New owner? Pls read

CharlieFoxtro

I'm a 370Z owner for two weeks now. Touring/manual bright silver, no sport or nav package. Still only 300 miles on the odometer. The car was bought as a weekend excusion cruiser and garage decorator. It is the successor to the 1988 Mazda RX7 GXL (84k miles) currently sitting next to it in the garage and feeling dejected.

If you've purchased a 370Z, do me a favor and look at page 6-2 of your owner's manual. Is the first column on that page entitled "Roadside Assistance Program"? On some of the following pages do you find the paragraph (twice on page 6-7):

"If needed, Roadside Assistance is available. Please see your Warranty Information Booklet or Roadside Assistance I.D. Card for the toll-free number to call (U.S.) or Warranty Information Booklet (Canada)."

If so, can you find any information on the subject in your Warranty Information Booklet and/or did you find a Roadside Assistance I.D. Card in "Owner's Literature Portfolio"? I didn't.

The selling dealer checked and responded that Roadside Assistance was included but did not provide any details or a Roadside Assistance I.D. Card.

The Warranty Information Booklet DOES list Towing Coverage:

"If your vehicle is inoperative due to the failure of a warranted part, towing service to the nearest authorized Nissan dealer is covered for 36 months or 36,000 miles, whichever comes first."

By searching the Internet I managed to find Nissan Publications at:

Nissan Publications

That's where I found that Nissan Workshop Manuals can be ordered (albeit at more than twice the price that Honda charges for theirs). The 370Z workshop manual isn't available in hardcopy yet but is available (at an exorbitant price) as a DVD or on-line access.

One can also download pdf versions of the Owner's Manual for free through that site. When I downloaded the pdf version of the 370Z Owner's Manual from the site, I found that all the references to the Roadside Assistance that appear in my hardcopy are omitted from the pdf version.

Further search of the Internet with

"roadside assistance program" nissan

comes up with all sorts of hits, mostly from Australia, Canada and other parts of the world, very little from the U.S. One interesting hit from Road and Travel Magazine,
(Emergency Roadside Assistance : ROAD & TRAVEL Magazine)
quoting a Research Supervisor from J.D. Powers:

"Anyone who buys a new vehicle should know that almost all manufacturers offer some type of coverage, but the Asian makes have taken a different approach, Griffith reported. The Japanese luxury brands (Acura, Infiniti, and Lexus) offer coverage to every buyer, and there is a high level ofawareness of emergency roadside assistance program among those buyers. However, Griffith told us that buyers of the non-luxury Japanese nameplates (Honda, Nissan, Subaru, and Toyota) are offered roadside assistance only with the purchase of an extended warranty, also called a service contract, resulting in a far lower level of awareness. (Suzuki has no roadside assistance program, and Mazda offers it only for the Millennia and MPV.)"

I called Nissan Customer Service (which seems to be an East Indian Call Center) to see if I could get an answer. I was passed through three levels of customer service reps and kept on hold for at total of over half an hour without getting a decent explanation.

It's probably not worth pursuing since I'll probably never have need or make use of a "Roadside Assistance Program". Most likely this is just a screw-up on Nissan Publications' part. Since I'm the type that RTFM, I would however, like a straight answer from Nissan. This is my first Nissan and although my experiences with Nissan dealers and, so far, the car itself, have been excellent, I'm not getting good "vibes" about Nissan corporate. Perhaps it's just a clash with my Teutonic mind. Maybe I should have waited to see what the new Z4 will be like.

BTW, my full "nym" is CharlieFoxtrot. (The forum login limits one to 13 characters.)

arcticreaver

i didn't purchase the extended warranty but the financing manager told me that i'm under warranty for the first 36,000 for whatever. i'm not sure that covers the road side assistance. but i got insurance coverage for road side assistance.