July 7, 2021—An ongoing dispute between Nissan and information providers regarding Nissan’s data licensing agreement may finally be coming to an end, at least when it comes to CCC Intelligent Solutions.
Upon reaching out, FenderBender received the following exclusive joint statement from the companies on Thursday evening:
"CCC and Nissan are aware of the issue impacting the industry and are working closely together to make Nissan vehicle data for all model years available to repairers as soon as possible via CCC’s estimating platform. Quality is of paramount importance to both companies and while this information is currently available through authorized Nissan retailers, we are working to provide data for the newest Nissan vehicles within CCC's estimating platform. We anticipate the data will be available via CCC's estimating platform potentially beginning as early as next month.”
Some shop owners and stakeholders FenderBender spoke with indicated the change could come even sooner. Mitchell International declined to comment for the story and did not provide an update.
Roughly two years ago, Nissan warned its vendors and other entities that it planned to restrict its catalog data, citing similar decisions from The Big Three automakers, to help protect proprietary information from being sold.
Since then, Nissan and the legal teams of all three information providers have gone back and forth regarding those terms of agreement—an issue that CCC, for its part, said was rare. Last year, a message was posted on the Database Enhancement Gateway (DEG) that, “MOTOR anticipates releasing this content during the second and third quarters of 2020,” but the disagreement remains ongoing.
In the meantime, however, shop owners have been left without easy access to Nissan repair procedures and information for post-2020 models. That leaves shop owners in a precarious position: 1) either not utilizing the most up-to-date repair procedures, which could have serious liability repercussions, or 2) waste significant time and labor hours manually entering the information into the estimate and calling the dealer for correct pricing and parts information.
Some shop owners FenderBender spoke to said the workaround has added on hours to tbe estimate writing process, and others said the difference in pricing between the older and newer models have led to totaled vehicles after the original estimate is written.
The issue came to a head Wednesday when FenderBender was copied on an email from an Illinois shop owner, frustrated with the lack of updates from both information providers and Nissan. Since then, Nissan and CCC have indicated a renewed sense of urgency to resolve the issue.
This is an ongoing story and FenderBender plans to follow up with both companies in the coming weeks.
