Nissan North

We bought a “certified” pre-owned 2004 Ford Focus from Nissan North on December 20th after my college student daughter was in an accident and her previous car could not be repaired. She was excited about the “new” car but her father told her it had some front end issues so if Nissan North would sell it to her for less than the listed price of $4000, she could buy it and he would fix it. Amazingly, they did reduce the out-the-door cost to $3500 and we were very happy! We were very happy, that is, until the car did not start 3 days after we purchased it. We were having below 0 degree weather in Columbus so we thought that was the problem. It continued to not start, so, after jumping it a few times, we bought a new battery. That did not work so my daughter learned how to un-hook the battery when she went to school or work. Then we bought a jump starter so she could stop un-hooking the battery. After 3 weeks of dealing with it, we took it back to Nissan North and they readily agreed to test it. We have had the car now for 3 months and Nissan North has looked at it twice. The second time they kept it for a week and they can find nothing wrong. They mentioned taking it to Ford and letting them look at it but did not follow through with that. Then they said it was the battery terminals and said they replaced them. In reality, they only replaced one side. My college student daughter now has to carry a jump starter with her at all times. Today she is out of state and cannot start it or jump it. My problem with Nissan North is that we bought the car “as is” but expected to be able to actually drive the car. A car can’t be driven if it can’t be started. Nissan told me on 2/24/14 that they were escalating the issue to another manager and they would get back to me. That was 3 weeks ago and I have not heard a thing. I even asked my husband to sell the car and he said he refused to sell a car with a known problem to someone else. Although that is what Nissan North did to us. If they were not aware of the problem while they had the car, the previous owner obviously did know it so it should be Nissan North’s problem as a major car dealership and should not have been dumped on a 21 year old college student who is just trying to go to school and work. We went from being excited about the car to not even liking to drive by Nissan North because, like any parent, I just want my daughter to have a reliable car to drive and she has had to resort to having to jump start her $3500 car almost on a daily basis. I am very appreciative that Nissan North agreed to look at the used car in the first place but have determined that since they bought a car with a major mechanic issue it should not be our problem and they should take the responsibility to resolve the issue.