Update on Nissan LEAF Battery Replacement

[GRA]

One thing I just don't get about all this talk about the Autobahn: isn't gas ridiculously expensive in Germany? If so, how can all these people afford to be driving 125 mph??? :? I mean, really now, at 125 mph any gasoline car has to be getting only a few mpg, you can probably watch the fuel gauge drop. There MUST be a slow lane, for people who want to drive a "normal" 70 mph, right? :roll:

If you can afford to buy a car costing $100k or more, is the fact that gas is something like $10/gal. likely to be of concern to you? It's not as if financial value is a primary consideration for such purchases.

 

[GRA]

1. $5000 + tax + labor. Must trade in present battery

Is that current? ISTR when it was introduced it was $5,499 + tax/labor.

 

[keydiver]

If you can afford to buy a car costing $100k or more, is the fact that gas is something like $10/gal. likely to be of concern to you? It's not as if financial value is a primary consideration for such purchases.

Yes, but my point was that not EVERY car has to do 130 mph, you have a choice, so all this banter about a car not being ready for the Autobahn is nonsense. Half the cars I see driving the streets of German cities would be hard pressed to hit 100 mph, much less 130 mph. I think a Tesla would be just fine on the Autobahn as long as you stay in the right lane and do a reasonable mph. I would much rather have a QUICK car over a FAST car any day, its much more useful, not to mention safer. Besides, many Germans are very frugal people (I'm part German), and the idea of blowing $10/gallon gas out the tailpipe just because "you can" doesn't work for me.

 

[91040]

I stand corrected. See the first post of this thread. Don't know what if anything has changed since then.

1. $5000 + tax + labor. Must trade in present battery

Is that current? ISTR when it was introduced it was $5,499 + tax/labor.

 

[TimLee]

...1. What is the current cost of a replacement battery?
2. I know the cost has been going down. Any projections on what the cost will be in the future (when I need to replace mine)? I have a 2013 with 18K on it now.
3. Not to get off topic again, but looking for a good way to read my current battery status. Any suggestions? (preferably in a plugin reader with a bluetooth connection to a smart phone or computer)

1. I think Nissan MSRP is still $5,499 for the battery with trade in battery.
If 2011 or 2012 you have to also buy the kit to install a 2013 forward design battery.
2. Early on some dealers were reported to be selling the battery below Nissan MSRP.
I have not read any such reports in the last six months or so.
You might search through TaylorSFGuy or Mwalsh posts.
3. LEAF Spy Pro with either Android $14.99 app or iOS $19.99 app.
WiFi adapter the developer uses is LYL with a specfic double connector OBDII cable.
See http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=44&t=18917&start=180#p429802.

 

[edatoakrun]

.... I think Nissan MSRP is still $5,499 for the battery with trade in battery.
If 2011 or 2012 you have to also buy the kit to install a 2013 forward design battery.
2. Early on some dealers were reported to be selling the battery below Nissan MSRP...

Since, AFAIK, no one has actually bought a replacement for their OE pack yet, it's impossible to know precisely what the actual cost will be, when and if that happens.

Since we know a LEAF remains a functional BEV (albeit one with shorter single-charge range) after losing capacity bar four and five, and since LEAFs (IMO) likely will still be very usable for even shorter range needs after losing (at least) several bars more, I believe few LEAF owners will ever want to replace their OE packs, even at what was considered such a bargain price when it was announced by Nissan.

See TaylorSF's recent comment on what he anticipates for his 2011 LEAF:

Down 5 bars at 141,000 miles

http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=20275

...As we go along, things seem to be getting better and better in the world of Nissan EV. If the purported higher capacity battery packs are interchangeable, Nissan has followed through on everything I hoped for when I started this journey more than 4 years ago. The multiple model levels introduced in the last couple of years have made the car more attractive to me.

I am currently charging midway at least once each direction of my commute. The recent GID drop supports my impression that it is getting harder to go this distance. There will come a time when I say enough is enough and I don't want to try and make the old battery continue to work for this commute. I anticipate that to be somewhere around 150,000 miles. It will continue to be a great errand runner...

 

[TimLee]

Since, AFAIK, no one has actually bought a replacement for their OE pack yet, it's impossible to know precisely what the actual cost will be, when and if that happens.

Since we know a LEAF remains a functional BEV (albeit one with shorter single-charge range) after losing capacity bar four and five, and since LEAFs (IMO) likely will still be very usable for even shorter range needs after losing (at least) several bars more, I believe few LEAF owners will ever want to replace their OE packs, even at what was considered such a bargain price when it was announced by Nissan.

There was a post by someone on MNL about a year back who had purchased a replacement battery.

I agree a LEAF will remain functional for short range use even with six or seven capacity bars missing.

If I fail to qualify for capacity warranty replacement, since I am retired and only make the 32 miles roundtrip to downtown once a week, I would be OK with making do with dealer free downtown DCQC if it is repaired.

But making do with L2 on a 3.8 kW on board charger is a long wait. But $6,000 is still a lot to spend on a five year old 35,000 mile vehicle that the market says is only worth $2,000 :?

 

[edatoakrun]

...There was a post by someone on MNL about a year back who had purchased a replacement battery...

Where?

I remember someone saying they wanted to buy one, but, IIRC, they never reported doing so.

... But $6,000 is still a lot to spend on a five year old 35,000 mile vehicle that the market says is only worth $2,000...

Reality check, Tim.

Assuming your LEAF is in at least good condition, I expect you can get at least three or four times $2,000 locally in a private party sale.

If you can't get twice that much, and really want to sell, PM me and I'll look up shipping quotes...

 

[JPWhite]

...There was a post by someone on MNL about a year back who had purchased a replacement battery...

Where?

I remember someone saying they wanted to buy one, but, IIRC, they never reported doing so.

... But $6,000 is still a lot to spend on a five year old 35,000 mile vehicle that the market says is only worth $2,000...

Reality check, Tim.

Assuming your LEAF is in at least good condition, I expect you can get at least three or four times $2,000 locally in a private party sale.

If you can't get twice that much, and really want to sell, PM me and I'll look up shipping quotes...

A Nashville dealer offered me $3,500 trade. When I said I was hoping for $6,000 they laughed. So a private sale might get that.

 

[redLEAF]

...There was a post by someone on MNL about a year back who had purchased a replacement battery...

Where?

I remember someone saying they wanted to buy one, but, IIRC, they never reported doing so.

... But $6,000 is still a lot to spend on a five year old 35,000 mile vehicle that the market says is only worth $2,000...

Reality check, Tim.

Assuming your LEAF is in at least good condition, I expect you can get at least three or four times $2,000 locally in a private party sale.

If you can't get twice that much, and really want to sell, PM me and I'll look up shipping quotes...

A Nashville dealer offered me $3,500 trade. When I said I was hoping for $6,000 they laughed. So a private sale might get that.

Wow, that has to be the lowest trade-in quote I've seen ... another option (would assume they have 1 or 2 in Nashville) might be to go to Carmax to see what the 'true' wholesale value might be, worth a shot anyway -- you may have posted earlier but what's the year, mileage, model, etc. of you LEAF ?

 

[GRA]

If you can afford to buy a car costing $100k or more, is the fact that gas is something like $10/gal. likely to be of concern to you? It's not as if financial value is a primary consideration for such purchases.

Yes, but my point was that not EVERY car has to do 130 mph, you have a choice, so all this banter about a car not being ready for the Autobahn is nonsense. Half the cars I see driving the streets of German cities would be hard pressed to hit 100 mph, much less 130 mph. I think a Tesla would be just fine on the Autobahn as long as you stay in the right lane and do a reasonable mph. I would much rather have a QUICK car over a FAST car any day, its much more useful, not to mention safer. Besides, many Germans are very frugal people (I'm part German), and the idea of blowing $10/gallon gas out the tailpipe just because "you can" doesn't work for me.

You're assuming that the average person who's spent that kind of money on a car will be content to be passed by people driving cars that cost $1,000s of dollars less. Let's face it, beyond a car for basic transportation, image/status plays a larger and larger role in the willingness//desire to spend money on a car. I imagine people at the lower end of the economic spectrum would just take the train instead of the autobahn for longer trips.

 

[GRA]

A Nashville dealer offered me $3,500 trade. When I said I was hoping for $6,000 they laughed. So a private sale might get that.

Wow, that has to be the lowest trade-in quote I've seen ... another option (would assume they have 1 or 2 in Nashville) might be to go to Carmax to see what the 'true' wholesale value might be, worth a shot anyway -- you may have posted earlier but what's the year, mileage, model, etc. of you LEAF ?

See his sig and member info for the details.

 

[redLEAF]

A Nashville dealer offered me $3,500 trade. When I said I was hoping for $6,000 they laughed. So a private sale might get that.

Wow, that has to be the lowest trade-in quote I've seen ... another option (would assume they have 1 or 2 in Nashville) might be to go to Carmax to see what the 'true' wholesale value might be, worth a shot anyway -- you may have posted earlier but what's the year, mileage, model, etc. of you LEAF ?

See his sig and member info for the details.

Hah, I see that, posted too quickly, edmunds pegged it at around $8,600 on a trade, even with the 70K plus miles using a Chicago area zip and 'clean' condition, not sure how Nashville compares; would have to believe Carmax might get closer to that than that local Nissan dealer who sounds like he just doesn't want your trade at all

 

[JPWhite]

Wow, that has to be the lowest trade-in quote I've seen ... another option (would assume they have 1 or 2 in Nashville) might be to go to Carmax to see what the 'true' wholesale value might be, worth a shot anyway -- you may have posted earlier but what's the year, mileage, model, etc. of you LEAF ?

I have a 2011 SL with 71000 miles which is what the dealer used to give me my trade in value towards the end of last month. I was looking to see if the deals being offered to clear the 2015 models would make it equitable to trade. Being offered a trade value that I consider to be in Hooptie territory I chose to wait for a better deal. I'll update my signature to reflect the loss of my third capacity bar, but the rest of the details in my sig reflect the age/mileage of my LEAF.

 

[cwerdna]

A Nashville dealer offered me $3,500 trade. When I said I was hoping for $6,000 they laughed. So a private sale might get that.

Hah, I see that, posted too quickly, edmunds pegged it at around $8,600 on a trade, even with the 70K plus miles using a Chicago area zip and 'clean' condition, not sure how Nashville compares; would have to believe Carmax might get closer to that than that local Nissan dealer who sounds like he just doesn't want your trade at all

That Edmunds $8600 trade in value is laughably high for 2011 Leaf, esp. w/70K miles considering I paid $9,325 + tax and license for a '13 Leaf SV w/premium package w/under 24K miles: http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=430825#p430825.

 

[redLEAF]

A Nashville dealer offered me $3,500 trade. When I said I was hoping for $6,000 they laughed. So a private sale might get that.

Hah, I see that, posted too quickly, edmunds pegged it at around $8,600 on a trade, even with the 70K plus miles using a Chicago area zip and 'clean' condition, not sure how Nashville compares; would have to believe Carmax might get closer to that than that local Nissan dealer who sounds like he just doesn't want your trade at all

That Edmunds $8600 trade in value is laughably high for 2011 Leaf, esp. w/70K miles considering I paid $9,325 + tax and license for a '13 Leaf SV w/premium package w/under 24K miles: http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=430825#p430825.

It's simply another point of reference during negotiations; on ICE's, edmunds is not so far off but I agree that EV's are an entirely different animal. Even when you might think that a Nissan dealer would have a higher trade-in allowance as they would be in a better position to resell, many don't bother and simply wholesale it like any other trade-in (perhaps if the car had less than 60K than over 70K, don't know). Just like the Carmax aspect; some feel they lowball big time but in my own personal experience, its simply another point of reference ... I will sell private a 'unique' or classic, etc. car myself as it has a limited group of buyers but when it comes to my daily transportation, I get a few reference price points and then typically trade it in --- here in IL you also get the sales tax (6.25%) amount reduced by the trade-in value so you need to factor that in as well --- again, look at all the angles to get what you yourself feel is a 'fair' deal -- right off the bat, $3,500 seemed just as absurd, but I didn't have anything to compare it too. In my own case, my '12 has about 33K miles, still has close to all 12 bars with a few percent drop in capacity, but still plenty for my commute, etc. so it will stay around for a bit more ... if it was an '11 and had 71K perhaps I'd be looking as well and be sorely disappointed as 'JPWhite'; hopefully that's still a few years away for a time when EV's will be thought of as mainstream but perhaps not and I'd have to resort to a private sale to an 'informed' buyer or otherwise get salvage values for it.

 

[BudRaymond]

So who here has actually had a battery pack replaced under warranty?

 

[harrier]

These resale values might explain Nissan's reluctance to announce replacement batteries with higher range. Better to make the new model more attractive than unleash tens of thousands of old ones with longer range?

 

[mwalsh]

So who here has actually had a battery pack replaced under warranty?

According to the Wiki, 42 people have reported 4 bar loss. A very small percentage, maybe two or three, were out of warranty for mileage. So assuming all who were eligible made a warranty claim, we have maybe 40 MNL users with a new pack.

 

[cwerdna]

So who here has actually had a battery pack replaced under warranty?

There have been a bunch. See http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=14102.

I haven't followed the thread but from http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=412623#p412623 onwards are a bunch.