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I have a 2002 nissan altima white smoke was coming out the exhaust pipe and today i had it checked now i only had the car for a year and paid $13,.000 the nissan service center told me that it was the cataytic converter and to fix it it would cost me $12,000.00 that is the price that i paid for the car cash i do not have any more money to pay for the car and i have had it 1 year so i paid $12.000.00 for a car that have lasted for 1 year yes i would like to get in on the lawsuit aganist nissan because i was told that it was a factor defect because the catytic converter will last almost a life time that is the only way i can get back and forth to my job please can anybody help me with this problem.  

I want in on the class action lawsuit.

I bought my 2002 Altima brand new in 2002. A couple of days after I bought it I had electrical problems. The dashboard lights were flickering. Brought it back to the dealership and they said a "gas cap was loose." This made no sense to me at the time.

At 67,000 miles, I had to replace the engine and Nissan refused to extend the warrenty on my new engine. Now at 100,000 miles, I am having the same problem as everyone else with it burning oil. We are constantly having to add oil, but there is no leak. However, when we first crank up the engine it smokes for a few second.  

WOW! THIS IS CRAZY!! I AM 100% in on this CLASS ACTION LAW SUIT.  I only had 63,000 miles on my 2003 altima, and I need a new engine. I got the oil and trans fluid changed. 500 miles later my car barely made it to the shop. it barely had any oil and engine rod banging. I need a new engine. The dealership said there is a goodwill program and that nissan will help pay some of the cost. They asked for my oil reciepts, and i brought all of them in.  The completely denied to help me with one penny. So i asked well what do you need if i have had all the maintenance and oil changes.  The excellent representative of nissan replied. Well, I dont know.  Nissan is horrible, and gives the worst customer service ever.  I recommend no one ever purchase a Nissan. They do not know how to treat customers. I WANT IN ON THIS LAW SUIT.  

I had to replace the engine on my Altima SL 2002 at 60,000 miles due to the catalytic converter failure causing excess oil consumption (1 qt per 1000 miles) and destroying the engine.  Fortunately, it was covered under the federal warranty 8 years or 80,000 miles for emissions equipment.  

However, I had to have the car towed at my expense.  I contacted Nissan North America and asked for reimbursement.  They declined.  Very poor customer relations on their part.  I think this will be the last Nissan I ever purchase.  I would really be mad if my car had over 80,000 miles when the engine died.  And after reading other comments I'm concerned that it will happen again.  Please include me in any Class Action Lawsuit in the state of CT.  

Hi Ed,

Just wondering if you're still enjoying noise-free driving and if you're still not consuming too much oil. And, what did this little fix cost you. I am thinking it's less than a new engine  - and if it isn't too expensive I might give it a whirl to see if it helps!

Not_the_Altimate  

Hi everyone.

My Altima is still running great.  The oil consumption was not as great as I initially thought and I am burning about 1 qt every ~750 miles.  Still not bad and much better than it was before.  My fix was actually free for me believe it or not.  My mechanic is a very good friend of mine and I think he felt somewhat obligated to make the car "right" since I did pay him for a catalytic converter a few months before it started running real bad.  All it should be is a couple hours labor charge to check out the resonator I would assume.  Good luck.  BTW, I am still never buying a Nissan (or Infiniti for that matter) due to the real lack of cutomer service and inablity for them to take ownership of the problem.

Ed  

After reading one of the posts above about an 8 year federal warranty on the converter, I checked the web and here is a link.  I think this is the answer to everyone's problem on engine replacement costs.  It is an easy connection to make that the catalytic converter failure is causing the engine failures due to excessive oil consumption.  Eventhough I was able to avoid that myself, lets face it, if the car runs out of oil, the party is basically over.  Anyway I always knew about the 80000 mile warranty but Nissan conveniently left out the 8 YEAR portion of the conversation when I tried to get them to pay for my converter replacement!!!  It looks like to me that they have to warranty the problem due to a federal law!!  See this link: http://www.enjoythedrive.com/content/?id=8128   What does everyone think??  

Forget that last post.....after reading in more detail, the milage portion of the federal warranty will still take precedent over the time portion....oh well....SOS  

Your story about your 2002 Altima sounds a lot like mine, only I was charged $126 for the dealer to diagnosis or concur with me that the car was burning oil. Yes, I too was told I needed a new engine but it was going to cost me $9,8000 for a new one or $6,800 for one that had 18,000 miles on it. I just want to know if anyone has a solution, even if it is temporary that will not cost me an arm and a leg so that I can sleep at night.  

I bought used 02 Nissan in October 06 with 100,000Km on it.  Two weeks and it shut off on me on highway. I was able to retstart it and drive it to home. I took it to dealer and he found 4 recalls needs to be done. soon after i came across rattling sound from engine while accelearting. Took out to mechanic who found out car was really low on oil. He topped up the oil and sound was gone. I went to dealer and he again topped up the oil and asked me to come back after driving a while. dealer concluded that engine was burning oil and advised engine replacement. I couldn't afford the engine replacement cost so decided to keep filling the oil instead of spending big bucks on Engine. Two weeks ago, my car again broke down on road , car was starting but once placed in gear it shut off. i had to tow it to mechanic. who first replaced spark plugs, flushed transmission oil and finaly replaced throttle body(costed me $800). Since then my car drives very rough on low speed and while idiling. I have also realized that its burning even more oil. After reading all this thread, i can see more problems down the road. My Engine light was always on till i changed gas cap 2 weeks ago. Does anybody knows solution for rough idling and on low speeds? I am in canada and don't know if i can join the law suit or not. I have already joined nissanfight.com.  Altima sucks.  

My 2002 3.5 Altima has about 154,000 miles. I've been looking for insight to my excess oil consumption for over a year. At about 100,000 miles the engine lost all power, took it to Nissan and had the CC replaced. It ran like new after that. Still had the sound of "Marbles" under the hood. Sounds like valves rattling? Still had excess oil consumption. Engine Light comes on just before an oil change, but turns off after the oil change. Oil changes every 3K miles, but 1500 miles b/w services I always added 1qt. Using Cheveron Supreme gas and Cheveron 10w30 oil. Recently I'm noticing a decline in power again...feel like the engine is on the decline. Interesting approach regarding the exhaust system (post: 6/20/07 esgrillo), I'll take my Altima to a mechanic and see what they think.

Class Action suit? I'm on board.  

To all concerned,

We purchased a 2003 Infiniti G35 Coupe in June 2006. It had about 43,000 km on it. Once it hit around 95-100,000km , it went to *** - everything started going. Nissan-Infiniti has been very difficult to deal with!!!

If you are interested in doing a full out class action suit against Nissan (parent of Infiniti) , we have retained attorneys to do so! We are going to litigate these guys, even thought my lawyer has told us that they will vigirously defend the suit!

The G35 began consuming excssive oil around 100,000-105,000 km, even thought Infiniti covers powertrain until 110,000km , the selling dealer turned us away for service because they didn't like our attitude ( lol, there was no attitude, we wanted out car fixed!) . We had to drive over 200 km to another dealer here in Canada, and they honoured warranty there. A few weeks later, while en route for oil consumption test (every 1,000 km checkup) the engine explode, (3 inch hole in block) from rod coming thru. They were very negligent in dealing with the matter and they told us our warranty was no good! If anyone is interested in pursuing this further, we have people on this case, post for more details!  

How can I get involved w/the class action lawsuit?
I too have had the same exact problems w/the excessive oil comsumption.
Based on the research I have conducted, the problem begins w/the catalytic converter.  The oxygen sensors get burnt up and metallic paricles get sucked into to the engine block and scar the cylinder walls, therefore allowing oil to pass into the cylinders and get burnt up.  

I would definitely like to be included in the class action lawsuit. I had to take my 2002 Nissan Altima in to the dealership today due to the check engine light coming on. I had this same problem about 2 months ago, I was at about 80,000 miles when the engine light started coming on and the car started cutting off. I took it in to the dealership and was told that the part failure was a recall item and they would fix it at no charge. Now two months later, I am having the same problem and of course I'm over 80,000 miles. Today the dealer said almost word for word what bad_altima wrote. I was told that if I got the catalytic converter replaced now it would ONLY cost me $915+tax of course. After reading all of these posts, I'm afraid that once I get this fixed, the engine is going to fail anyway and they'll be asking for even more money. I'm also concerned that when I took it in 2 months ago, they didn't fix the right thing and if they'd done it then, I wouldn't be having this problem now.  

Same story here... I'm at 110,000 miles & she gets a full quart every 200 miles. It has gotten steadily worse since the 80-90k mark. Engine light on... Cat Converter clogged... o2 sensor bad... NO LEAKS ANYWHERE!!! Just burning up inside. No smoke out the pipes. I would be in on the class action suit.