LEAF with just 3 capacity bars left

[JPWhite]

I was at the dealer this morning for my 82,500 mile service interval. I saw a White LEAF raised off the ground and two battery packs on carts close by. I remarked that it looked like they were changing the battery. Yes was the response, that LEAF came in with just 3 capacity bars left.

Yikes!! Not sure I could get to the dealer with just 3 bars to work with.

They explained it as an internal battery fault. Hope the owner got warranty coverage.

 

[Randy]

Hmm...Capacity bars are different than fuel bars...I've never seen a photo of a LEAF dash that had just 3 capacity bars left....

 

[mwalsh]

Yikes!! Not sure I could get to the dealer with just 3 bars to work with.

They explained it as an internal battery fault. Hope the owner got warranty coverage.

A defect like that would be covered under the 8 year, 100k mile materials and workmanship warranty, so almost certain that the owner would.

 

[JeremyW]

Hmm wonder if it's my old white one. I had a pretty weak cell that was severely limiting my range. Did it have Juke wheels on it?

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

sounds more like a language barrier to mean than reality

 

[Stoaty]

sounds more like a language barrier to mean than reality

You mean like a strong southern drawl that was mis-interpreted by JP?

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

sounds more like a language barrier to mean than reality

You mean like a strong southern drawl that was mis-interpreted by JP?

dk, could be anything. I guess we need to have a better understanding of what makes bars disappear. So its either a massive cell failure (a handful of cells wouldn't do it), electrical connection failure (somewhat more likely) or simply a bad read.

personally I am banking on burnt out LEDs in the dash

 

[JPWhite]

personally I am banking on burnt out LEDs in the dash

Now *that* would be hilarious.

One would hope they would do diagnostics beyond reading the dash prior to ordering a new battery pack.

I'll be back at the dealer on the 13th to get my rear wiper motor replaced (assuming the part comes in) and I'll ask the service adviser how that repair worked out for them.

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

personally I am banking on burnt out LEDs in the dash

Now *that* would be hilarious.

One would hope they would do diagnostics beyond reading the dash prior to ordering a new battery pack.

I'll be back at the dealer on the 13th to get my rear wiper motor replaced (assuming the part comes in) and I'll ask the service adviser how that repair worked out for them.

yeah would be great to find out what caused it as battery degradation is most certainly off the table.

as far as the LED comment; I as have others have reported random unexplained electrical events. My LEAF randomly changes airflow settings. This has happened probably a few dozen times maybe... Not enough for me to take the time to take it in especially considering the fact that these types of issues are the most difficult to diagnose...

 

[RegGuheert]

So its either a massive cell failure (a handful of cells wouldn't do it),..

Not so. The capacity of the LEAF is equal to the capacity of the WEAKEST cell-pair times 96. The complete failure (open) of a SINGLE CELL would result in three capacity bars remaining assuming the rest of the pack is down three or four bars (down to about 70% or so).

 

[mwalsh]

So its either a massive cell failure (a handful of cells wouldn't do it),..

Not so. The capacity of the LEAF is equal to the capacity of the WEAKEST cell-pair times 96. The complete failure (open) of a SINGLE CELL would result in three capacity bars remaining assuming the rest of the pack is down three or four bars (down to about 70% or so).

I can't see them replacing a whole pack for one bad cell though. Unless they read the data from the pack and realized that it was really close to qualifying under the capacity warranty anyway (so why pull it twice in a relatively short period of time). So it either has to be more serious than that OR there could be a new policy of replacing under any (qualifying) circumstance.

 

[garsh]

I can't see them replacing a whole pack for one bad cell though.

I could see Nissan wanting the entire pack for failure analysis. This sounds like a strange enough occurrence that they may not be completely sure of the root cause.

 

[fooljoe]

I can't see them replacing a whole pack for one bad cell though. Unless they read the data from the pack and realized that it was really close to qualifying under the capacity warranty anyway (so why pull it twice in a relatively short period of time). So it either has to be more serious than that OR there could be a new policy of replacing under any (qualifying) circumstance.

Much easier to swap out the whole pack than to try and fix a bad cell. Either way you have to pull and remount the whole thing, but I'm pretty sure cracking the thing open and messing with the cells inside is something Nissan doesn't want any techs at dealers doing at this point.

 

[RegGuheert]

I can't see them replacing a whole pack for one bad cell though.

Note that if there was one open cell, the other cell in that pair ALSO needed to be down about 30% to get to three capacity bars. Likely the entire pack was also down that far. In other words, it was almost there already.

I suspect that is why the cell died: it got massively tortured after the range got very low and it eventually gave up the ghost.