So for someone like me, a Prius owner thinking of buying the Nissan Altima Hybrid. I live in Washington State but travel to SF on business frequently. If I fly to California, buy the car and drive it to Washington, will a Nissan dealer service it under warranty???

 

Hello,

The problem is not the warrantee, which will be honored, but finding a hybrid certified technician that also has actual experience with the hybrids. Little things like oil changes and break repairs are different.

For example, even here in New jersey, where the NAH is for sale, I had to challenge the head mechanic and the certified hybrid mechanic at my dealer to put 0W-20 oil in. They had not been told that it needed the oil at the certification class and assumed since it had the same engine as the Altima 2.5, it used the same oil (5W-30). For a year they were putting the wrong oil in not only mine, but every NAH they sold. I had to show them on their own computer before they would believe me. They apologized and changed the oil and told me all of their mechanics would know by morning.

Many of us on this site know more about the NAH then the certified NAH mechanics do, so the chance that the mechanics in states that don't sell the NAH understand it well is just not that great.

You would need to find a dealer, you trust, that already has a certified NAH mechanic and have a long talk with him/her before taking the out-of-state plunge.