Nissan's Repair Delay Forces Driving Instructor to Near Financial Ruin

My livelihood as a self-employed driving instructor is under threat owing to Nissan’s failure to repair my leased dual-control car. It has been off the road awaiting a spare part for three months, and I’ve now been told it will take at least a further month to arrive. In order to continue working I have had to hire a dual-control vehicle at a cost of more than £2,500 so far, while also continuing to pay PCP finance of about £1,500 on a car I can’t use. I have had to borrow more than £1,000 from relatives to extend the hire of the dual-control vehicle. After that, I will have no remaining funds to renew the hire, and will have to stop teaching and lose my customers and my income.

CW, Eastbourne

You contacted me in mid-March when the latest estimated repair date had been postponed for the third time, until the end of April. Since your hire contract was due for renewal on 15 April, and you had no money left to extend it, time was of the essence. There was no sense of urgency at Nissan, however. You complained that it had continuously kept you in the dark about timescales and reimbursements, and I had to repeatedly chase it for information. Meanwhile, you were forking out £490 a month in PCP payments and a monthly hire fee of £952. I managed to get the company to agree to reimburse you for the hire car costs up to the (as yet unspecified) repair date, but agreeing and paying are different things. Days passed, no money came. Two weeks after I waded in, Nissan told me the spare part had been sourced and the repair was planned for 15 April, the day your car hire contract ended. Your reimbursement for the hire, it said, should be paid within 10 days. This meant it would not be with you in time to pay to renew the car hire if the repair was delayed again. When I pointed this out, the company said it would fund any further hire contracts directly, then refused to put the promise in writing. In the event, your car was repaired in the nick of time. Next began the battle for compensation. You calculated that, apart from the hire charges, the delays and uncertainty had cost you nearly £900 in lost earnings and other expenses. Nissan’s response was to offer you two years of free servicing, then it ignored your protest that you had already paid in advance for a service plan and that you were due to replace the car in 12 months. Back I went to Nissan, and this month it apologised for ignoring you and agreed to pay you compensation, the value of which you have agreed not to disclose. It says: “We are sympathetic to the customer’s experience, which fell below the high standards Nissan and its dealer partners strive to deliver.”