera Pre-sales Communication Manual.
What. Oh. Too much? Dial it down a bit? :twisted:


But seriously, like George said.. when about 30% of your customers are communicating openly on an internet forum, you can't blow smoke very far.

There's also the Jury effect.. I might be a little frustrated with Nissan's lack of delivery communication to me, but when I go on-line and see that it's not JUST me, and everyone else is even more frustrated, I'm going to get out my pitchfork and add my voice.

But then to have Brian Carolin go to the press and say that everything is roses, that are actually communicating when they are not, that's just asking for angst. They deserve the backlash.

Patience when there is at least some corporate honesty. Yes, and I have and still hold a deposit on an Aptera (2 years and counting).

So I think I should get a little credit for patience. Heck I even flew to Michigan to see the Aptera during one of the open public test days at MIS last July.

@GroundLoop and OT regarding his screen name. Are you a pilot that failed his tail-dragger sign-off or something...???

GeorgeParrott said:

I am eager and excited and optimistic about owning the LEAF. I am NOT pleased at all with being a NISSAN pawn. I am well-experienced in buying new cars and even with the very early introduction of Infiniti in the US market. I can assure you that my experience in getting a first year Infiniti and the customer service attention to that delivery was a far, far, far cry from what we are getting from Nissan corporate today on the LEAF emergence. Petrified forests produce leafs faster than Nissan today.

Click to expand...

There are reasons I cut a large slack for Leaf on this.

This isn't the launch of yet another ICE model.

This is truly ground breaking with possibility for immense impact on the world. There are countless people waiting to pounce on any missteps or even an inkling of trouble. Let me assure you they have only the worst intentions in mind.

There may be some who look at all this purely from a personal standpoint and feel cheated. I can understand that point. I've to renew my tabs this month - it would have saved me this trouble if I had got the car just a couple weeks early. My order got screwed up more than once. The dashboard even thought I had cancelled the order - so my order month was pushed to Sept, for eg.

But, I'm happy Nissan has played all this down - even at the expense of some of us feeling left out cold. There is simply too much at stake here.

Anyway, this is my perspective.

GeorgeParrott said:

What I would appreciate is honesty and information about WHEN my car will arrive. I log on here daily and now see 31 cars delivered, but that NISSAN CORPORATE VP was quoted on 11 December that many more than that would "arrive by the holidays." More recently another NISSAN marketing official was quoted in the San Jose Mercury News as saying "there is no delay in getting the LEAF to customers."

Click to expand...

George, I don't think they know and, if they don't know, they can't tell you. The problem with guessing is that, as you've just pointed out, if they guess wrong and say something like "many more here for the holidays" and the deliveries don't happen, then people start complaining about the bad information. The claim that things were right on schedule was dumb but they've walked back from that. They seem to be very honest when saying there have been delays with the product. They're not explicitly saying they don't know but if you read between the lines that's more or less what they're saying.

I understand that a dashboard that simply says "Pending" is frustrating, but the good thing is that we have a great tool in the spreadsheet with the order and delivery dates. If you look at that you should be able to get a pretty good idea of when your car will arrive. I think order dates in mid-September have delivery dates in April. So if you're a later September or October order then you're looking at either late April at the earliest to June at the latest. And the information will get more precise as we move into February and people with later order dates get their delivery dates. Basically you're in a line to buy a ticket, and as the people ahead of you in line buy their tickets you can approximate when you might get to buy your ticket. It might be helpful if Nissan issued regular updates about what order dates were getting delivery dates but that might not be feasible and the spreadsheet gives the same info.

I AGREE WITH GeorgeParrott 100%
What pissed me off the most is that I received a personal call from Nissan Corporate end of November. He said your LEAF will arrive at port January 17 or Jan. 18 and then be sent to your dealer. It should be ready for pick up Jan. 22 or Jan. 23. NO ITS NOT! I have NO VIN #, NO Carwings, and not a change in my LEAF webpage! Mine still says "Estimated Delivery MONTH of February 2011".
Nissan's "Chat" employees I find to be useless and parrot the same sh$% every time! Like I have posted before: this is the first and LAST Nissan I buy. If I could afford $5,000 down I would have put it down on a Tesla S which I will have one day!

JPC2822 said:

I AGREE WITH GeorgeParrott 100%
What pissed me off the most is that I received a personal call from Nissan Corporate end of November. He said your LEAF will arrive at port January 17 or Jan. 18 and then be sent to your dealer. It should be ready for pick up Jan. 22 or Jan. 23. NO ITS NOT! I have NO VIN #, NO Carwings, and not a change in my LEAF webpage! Mine still says "Estimated Delivery MONTH of February 2011".
Nissan's "Chat" employees I find to be useless and parrot the same sh$% every time! Like I have posted before: this is the first and LAST Nissan I buy. If I could afford $5,000 down I would have put it down on a Tesla S which I will have one day!

Click to expand...

Geez, at least you got a personal call from Nissan Corporate and you have a delivery estimate instead of just "Pending". I don't even know the month I will get my LEAF, but I'm not complaining. Nissan said 4 to 7 months, so let it be! I'll complain after seven months if my car is not here. In the meantime, I'm going to Disneyland!

A few days ago I called the LEAF info hot line, and persisted in trying to get more delivery timetable info.

FWIW, The operator stated that no increased delays are currently anticipated, and that my (California 10/1) order date would "likely" be filled around the middle of the current 4-7 month range, about 5 1/2 months, = mid-March.

No guarantees given or requested, and quite possibly just a fall-back script to get a (politely) irate caller off the phone.

"Where's my LEAF" prior predictions had all been in March, but presently (appropriately?) about April Fool's day...

i ordered a 2004 Prius on Thanksgiving weekend 2003. was told at the time of the order it would be "6-8 months" to get the car.

i then checked in with my dealer about ~6 times over the next several months with no change in the estimated time frame. iow, they could not give me any new information. when i would call to ask when to expect my car, they could not answer the question without finding out when i ordered the car. now they would not ask my name, put me on hold then look me up. they would ask me when i ordered the car then base their answer on when it was generally using the 6-8 month time frame.

when it got to be about the end of May (iow 6 months later) it went to any time now but for sure not in the next two weeks. it became apparent to me, the dealer knew NOTHING other than what was on their very next delivery and they were getting Priuses 3 times a month so about every 10 days.

i received a call that i could pick up Prius in 5 days. i took delivery of my Prius on June 30th, 2004 time has faded my memory so i dont remember the last time i called them before delivery but i do remember that they had no information to tell me.

GroundLoop said:

Stand by: Five members will be here shortly to tell you to shut up, stop complaining, and wait patiently. Of course, all five are driving their delivered cars, so.. :lol:

Then one member will be here to tell you they stood in the rain at some EV1 holding lot, so you don't know the true meaning of frustration. Of course, they sell cars..

Then two members will come ask what all the whining is about and remind you that Nissan is good people, and they're making rainbows in their factory so let them be. Consider sending a donation while you wait.

Click to expand...

I'll be the member from the forgotten 36 who says "Stop whining. I can't even order my LEAF for another year! Regardless, you'll be driving yours long before I'll be driving mine." Plus, you'll likely be getting better financial incentives out there than I ever will here in LEAFless Pennsylvania.

tps said:

I'll be the member from the forgotten 36 who says "Stop whining. I can't even order my LEAF for another year!

Click to expand...

Oh right! I totally forgot about you guys.