Warning - 2009 370 at Morningside Nissan

Dizzy

I'm currently in the market for a 370Z and after visiting the forum, I read and was tipped to a White 2009 sitting at Morningside Nissan in Scarborough.

After reading the about it, I contacted Morningside Nissan to see if they still had the White 2009 370Z. They did, and they were ripe to make a great deal. So, off I went buy it. I was extremely excited and thought I had found the deal of a lifetime. But at $38K for a sport, I told my wife, "this is too good to be true".

I had every intention of coming home with that car. Took it our for a drive - everything was fine. Had a quick look around the car, seemed OK. Made the offer. While we were watining, my wife and I went back out and took a longer better look at our new baby. That's when my wife noticed it.

The lower skirt on one side seemed slightly off, the colour didn't seem to match. At first I thought it was the light, but on closer inspection, it appeared different. The sales guy comes back out and I ask about it. He says "oh well, it's a white car, not every panel is going to match perfectly. Plus, the lower part has a protective coating that will slightly discolour it". Now my spidey senses are tingling. So I go back and forth, right side to left side and finally pick up on a slight difference. If you look in the left and right rear wheel wells of the car, you will see where the lower panels attached to the car are painted differently. One side is black inside the wheel well, one side is white. The car has been repainted, which, he finally admitted to. It's the lower passanger side skirt that has been repainted. His reason, it got a big scratch when it was being unloaded. Not sure they would repaint the entire side of the car for that, that would be a buff and spot paint. So now I'm looking harder and my wife notices on the other side, if you stand at just the right angle and let the light reflect on the car, you will see a warp in the lower panel on the drivers side.

All I could guess after all was said and done that the car has obviously been through some form of "incident". It appeared to me that the car had either mounted a curb which caused the warp in the driver bottom and probably the replacement of the passanger side skirt. Or perhaps it was dropped during an offload somewhere. Who knows, they certainly weren't coming clean about it.

More troubling to me, at first, they tried to hide it and make up bull excuses. Even after I had proven a repaint, then their excuse was it was to cover up a scratch. By the end of it all, the salesman was saying and I quote, "it is what it is, you want it?".

The really funny thing, he brought the body shop manager out who admitted to the repaint but was adament it was the drivers side. It was obvious it was the passanger side as the inside of the wheel wells are painted white, the drivers side are black (no paint). I asked him if when they repainted the drivers side the scraped the paint off the interior of the wells too. He didn't have an answer.

Morningside Nissan = less than honest. There is a reason that 2009 is still there, even at the $38,000 price point. They should be asshamed of themselves trying to sell a repainted car as new without disclosing it.

Just a warning for others as I came whisker close to buying it. The search continues, for 2010 now.

If anyone knows of a White 2010, 6spd, with sport and Nav, I'm looking!

NewlyIMPORTed

38,000? thats a lot lol

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akoo

Glad you didn't end up with it.

It will take time to find the perfect one. My pearl white bumpers are a shade off but it's not from an accident, it's the common issue that nissan can't match paint.

I heard dealers do not have to disclose repairs made to a vehicle if the damage is 3K or under??? I forgot the exact # but it sounds like the damage on that one you looked at is much more than 3K unless they did a cheap body job on it.

I am very paranoid myself and actually a good way to tell if a car's been repainted is feel the lines inside the door jams, bumpers, fenders etc... Typically when they tape of sections for repaint, it's not smooth and you feel that transition from the tape to the repainted surface.... I actually did that to every single panel before I thought about deposits or signing anything!

haha took me 30mins to do it but well worth it for peace of mind on the purchase.

Dizzy

I would imagine it is in Kennesaw, GA. But up here, it's a steal!

Interesting points Akoo. I have to believe matching the metal parts of the car t the compesite parts is extremely difficult. But, I have looked at other Z's since and the differences are very very small. This one was a glaring difference by comparison.

370Z_Fan

I knew there was a reason why the 2009 was still sitting there when I purchased my roadster there. My sales guy even said it was a customer's car ... not a very good liar ... considering that the car was still sitting on the lot a month after I had picked up my car. What was the sales guy's name?

fullmonty

I'd assume he's talking Canadian $

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dad

Rep for the heads up warning!

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We can do without any article of luxury we have never had; but once obtained, it is not in human nature to surrender it voluntary.

Dizzy

Haroon Qureshi.

I had to go back and read the email to remember his name. I was reminded that in the email where I asked if the car was still available, he responded: "its brand new showroom condition never sold".

And yes, the $38K was Canuck Bucks! So, if you don't mind a little repaint, it's below Canadian invoice.

Da.Menace

Well I got my Z from Morningside Nissan also back in May 2010, although it wasn't Haroon who sold me the car (The General Sales Manager did, at an amazing price too), but he was the one who handed me the keys to my new Z.

To me he was quite courteous, and I did ask about the white Z behalf of a friend who was interested. He didn't tell me about the repaint when I asked why doesn't the side skirt's paint and quarter panel's paint matches. He said it is how the paint settles differently on metal and plastic, which made sense in a way. Afterwards I looked on this forum for pics of other white Z, and see similar situation happening (colour mismatch) on most of the white Z pictures posted on the forum. So I ended up with the conclusion myself that its normal for white Z to have colour mismatch. Overall, Haroon is a good guy IMO.

However ,the main reason why my friend didn't pick it up was because back then (May 2010) the car was selling AT invoice, which was somewhere around $40800 + taxes IIRC, and I was able to get a really good deal from the GSM, which made the price on the 09 white only approx ~$1500 cheaper than what I paid for my 2010.

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akoo

Da.Menace - Is that price you're quoting for a sport package or non-sport? I assume it's for the Touring non-sport.

And nice mods you have there. I would like to hear that stillen cbe one day at a meet.

Da.Menace

Nope, its for Touring w/Sport Package.
Yep I'll attend the next meet if time permits!

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Dizzy

True enough. But my issue is, after taking a close look at the car and seeing the over spray inside the wheel wells, it was obvious and apparent that the side skirts had been repainted. Sorry, but I don't think doing that and trying to cover it up to customers is not an honest way of doing business.

On this particular Z, if you looked at the bumpers and rear quarters, yes, you can see a very slight difference in the white paint colour. I can accept that. But, the side skirt that was repainted has a glaring difference in colour. They didn't even come close to matching it when they repainted the car.

I guess what bothers me is they didn't disclose the repair, they tried to hide it. When I called them on it, their attidue was "it is what is, you want the car or not", Sorry, not what I want in a dealer.

Da.Menace

Hmm I didn't really take that close of a look at the car back then, and it was still in showroom when I first saw it.

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VancouverZ34

wow

this kind of story pisses me off

every single sales persons at dealerships are scammers!!!

z2z

I actually went in and tried to negotiate a price for that car in the spring of 2010 but decided not to buy from Morningside Nissan because I felt that they were not honest. They had a cash deal price for the car posted inside of their dealership but they wouldn't honor it saying that the deal has expired. For a 2009 car the price should be going down not back up and if the deal is expired then they should take the price off the wall - so I left the dealer. They called me a week later saying that they can give me my asking price ($38.5K) but when I showed up they tried to raise the price again to ($41K). I live on the other side of the city and so was not happy that they did this to me. Also throughout the negotiations they kept telling me that they had several other customers wanting to make an offer and that I should hurry. This is the worse dealership I've ever been to.