Uh oh! Bought an 11 today but only charging 6 bars--return?

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Jholder

New member
Joined
May 14, 2017
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4
Hey guys---picked up a MINT 2011 today in pearl with 36k miles at the local Ford dealer who didn't have any idea about the car. Long story, I walked in with $5k in my pocket and got it for that plus tax.

BUT--charged it tonight and it's only showing a 8 bar capacity! I assume I'm past Nissan warranty? Should I immediately try to return it or what do you think? It's going to be mainly a third vehicle for running around here in town, but I also don't want to make a dumb move. Part of me thinks for $5k use what it will do, but I also don't want to be foolish.

My screen shows 61 miles, full charge and 6 bars.

Thanks!!
 
To be clear, the capacity bars are the thinnest bars all the way on the right, including the red ones. http://www.electricvehiclewiki.com/images/8/8d/Scott_3_bars_s.jpg is a 3 bar loser. Do not look at the "fuel bars" to its left (which read 12 on a full charge, regardless of remaining capacity). Do not look at the temp gauge on the left side of the dash.

Can you update your location info via your user name in the upper right > User Control Panel > Profile tab? That way, we don't need to ask in future posts/threads or do sleuthing to deduce it.

What are your daily driving needs in terms of miles? How much city vs. highway? Will you have the ability to charge at your work/destinations?

Where did this car reside before?

The capacity warranty (http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?t=13192) which didn't exist when the '11 and '12 were on sale as new are for 5 years/60K miles, whichever comes first. Clock began ticking the (first) original in-service date.
 
Did you not look at the capacity bars before you bought it? If more than 8 were showing then it may have been reset. And yes, you need to be clear on which bars are which. Six temperature bars...?
 
As for returning it, is there are written statement about the return policy on your contract? Is there some sort of mandate in your area that allows returns of used cars? You may be unable to return it.
 
Find out when the car was sold to the first owner by VIN
https://www.google.com/search?q=vin+check&oq=vin+check&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l5.2810j0j1&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
 
In this example, the car is charged up to 8 bars and has 12 bars of capacity. The immediate battery charge does not change the capacity bars.

uc
 
Hey guys – thanks for all the replies. To give some other information – the car was originally titled 8/8/2011, so I guess I am still outside the warranty. Yes – it was the outside far right lines that show me bars. The car was originally in Houston, Texas. I'm sure that really hurt it there with the heat. I live in Nashville, and around a town Square, so I will mainly use it around here. I have three other gas vehicles, so when it is a day with a lot of travel I will just use one of those.

Do you think it is even worth checking about warranty replacement? Or am I beating a dead horse? Oddly enough, I live in Rutherford County, which is home to one of the largest Nissan plants in the world and, of all things, the plant where they build the leaf battery.

I'm driving it right now as we speak in ECO and have gone 6 miles. Showing a charge of 51 miles.
 
Nissan has a program for battery replacement out of warranty where they (often, but not guaranteed) split the cost with the owner depending on how far past the warranty. If you are willing to pay $2 - 3k for a replacement, it is worth pursuing.

IIRC, your model year lets you choose whether to charge up to 80% or 100% of maximum available capacity (in your case, I think 8 bars.) 80% is better if you don't need the extra range, but the choice should be available. Read the fine user manual for instructions. This probably explains why your charge overnight brought you up to 6 bars of charge: 80% of 8 bars capacity equals 6.4 bars of charge.
 
The SOC (state of charge) indicators which are the long bars will range from 12 bars at full charge to 0 bars when fully discharged regardless of the number of capacity bars (short bars). The 80% charge option only works through the charge timer of the navigation screen. It will stop charging at either 9 or 10 SOC bars (long bars). With 8 capacity bars showing (2 red and 6 white for total of 8 showing and 4 missing) the car probably has a full-charge range of about 50 miles combined city/highway with A/C use (less if tires have higher rolling resistance than originals). I made my 52-mile round trip mostly freeway commute with normal A/C use in the summer when the 2011 was down to 8 capacity bars before Nissan replaced the battery, but I had essentially no reserve and would not have been able to make it during colder winter temperatures. I started each day at full charge and was into VLBW (very low battery warning) when I arrived home.

I am not going to tell you whether to keep the car or return it. Prices on used LEAFs vary greatly depending upon vehicle condition, battery condition, and location.
 
I worked with Nissan last month to get the battery replaced on my Jan 4 2011 LEAF. It didn't qualify for the free replacement, and lost the 4th capacity bar about 7 months past the 5 year warranty period. They offered me an 80% / 20% deal, where I paid 20% to get the battery replaced (about $1,230). They ordered in the battery, and the swap took about 1.5 days. They've done many of these swaps at the dealer, and it was smooth. Free loaner too.

I got this process started by calling the Nissan phone number (877-664-2738). They will ask you to get a battery test done at the local dealer so they can see what the status is.

Even if you decide to keep it, I think you got a decent deal for $5K. There's plenty of life left in the car....
 
SageBrush said:
Nissan has a program for battery replacement out of warranty where they (often, but not guaranteed) split the cost with the owner depending on how far past the warranty. If you are willing to pay $2 - 3k for a replacement, it is worth pursuing.
Well, Nissan's never formally announced anything like this. They've just sometimes been willing to help but it's been very YMMV.

SageBrush said:
IIRC, your model year lets you choose whether to charge up to 80% or 100% of maximum available capacity (in your case, I think 8 bars.) 80% is better if you don't need the extra range, but the choice should be available. Read the fine user manual for instructions. This probably explains why your charge overnight brought you up to 6 bars of charge: 80% of 8 bars capacity equals 6.4 bars of charge.
On an '11, the only way to do it is via the charging timer. See http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=336053#p336053.

If you charge to 80%, usually charging will stop at either 9 or 10 fuel bars, at least for me. I don't if that changes at all/much if a car has lost 4 capacity bars though.
 
Randy said:
I worked with Nissan last month to get the battery replaced on my Jan 4 2011 LEAF. It didn't qualify for the free replacement, and lost the 4th capacity bar about 7 months past the 5 year warranty period. They offered me an 80% / 20% deal, where I paid 20% to get the battery replaced (about $1,230). They ordered in the battery, and the swap took about 1.5 days. They've done many of these swaps at the dealer, and it was smooth. Free loaner too.

I got this process started by calling the Nissan phone number (877-664-2738). They will ask you to get a battery test done at the local dealer so they can see what the status is.

Even if you decide to keep it, I think you got a decent deal for $5K. There's plenty of life left in the car....

Wow...thanks so much for the info!! I will call about this tomorrow! So, given my 8 bars, would I see a significant boost to justify upgrading the battery? And, I suppose I also need to account for not only GAINING more, but some protection against losing even more. That amount of money isn't significant for the cheap peace of mind.

But, as a guess, what kind of a jump would you guess? Was your prior seeing about the same?

Thanks!!
 
A new battery would increase your range around 50% ... and I imagine give you at least a couple more years of productive use. It will certainly help the resale value.
 
Well… I called and had zero luck. They said due to the fact that I just bought it it is something I should have known when I purchased and just the risk of buying used. Guess that takes care of that. Ha!

i'm not one to give up easily, but I have also read lots of reports here where people have spun their wheels for a long time with them.
 
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