Had the P3227 reprogram done today: interesting results.

[gbarry42]

I just read of your problem and I have to point out that you used to get 100 miles in California and now you get a lot less in Oregon. Climate, terrain, and choice of roads are among the many factors that could play into this. 100 mile range is pretty unusual outside of Arizona or Florida anyway. Here in S. Ca. I don't think I'd ever beat 70.

Be that as it may, you might think about doing a test where you really do go all the way to turtle. That way you can cut out all the speculation about the GOM. And you could have Nissan tow the car back, then call them back up and tell them it's now costing them money.

Does that towing thing expire with our warranty?

 

[thew]

I just read of your problem and I have to point out that you used to get 100 miles in California and now you get a lot less in Oregon. Climate, terrain, and choice of roads are among the many factors that could play into this. 100 mile range is pretty unusual outside of Arizona or Florida anyway. Here in S. Ca. I don't think I'd ever beat 70.

Be that as it may, you might think about doing a test where you really do go all the way to turtle. That way you can cut out all the speculation about the GOM. And you could have Nissan tow the car back, then call them back up and tell them it's now costing them money.

Does that towing thing expire with our warranty?

Nope sorry it was like this before the move to Oregon, and our Situation here is very similar to the SB setup.. About the Same Weather and Hills in my commute etc.. We had the issue form the very next day the car was flashed. We even called the Dealer and complained about it then.. This Issue with range was/ is like a Night and Day thing.. The very next Charge after the Reflash was done we had the issue.. Before we moved..

 

[Stoaty]

Unlikely. If the GOM is showing 3 miles, meaning no VLBW yet (which shows ---), you will likely have more miles than that before turtle.

Regardless, the Leaf DD will let you drive the lower part of the battery with confidence. As you may know, LBW is at 49 Gid and VLBW is at 24 Gid. As the battery degrades those numbers represent an increasing proportion of the total state of charge because they are fixed.

Just got back from a trip I started with about 45% Gids (hadn't charged because I thought the trip was cancelled). On the way home when I saw 5 miles on the range estimator--and it was flashing--I might have freaked out if I didn't have my LeafDD, which showed I had 12% Gids (35 Gids) left. Didn't even hit VLBW. I would much rather know how many electrons are left in the tank than how many miles the Leaf thinks I can drive on those electrons.

 

[thew]

Unlikely. If the GOM is showing 3 miles, meaning no VLBW yet (which shows ---), you will likely have more miles than that before turtle.

Regardless, the Leaf DD will let you drive the lower part of the battery with confidence. As you may know, LBW is at 49 Gid and VLBW is at 24 Gid. As the battery degrades those numbers represent an increasing proportion of the total state of charge because they are fixed.

Just got back from a trip I started with about 45% Gids (hadn't charged because I thought the trip was cancelled). On the way home when I saw 5 miles on the range estimator--and it was flashing--I might have freaked out if I didn't have my LeafDD, which showed I had 12% Gids (35 Gids) left. Didn't even hit VLBW. I would much rather know how many electrons are left in the tank than how many miles the Leaf thinks I can drive on those electrons.

Nice.. its to bad.. I used to have to use a Pack Tracker on my ZAP PK Truck.. IT worked great.. But it sure does annoy me that Nissan doesn't not just give us the Data we want on the Dash we have..

 

[dgpcolorado]

... IT worked great.. But it sure does annoy me that Nissan doesn't not just give us the Data we want on the Dash we have..

Yes, some sort of energy gauge would sure be nice. However, Nissan has improved things for 2013 and later models (at the suggestion of 2011 LEAF owners) by including a %SOC gauge. It isn't as good as Gids because it will still show 100% as full even after the battery is degraded, so each percent will be have gradually declining energy content. But it is way better than the twelve fuel bars and the GoM that we have on our cars.

As Stoaty said, having Leaf DD (or another Gid meter such as Leaf Spy) completely changes how one uses the bottom of the battery. Makes trips below LBW, and even VLBW, routine.

 

[TimLee]

Had P3227 last Friday along with battery usage check ... Now, a full week later, it is reading 55 Ahr! I'm surprised that I didn't regain a capacity bar. -Karl

Karl,
Did the dealer do a proper CVLI test this year like you had wanted them to do last year and they did not do?
You were concerned about cell pair with low voltage and range impact.
Have you done CVLI using LEAF Spy Pro?

I'm still avoiding P3227 due to regeneration concerns, but appears your impacts were modest and range improvement was good. Did the range hold up over the last eight months?

 

[nerys]

how do I know if I have the new firmware or not?

 

[TimLee]

how do I know if I have the new firmware or not?

I don't think there is any way to check it yourself.
If it hasn't been done, the dealer service screen will list it as a pending item that has not been done yet.
I asked the dealer to NOT do it when I had the third annual battery "test" done and it still shows pending for my VIN.

 

[Valdemar]

Indirectly, if you see available regen bubbles disappearing as you accelerate to freeway speeds above 50% SOC you likely have it. At least I don't think mine did before I had it applied.

 

[TickTock]

Indirectly, if you see available regen bubbles disappearing as you accelerate to freeway speeds above 50% SOC you likely have it. At least I don't think mine did before I had it applied.

I don't think this is a good test. I noticed this (loss of regen during acceleration) almost immediately after taking possession of mine in 2011. The reports on the impact of the update are varied - some people are impacted more than others. Supposedly, the update improved accuracy so each persons impact will depend on the nature of the pre-update inaccuracy.

 

[kolmstead]

TimLee: My car's not due for fourth battery usage report until mid-January. I probably won't bother asking for CVLI again after last year's experience. I haven't updated to the version of LeafSpy that will do CVLI yet. If the warm weather holds, I'll probably lose the third capacity bar by the end of October. Just under 31K miles on the car. As of this morning, my battery stats were:

100% charge
95.4% SOC
202 GIDs / 71.99%
16.2 kWh
47.23 Ahr
Hx 51.35

-Karl

 

[QueenBee]

Indirectly, if you see available regen bubbles disappearing as you accelerate to freeway speeds above 50% SOC you likely have it. At least I don't think mine did before I had it applied.

I don't think this is a good test. I noticed this (loss of regen during acceleration) almost immediately after taking possession of mine in 2011. The reports on the impact of the update are varied - some people are impacted more than others. Supposedly, the update improved accuracy so each persons impact will depend on the nature of the pre-update inaccuracy.

That's definitely not a good test at all. My car did that before the update...

 

[Valdemar]

Indirectly, if you see available regen bubbles disappearing as you accelerate to freeway speeds above 50% SOC you likely have it. At least I don't think mine did before I had it applied.

I don't think this is a good test. I noticed this (loss of regen during acceleration) almost immediately after taking possession of mine in 2011. The reports on the impact of the update are varied - some people are impacted more than others. Supposedly, the update improved accuracy so each persons impact will depend on the nature of the pre-update inaccuracy.

That's definitely not a good test at all. My car did that before the update...

Well, can we at least agree that if the regen bubbles are not disappearing at highway speeds then P3227 hasn't been installed?

 

[TickTock]

Here's a plot that may shed some light on the mysterious P3227 update. I got the update on 07/10/2013. You can definitely see that the volatility of the 100% SOC gid number reduced dramatically. Also, had I not had an independent power meter on the charger, I might have thought my capacity got a bump up since the gids did. However, the actual charge from the wall to fully charge the car did not change much. Another interesting trend I am seeing is the charge from the wall appears to have started declining at a faster rate starting around 06/27/2014. The rate of decline in the gid count is remaining steady. What happened on 06/27? That was the day I lost my fourth bar.

(note: since I start charge at different charge levels each day, I normalized the data by extrapolating the actual charge of each charging session to the amount I *would* have used had I charged from 0 gids)

 

[TomT]

I have the latest version but am not sure how to initiate the test from it... I'm sure it is in one of the plethora of screens but I seem to have missed it... Hints?

I haven't updated to the version of LeafSpy that will do CVLI yet.

 

[RegGuheert]

I have the latest version but am not sure how to initiate the test from it... I'm sure it is in one of the plethora of screens but I seem to have missed it... Hints?

I haven't updated to the version of LeafSpy that will do CVLI yet.

You don't need the latest version. You can easily calculate CVLI from the data on the main screen in LEAFSpy.

Here is the equation: Comparison Voltage = Vavg - 1.5(Vmax - Vavg)

If Vmin is below this level AND below 3.712V, then the cell with the minimum voltage fails the CVLI test.

All that said, it is nice that it does it.

I just put another column in my spreadsheet which calculates this each time I enter battery data, but it really should be done as close to Vmin = 3.712V as possible to be a reasonable test for Nissan. (I'm convinced that you can ALWAYS get a failure if you drain your battery far enough. I also think the test is not useful unless your pack is very well balanced.) You can also put a threshold on that to flag the ones in the spreadsheet that are below that in a different color.

What happened on 06/27? That was the day I lost my fourth bar.

O.K. That's weird! I expected degradation to accelerate, but a step change in slope seems a bit contrived. I wonder what is going on there.

Anyway, thanks for the data and thanks for being the guinea pig who is willing to take their LEAF below four bars! You will benefit by having a newer battery later and hopefully with better technology.

 

[TickTock]

Anyway, thanks for the data and thanks for being the guinea pig who is willing to take their LEAF below four bars! You will benefit by having a newer battery later and hopefully with better technology.

Yeah. That's my real motivation - I want to milk as much out of this battery as possible since I will only get one free replacement. My round trip commute is only 50 miles so I am not hurting for range.

I suspect the recent phenomenon is just a coincidence. However, the timing certainly caused me to raise an eyebrow.

 

[TimLee]

I have the latest version but am not sure how to initiate the test from it... I'm sure it is in one of the plethora of screens but I seem to have missed it... Hints?

I haven't updated to the version of LeafSpy that will do CVLI yet.

If the vehicle is parked and average cell pair voltage drops below 3.712V, then LEAF Spy Pro will begin displaying the cell pairs that don't meet the CVLI criteria. I was watching the graph of cell pair voltages that has min, average, and max voltages below it. But it may be on other screens too. Not sure.
Info in LEAF Spy Pro thread said below Low Battery Warning.
But on my 2011 with one lost capacity bar and no P3227 software change I was half way towards Very Low Battery before I hit that voltage.
Test is valid at only low power drain, so I turned off HVAC and had three bad cell pairs at that point.

I stopped at Very Low Battery and showed eight at that point.
The manual just says below 3.712V.
But RegGuheert is right that the lower average voltage drops the more will fail the criteria and show bad.
I might have had fifteen at Turtle. But I did not want to take it to Turtle. Bad for the battery.

Whether Nissan will replace modules based on bad CVLI cell pairs is unclear.
Fairly unlikely they would replace all that show bad at Turtle and less likely the number at final LEAF automatic shutdown.

Someone will have to confront Nissan on the issue. I haven't but will before my extended 7 year / 70,000 mile warranty expires. But I'm only 1/3 of the way there at this point. If Nissan will replace modules that fail CVLI it should also be covered under the 8 year / 100,000 mile battery warranty.

 

[jhm614]

Anyway, thanks for the data and thanks for being the guinea pig who is willing to take their LEAF below four bars! You will benefit by having a newer battery later and hopefully with better technology.

Yeah. That's my real motivation - I want to milk as much out of this battery as possible since I will only get one free replacement. My round trip commute is only 50 miles so I am not hurting for range.

I suspect the recent phenomenon is just a coincidence. However, the timing certainly caused me to raise an eyebrow.

Do you think you will bump up on the time or mileage limit of the warranty first?

J.

 

[TickTock]

Anyway, thanks for the data and thanks for being the guinea pig who is willing to take their LEAF below four bars! You will benefit by having a newer battery later and hopefully with better technology.

Yeah. That's my real motivation - I want to milk as much out of this battery as possible since I will only get one free replacement. My round trip commute is only 50 miles so I am not hurting for range.

I suspect the recent phenomenon is just a coincidence. However, the timing certainly caused me to raise an eyebrow.

Do you think you will bump up on the time or mileage limit of the warranty first?

J.

It'll be close, but I should hit 60K miles at about 4.5 years.