Nissan Closes Bella New Car Sales Department In Pittsfield

If you drive by Bella Nissan on West Housatonic Street in Pittsfield and see the Nissan sign down, that is real. They (Nissan corporate) came and removed the sign on Tuesday.

I stopped in and talked with Ben Farber today, the general manager and one of the partners.

Nissan pulled what they call the point. That means the franchise for this area is gone.

Bella cannot sell new Nissan cars anymore. They also cannot do factory warranty work that Nissan would pay for.

Ben put it this way. "Nissan has decided that they are pulling the point, the franchise from the area. So they have removed basically our ability to do any Nissan warranty work or to sell any new Nissan cars."

He said they still have a dealer license. They can still work on cars and sell used vehicles. They still have Nissan-trained techs and the shop tools. The one thing they cannot do is send a warranty claim to Nissan and have Nissan cover the bill.

Slater/Bella Nissan

Why Did Nissan pull the plug?

Why did Nissan walk away? Ben said they did a market study. They decided this area does not sell enough new cars to keep a full new-car store. They also figured warranty work can be handled by dealers in Springfield or over toward Latham and Albany.

That's where you're going to have to go for service even if you have purchased a new Nissan at Bella recently.

That leaves some local Nissan owners in a bind. If your car is still under factory warranty, Bella cannot get Nissan to pay for the repair. Ben said they have already done a few jobs just to help people who got stuck. "We're really trying to make it so that we inconvenience and hurt as few people as possible when this happens," he told me.

So here is the short version for Pittsfield and Berkshire County. Regular service and used-car sales are still happening at Bella. New Nissan sales and factory warranty work are not. If you have a warranty job coming up, call first and ask what they can still do.

Before Bella Nissan, this location was a Team Nissan, and Haddad Nissan before that.