Chris_CommercialManager

I'm honestly confused by that warranty he mentions. I PM'd briefly with him and never really found out but that is not a Nissan offering. I'm not even sure if that's not just a maintenance contract. And if it is, that is not from Nissan either. I actually sell a lot of Nissan maintenance plans because they are a good deal when planning on adhering to the manual. Remember that it's really aimed at companies and slots in perfectly in an operating lease for a business to not only standardize costs over the life cycle of the vehicle, but try to maximize the tax benefits come year end as well.

Honestly I haven't asked. Really just a non event because there are no changes. I'll ask my rep on monday and see what he says. To carl, please remember too. This is a commercial vehicle. What I mean by that is your typical honda accord or or toyota sienna that is a rough product life of 125-175k before major repairs.......Your vehicles have double that life span. 30k on a commercial product is nothing. Add that to the lack of incentives and high demand. Heck ya, resale is through the roof. I wouldn't dare bring a used NVP inventory into inventory. How would I sell it? I've not seen one in almost a year now at my dealership. Even the cargo and NV200 resale is sky high. I've taken in one NV200 and 3 NV cargo's. Prices are too high on them for me to put them next to a new van. One of the used NV's was a 3500NV, 290k. I payed 9500, sent it to auction and made a small amount. Holy Cow!!

Having spent 16 years in midwest winters (chicago), gosh I feel your pain when you say that. I had nice wheels on some of my cars when I was younger and couldn't afford a second set. I would wipe vaseline all over all the chrome after I spray washed it like once every two weeks and I still got corrosion. It's just simply a losing battle many times. I do not miss that.

They don't make enough. I would estimate sales of cargo vs passenger is 20-1. That's a great thing for you guys as customers but bad for me as a dealer. For you guys, sure you pay a little more because there's not really any major incentives or as much wiggle room in pricing, but your resale is through the roof!

You'll wait four to five months for a 2016. No major changes (we would have heard something). Maybe just re content packages. Diesel will never happen. When discussed at the factory in Mississippi and then subsequently discussed here on the forum a diesel in this van would carry a 10-15k up charge. An extended wheelbase and a cab chassis are way higher on the list of possibilities than a diesel. And let's face it, NVP is a teeny tiny portion of NV sales. For a diesel to be profitable they would have to move a ton of them to business owners. A 40-45k NV would lose it's appeal to 90% of customers right when they heard the price.

I'm not going to give mine away, I'd like to keep you guys guessing. Radin2son. It makes so much sense now, I always wondered lol.

That is sad. I should have said in reference to being a successful commercial manager. 99% of the time it's a car guy that's moved over and just doesn't have the aptitude. It's called growing pains, Mercedes is going through the same thing, though slightly further along in the understanding a commercial manager needs to have a different skillset than a "car" guy. Most know how to sell "cars" to the public and not develop a top tier commercial dept. Commercial departments are so new to the brand and at the dealerships, those in the hire fire positions don't truly know what to look for because many don't know what a successful dept would look like. Couple that with the fact that many guys in power at dealerships are "old school" car guys, and well you get where I'm going. Doesn't make it right, it's not an excuse for what your describing, it just is what it is. But things are changing. Remember, domestics have a 100 year head start. I agree with you as well that I'd like some manpower to help me but I can't get manpower until I make the money to justify it. I can't make the money to justify it until I do all of what I posted. Even if I did have other people to do that however without the first hand knowledge of how to execute all those tasks I could not effectively manage those people to see to it there was proper execution of my vision. On a side note, I love my job. Very challenging, very rewarding. It's stressful but I have great hours and most of the time have A TON of fun!

That's not fair, but I don't take it personally. I have 4 different manufacturers of equipment I can choose to upfit in those "two vehicles" for our tradesman. I need to know full product lines, prices and options. As an example I need to know if an A Frame ladder will fit on an Adrian drop down, I need to know that if it's over 6ft I need an upgrade kit. If someone asks a question I need to know the answer, I can't just stop in conversation and start making calls. I need to evaluate builders for mobility or custom conversion. I need to evualuate the vendors I choose to use and investigate their build quality before spending my customers hard earned cash. Just recently I went to a facility and saw a car battery powering on board accessories when the auxiliary battery should have been a deep cycle. I've been in charge of so many builds I can't even tell you. A client has special needs and is doling out a hundred k just for upfit and they are relying on me to oversee the build for them and help with vendor selection I better know darn well what the heck I'm doing. In many cases their safety is in my hands, especially with the mobility stuff. I need to check licenses, insurance, all sorts of things other than just mechanical aptitude. I need to know service prices and intervals, if I'm giving a presentation to a fleet manager of a large company I have to talk mechanicals and in essence be a mechanic. I don't always sell to the guy at the top, many times it's the fleet mechanic that has a final a say after inspection. I have to stay up to date on all tax information related to the sales of these vehicles to help my customers maximize their deductions come tax season (like whether or not section 179 gets signed back into effect). I have to know how to execute operating leases because car finance guys never know how to. Program rules and rates change every single month, it's a lot of info to stay on top of. I have to be an event planner. That includes all the marketing, I am responsible for producing all of my marketing myself. My budget is small and I can't afford to hire someone. I need to design brochures, pamplets, newsletters, etc for use here in the dealership, to take to potential clients, and for the aforementioned shows I need to organize. The list is long, that is just the tip of iceberg......being a competent commercial manager is a lot more than learning the options on two product lines.

I personally have never sold an S to a family. It is definitely aimed at the business market, I have a lot of hotels buying them from me. If it's a budget issue that is one thing but if I could afford both the SV is a no brainer for a family. It's a lot more content than just cup holders and and audio controls. It feels more like a family vehicle than a commercial vehicle, you pick up carpeting, nice non commercial looking wheels, center console with power inverter (which is awesome for a family), power seat, rear sonar, etc,. To me an S feels like a shuttle, and that's really what it is. Aftermarket camera will be hit or miss, more likely miss than hit to me. I personally would rather have sonar than a backup camera anyways. 90% of aftermarket back up cameras won't even have lines to judge distance and your monitor will clip on over your mirror, it's not even a replacement. Your stock mirror is still there and then you just have this big thing sitting there. If you are under 5ft you need a power seat, visibility is key with a large vehicle and I just can't imagine you being comfortable without it. Lastly, I can't imagine anyone even has a 2014 left. I sold out of those 8 months ago. With only a $500 dollar incentive last time I checked I don't know if that would justify a 2014 or 2015. Hope that helps.

I don't condone this but I have some very good customers that are well beyond the limits of tow ratings, they are in the trades and at times need to pull around some very heavy equipment plus a few thousand in payload inside. They all say the NV tows great and doesn't feel stressed even with the loads they have pulled.

Congrats on the new one, you did what you felt was right for you. Do not over think the weight distributing hitch. Any of the main brands will serve you well. I've had a blue ox and a reese both with sway control. I've towed 10k lb coast to coast over the rockies and in the huge crosswinds in the plains of the midwest and deserts of the west without ever having an incident that left my heart racing. And that was with a lesser vehicle than the NV. I hope you get yourself a great trailer and hit the road soon for your first trip! (I'm jealous :)

You'll be fine!

Having been with sprinter for so long andy_george you have no idea. And maintenance costs too. Nissan is such a big winner. Thousand dollar brake jobs and tow in with a clogged diesel particulate filter is the norm over at benz in the midwest with their junky fuel. An oil change, no tire rotation, but just oil change at my dealership is $29.99. And that's at the dealer, how do you beat that? You guys and gals truly bought the best (by what my criteria...intial cost, reliability, and cost of ownership) commercial van on the road :)

A quick rant, I got approached about a sprinter possibility and just spent my morning poking around a sprinter forum, which I haven't done in a bit. Let me say, I absolute love how awesome these Nissan vans are. If you go to another forum for a competitor like promaster or a sprinter and simply do a very quick scan it's riddled with issues, big issues. Engine, transmission, electrical, etc. Our lack of product issues I think is one reason why this forum simply isn't that busy. There can be problems with anything and it's naive to think there can't be with ours but jeez. Our issues here are so very minor. I wish at times this forum would be busier but then I think that means that our product would have more issues. I tell customers all the time to come on here and just take a quick scan and then do the same on the ford forum, for example if they are comparing a transit. I say......you'll see gripes about bluetooth, or our nav system, maybe back up sensor or whatnot, but they are not major issues and most of the time just functionality. I have found no more powerful selling tool when people take my advice and do it. This is the most reliable product I have ever sold. I'm very very curious to see a few years from now how many miles everyone actually gets out of this platform. I did have that one customer about who was approaching 300k. Granted it was all highway but after a 30 minute drive I was impressed. just a rant

Actually, if I had to make a blind guess this would be it (if it is what I'm thinking of) I've seen this before.

My daily driver (by choice) is a big lifted 1978 Bronco, I have to be if for no other reason than that lol It's not the hitch or mirrors ASD, come on man :) B) It's software and electrical part of it. Maybe I'm guilty of not reading this entire post as thoroughly as I should have but I thought that was the major snafu fred was questioning. For better or worse we just don't have aftermarket following and I don't know that unless some mechanic with facilities comes along that decides to tinker we will ever know many answers to questions like these. :/

Maybe I wasn't clear, he did not say that. I was strictly referencing the conversation we had some time ago about the actual differences between a factory equipped and non equipped van. I have not called him in reference to what it would take to add it. My post above about it not being feasible was my opinion drawn from my years of experience. Not that some shop out there with the appropriate technical people and computers on hand couldn't figure it out, but it simply isn't likely to happen given there would be no market to recoup dollars invested to figure it out. As a commercial manager and mechanic I have nothing to offer or even a suggestion of what it would take, and after having talked to my progressive parts and service manager and drawing blank stares I simply don't think it would be a reasonable undertaking. That is just my .02 though. :)

Could be your key switch, could be the brake switch, could be the shifter. Unfortunately there is not one thing to point to. Get it in and use your warranty, it's most assuredly something minor. ;)

In my case...... I am fortunate that I have had direct contact and met in person the senior manager of commercial and fleet engineering at the Mississippi plant, he happened to be there from MI. He is as high as it goes, I have his contact info and what I typed in the previous post on the other thread is the answer that he gave me when I called him. You can take that as 100%. I use him rarely as to not burn that contact with a ton of questions but that towing issue really had me, and my personnel here at the dealership stumped. Like ASD Dad said.....definitely put on a quality weight distributing hitch.

All the necessary hard parts and or software is not available for conversion to my knowledge nor is there a potential procedure for this conversion. Any solution would be speculative at best and would probably require much trial and error at great expense to no avail.

I wouldn't call it a burning oil smell but all vehicles will smell to some extent when new. There are rust inhibitors and sealants that are used that can produce a smell when heated. I have not however had a complaint like yours, especially at your mileage. Call your dealership please.

No you cannot "add" it unfortunately.

Honestly forgot to post pics, here you guys go. Turned out great, happy family!

AV equipment is generally generic so you can go anywhere for that. But all of the other stuff you need to search for. eBay is likely to have the largest compilation of what your looking for but even there you will have to sift through factory replacement parts and the like. While our numbers are growing we are not a large group with a very high aftermarket demands on the non commercial side yet.

Please whatever you do make sure things are very very securely bolted down. With no partition to protect you make sure anything loose is not moving. :shift: