Glyn Hopkin Nissan (St. Albans)

We purchased our new Nissan Qashqai N Motion 140 DIG T, back in July 2019 from Glyn Hopkin St Albans Branch. Within 2 weeks of having the vehicle, we experienced a problem with the clutch stiffening and becoming difficult to engage. We returned to the Glyn Hopkin Nissan dealership, and spoke to the Sales Manager and his assistant .They arranged for the vehicle to be assessed in the service department, and eventually the car was repaired. Since then we returned weeks later with the same issue. We requested a meeting with the sales manager ,indicating that we were not happy about the same single clutch fault and requested a rejection of our vehicle. We were told that this would not be possible, which we now find, is not true. Our vehicle was repaired yet again and the car returned to us. The repair didn’t last long at all, and eventually we returned yet again with our vehicle a couple of months later to complain about the same reoccurring single clutch fault . When we requested our vehicle’s service history of what work had been done to it to date, from the service department at Glyn Hopkin ,we learned that the clutch master slave cylinder had been replaced a number of times and shocked that a 2nd hand clutch pedal assembly from one of Glyn Hopkin’s donor vehicles, had been used, instead of a new part ! This is unacceptable. The fault kept on reoccurring for a number of months with numerous other parts replaced. This included further clutch master slave cylinders , release bearings and finally a dual mass flywheel, along with repeated complete clutch assembly units. Each time we returned our new vehicle to be repaired, Glyn Hopkin St Albans Branch drained our entire full fuel tank of petrol, handing our car back completely empty, with extensive road testing and adding unnecessary mileage to the vehicle. This too was unacceptable and never refunded at the time, considering it not being our fault . When we repeatedly asked the sales manager for his help and guidance, to escalate our case further, he continued to misguide us away from the Finance Company RCI Financial Services Ltd , and instead redirected us back to Nissan Customer Care, who basically don’t care ! After much legal guidance, we had learned that Glyn Hopkin should have tried to resolve this matter in a satisfactory manner, and that rejection was possible initially, but instead they guided us away from the Finance Company, of whom were equally responsible, as they owned the vehicle. This single reported clutch fault has since reoccured a further 7 times and after much perseverance, we eventually decided to formally complain to the Financial Ombudsman Service , and report RCI Financial Services Ltd, who are affiliated with Nissan GB. After having our case looked at, in great detail , the Financial Ombudsman Service , allowed us to successfully reject our vehicle. This process took us nearly 3 years to fully resolve.Throughout this ordeal we were continually “palmed off” and misguided by both Glyn Hopkin and Nissan GB . We were lucky that we had a comprehensive trail of correspondence, plus Photo / Video footage , since we first purchased our vehicle from new . Our efforts and research show that the merger with Nissan & Renault, has caused the reliability of numerous Nissan Qashqais including our own, to repeatedly fail continually. The clutch assembly and the parts used are not fit for purpose, and customer service very poor . This is now well documented on Qashqai forums for all to read. We were loyal customers to the Nissan Brand, since 1976 ,having bought numerous reliable Datsun / Nissan vehicles, that lasted many years, trouble free, but no more. This Qashqai we bought from new ,has to be the worst car we have ever bought on record. As a result of the dishonesty and misguidance from Glyn Hopkin Nissan, and from NISSAN GB , we will never buy another Nissan nor will we buy from Glyn Hopkin ever again ! The Consumer Rights Act of 2015 ,along with The Financial Ombudsman Service, which is a “free of charge service“, are there to support customers . Our only regret is that we didn’t do this earlier. The lesson to learn is do NOT give the dealership an opportunity to fix the vehicle , reject it from the outset ! We had our vehicle repaired against our will ! As a Managing Director, Frazer Cohen , you should never have allowed this case to get to this torturous stage . Despite you advertising putting customers first, you and your sales staff at Glyn Hopkin Nissan, St Albans & the Nissan GB customer service team, have deliberately misled us and lied, in order to prevent us from rejecting our faulty vehicle, and deliberately trying to have us keep this car, but it didn’t work ! You have lost loyal customers with an appalling show of Customer Service, and we continue to guide friends, family and colleagues away from Glyn Hopkin and Nissan generally . We have no faith in Glyn Hopkin as a Dealership and no faith in Nissan as a Brand . This case will be publicly published by the Financial Ombudsman Services, and their adjudicator’s decision ,so all can see the lack of support and misguidance we endured by both Nissan and Glyn Hopkin . We have been extremely patient and followed the appropriate protocol in regards to bringing this unfortunate complaint to yourselves and have given Glyn Hopkin the opportunity of putting this right , but instead you chose to antagonise your customers further by trying to have us keep this faulty vehicle, but that ploy didn’t work !