Table 1 shows two common structure related problems of the 2000 Nissan Sentra.
| Problem Category | Number of Problems |
|---|---|
| Structure problems | |
| Bumper problems |
Vehicle shut off completely and without prior warning while traveling on the highway. This problem occurred on several occasions. Dealer was aware of the problem. Several repair attempts were made but none of them were successful. Noise came from the right wheel area while driving. The dealer replaced all wheels per a safety campaign. The inside door handle was loose. The dealer replaced the door pad but that didn't remedy the problem. The rear passenger side bumper was loose. The dealer secured it. The radio was inoperative. The dealer special order a new radio. The right front window was inoperative from the main switch.
Back bumper- on 1/4/00 my husband backed into a concrete pole. He was navigating a tight space and was proceeding with extreme caution. Both he and his coworker passenger indicate that he was going at most 3 mph as he knew a post was there. Knowing that it was a tight space, he was going to use the slow speed and the post to indicate when to pull forward if he bumped it. When he backed into the pole, my husband pulled forward, got out of the vehicle to look at the bumper. He saw that the pole had hit the bumper at a location where two pieces meet. The bumper on the left side had collapsed, separating from the vehicle, and the pole had hit the body. Obviously, this does not meet the safety standards for a rear bumper. We have contacted Nissan of cerritos, which claims that it is not responsible for the manufactured product, therefore, they did not feel a responsibility to fix it. We contacted customer service at Nissan on several occassions. They finally left a message today denying our claim. My husband took the car to the Nissan bodyshop for an estimate and was told that the body damage had occurred because he had "hit the weak part in the bumper. " the x-terra has an unique bumper in that the metal part of the bumper does not run the length of the rear and is capped with plastic "bumpers" at each end. For the front grill, the plastic has cracked above the bumper from normal driving. Please help us because the people at Nissan have not listened to us and have been sarcastic about our concerns. At one point, the owner/general manager actually asked me if I, "had been in front of the car since you bought it. " we are most concerned about the rear bumper as part of the rear is only "protected" by a plastic facade. If this had occurred at a higher speed or the result of a rear end accident, significant damage and injuries could have occurred.