We purchased a car from Westco Cairns Pty Ltd in July this year. While we love our new car we have been thoroughly disgusted with the ongoing service that we have received from both the sales and service departments.

We take this opportunity to warn all future customers to find another dealer. If this is unavoidable, be exceedingly cautious in your dealing with Westco, whether with sales or service. We have found both departments to be uninterested in anything resembling customer service, and certainly not worried about their reputation or that of Nissan’s.

Unfortunately we found that Nissan Customer Service was as unhelpful as Westco themselves. I can only guess that they have had prior complaints regarding the dealership, as the first response when we contacted them was that a new Manager had just been appointed and it would take time for things to happen. This response was just not good enough. For a company to accept of this level of performance by a representative of their brand is unthinkable. We have owned two Nissans prior to this and really liked both. Now I find myself very hesitant to consider purchasing another ever again.

The problem arose when we booked our new car for its first service to comply with the used car warranty. Expecting a basic service to be carried out (we had only driven about 5000kms) we were very surprised to be told that we needed new brakes, and they needed to be replaced there and then. Having only driven from Cairns across to Darwin, which is all open road driving we knew there was no way we had worn the brakes away that much in the time we owned the car. We were also informed that we had two outstanding recalls on our car, which was the first we knew about it.

We contacted Westco and expressed our amazement and disappointment that we were never told about the condition of the brakes, or the need to have the two outstanding recalls attended to. The sales department said it was not their problem and referred us to the service department. The service department said the car had passed the rego check they had conducted and it was not their problem.

Unfortunately the Servicing Mechanic was unable to give a straight answer on whether the brakes would have been legal when the car was serviced, given the fact that he knew we had purchased the car from a Nissan Dealer, However they did agree that it was unlikely we could have gone through the brakes to that extent given the driving we had done. Following more phone calls Westco agreed to cover the expense of the brakes, however two months on we have yet to receive payment.

As neither of us are mechanical people, and reply on trained professionals to advise us on the condition of our vehicle, we can only wonder if the initial Registration Check was legal. It also makes us wonder if we had owned the car and had Westco perform the mechanical check would they have put the new brake pads on when they stood to make money off it, rather than costing them?

According to the latest phone call the cheque is to be mailed today. We can only wait with bated breath to see if it ever arrives.

David & Erain

Darwin