Nissan "Out-of-Warranty" support for battery pack degradation

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"Your degradation is right about what Nissan expected. Why do you think the warranty period was chosen to be 5 years ?
Hopefully you were smart enough to buy the car cheap."

If Nissan expected only 5 years of battery life why they said nothing about this when they sale this car to us??? We paid a full coverage warranty because the sales person said it will cover everything Included battery for 7 years and 100000 miles.When we come with this problem they said this warranty is not cover capacity lost just cover battery defects. In my opinion, this battery is a deffect and should be cover by Nissan. Do I have to be an expert in this car to understand all aspects of degradation before to buy because Nissan lied to customer with no providing full information for the battery degradation?

It was not cheap. This price is not right because now we have to pay for the battery. We could buy a new car instead of used car if they provided the full information for the battery capacity degradation. There is no sense to buy a used car and pay $5000$ for the battery exchange.
 
nbeker said:
... Do I have to be an expert in this car to understand all aspects of degradation before to buy...
Expert, no, but you have to research your vehicles, any vehicle, before you buy them. You could have found out about all of this here before you bought. If you had come here when they made you the 1/3 offer, you would have gotten advice to take it before it went away.

Is Nissan handling this well? No, they aren't, but yelling about it to us isn't going to help.
 
davewill said:
nbeker said:
... Do I have to be an expert in this car to understand all aspects of degradation before to buy...
Expert, no, but you have to research your vehicles, any vehicle, before you buy them. You could have found out about all of this here before you bought. If you had come here when they made you the 1/3 offer, you would have gotten advice to take it before it went away.

Is Nissan handling this well? No, they aren't, but yelling about it to us isn't going to help.

I am not agree I have to do research on electrical car before buying because two years ago there was no much info for Nissan Leaf battery problems. I still believe this is Nissan responsibility to provide all info for the possible problems with this car. If Nissan knows for this problem and does not inform me as a customer, this is mean Nissan lies. If Nissan did not know for this barrety problem and therefore did not provide all info, this is mean Nissan has no professional engineers and experts.

I am not yelling to you or somebody else.English is my second language,sorry if you think I am yelling. I see no way to solve this problem now.

I only want other buyers like me think twice before making any deal with Nissan.
 
It is sad... In every other way the Leaf is a great car. I thought Nissan decided to do the honorable thing and help to pay a percentage of replacement cost on out of warranty vehicles. They did briefly, but have sadly pulled the rug out and no longer help replace what I call a sub standard battery pack design.

They still deny that they have a poorly designed pack and are still selling it that way even with the upcoming 2018 model. Will they finally fix the 2019 and correct the battery design flaws? Will they continue to use us as their great failed battery experiment without compensation?

Yes, hindsight is 20/20 but they should have provided a TMS and certainly before now. It is OK to search, and continue to do research, for the holy grail in their quest for a non TMS battery, but not at customers expense. If their Engineering/Experimental Department wants to continue to find a non TMS solution behind the curtain, that's fine. Just sell us cars with TMS, that has proven to work on other brands, for now.

Nissan has lost the confidence of many of it's customers. Also the public at large, may perceive that all electric vehicles have the same Achilles heel and not purchase any brand of electric vehicle. We really love our 2 Nissan Leafs, just not the rapid battery degradation and loss of resale value (most likely) because of it.
 
"If Nissan expected only 5 years of battery life why they said nothing about this when they sale this car to us???"

For the same reason that some ICE manufacturers do not tell you that some transmissions are engineered to last past the warranty period ... but not much more. For the same reasons that American cars became expensive cars to repair after about 100k miles, but no dealership ever told a prospective owner so. For the same reason that many German brands depreciated horribly once the new car warranty expires but it is surely not mentioned by a salesperson.

Degradation and defect are very different things, and you are confusing the two. You are banging your head against a brick wall here.
The LEAF battery is poor. I know it, now you know it too. But it is not a defect issue, and you are past warranty.

So, where do you stand ? You are either going to manage with your current battery, buy a replacement, or trash the car and buy something else. If the battery replacement range works for you for the next 5 years or so, it is the least expensive alternative. If you give up the ranting, perhaps Nissan will once again offer a 30% discount. Just grow up and act civil. And if needed, apologize for past behavior.
And this time do your homework and get in writing the warranty provisions of the replacement battery before you decide to purchase.
 
nbeker said:
If Nissan expected only 5 years of battery life why they said nothing about this when they sale this car to us???
You bought from a Nissan dealer. In the US (I can only assume you are from the mention of the 877 number and usage of $ since you didn't update your info to include your location), in most states, automakers cannot own dealerships due to state franchise laws. Google for tesla franchise laws to get an idea of Tesla's legal battles.

As for 5 years or battery life or whatever, your battery still works. Whether or not it is still suitable for your use cases depends on its condition and number of miles of range autonomy required on a single charge for how that person drives. My commute's under 13 miles each way and I have free charging at work. If I fully charged at home and a work, I could be down 11 bars and still make my commute w/my Leaf.

Right now my 5/2013 built '13 Leaf still has all 12 bars but is getting close to losing 1, from Leaf Spy stats.
nbeker said:
We paid a full coverage warranty because the sales person said it will cover everything Included battery for 7 years and 100000 miles.When we come with this problem they said this warranty is not cover capacity lost just cover battery defects.
What did the warranty say? If it didn't say it covered gradual capacity loss or capacity loss at all, the onus was on you to read it and understand what you were buying. It's not the 1st time a salesman has made statements (sometimes misleading or incorrect) to make a sale.
nbeker said:
In my opinion, this battery is a deffect and should be cover by Nissan. Do I have to be an expert in this car to understand all aspects of degradation before to buy because Nissan lied to customer with no providing full information for the battery degradation?
Read the terms of the factory 8 year/100K battery defects warranty in the warranty booklet (also found at https://owners.nissanusa.com/content/techpub/ManualsAndGuides/LEAF/2012/2012-LEAF-warranty-booklet.pdf) and whatever extended warranty you may have bought. Also see http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?t=13192.

Again, it's highly unlikely the dealership you bought from was owned by Nissan, so Nissan didn't lie, an independently owned dealership person may have lied to you.

Nissan, the company unfortunately has not been forthcoming in general about battery degradation on Leafs. As I've pointed out at http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=22446&p=469608&hilit=perry+20+30#p469608 and elsewhere, Mark Perry (who retired in late 2012 from Nissan) asserted in March 2012 that after 10 years, you'll have about 70 to 80% capacity remaining which turns out be WAY off for the batteries of the time.

There were other claims, like http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=359497.
nbeker said:
I am not agree I have to do research on electrical car before buying because two years ago there was no much info for Nissan Leaf battery problems.
Sure there was, from a degradation point of view.

TonyWilliams ran a range test in September 2012: https://web.archive.org/web/20130115102522/http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=228326. There were 1 to 4 capacity bar losers when the Leaf had only been out ~21 months. Blue494 was the worst at 4 bars down. http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=8802 was started in in May 2012 and grew to over 700 pages.

http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=9694 has a summary and timeline. http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=10257 was from Oct 2012. There also a Phoenix townhall from Jan 2013 in the page 2 summary page.

People have been talking about capacity loss since May 2012, if not earlier.

http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=14102 was started to discuss battery replacements in 2013. Looks like the earliest I can find in there is a replacement in July 2013: http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=13549&p=313358#p313358.

Also, YEARS ago, Stoaty + some other put together an aging model based upon what they knew of the '11 and '12 Leaf batteries of the time. It's at http://www.electricvehiclewiki.com/Battery_Capacity_Loss#Battery_Aging_Model. TickTock posted about his meeting w/a Nissan engineer in 2012 and the graph he reconstructed from memory at http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=230478#p230478 and http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=230575#p230575.
 
Nissan does give service to their products that are in warrantee fpr a new car.

What you did was buy a USED car. Nissan may have responsibilities for their cars, but not necessarily for YOUR car. It is like if a company sells you a cell phone (with a sealed internal battery) at full price. If after a few years you buy the phone used from a friend, they have no responsibility to you because "who knows" what has been done to that product.

Unfortunate, but used sales are legally "CAVEAT EMPTOR", or you own it.
 
I bought a new car from Nissan, back in April 2011, and there remains an eight year, 100K mile warranty on the functioning of the battery pack. At about 71,500 odometer miles as of today, the fact is that the usability of the car is severely compromised. My "reward" for caring for the battery pack, mainly by keeping it out of the heat, is to learn via the experience of other forum posters that I'm on my own.

When the car loses the fourth capacity bar, possibly sometime next year, I will consider pushing for warranty relief. Regenerative braking is very, very limited, which would now constitute a safety hazard if I were to attempt to drive the car "normally" down our mountain, with a reasonable battery temperature (four or five temp bars) to the nearest Nissan dealer. For this very reason, it's been almost a year since I last drove our LEAF all the way down the mountain, and when I did so, I had to make multiple stops to let the brakes cool off. Any reasonable person should be able to agree that the car has a defective and not fully functional battery system.

powersurge said:
Nissan does give service to their products that are in warrantee fpr a new car.

What you did was buy a USED car. Nissan may have responsibilities for their cars, but not necessarily for YOUR car. It is like if a company sells you a cell phone (with a sealed internal battery) at full price. If after a few years you buy the phone used from a friend, they have no responsibility to you because "who knows" what has been done to that product.

Unfortunate, but used sales are legally "CAVEAT EMPTOR", or you own it.
 
abasile said:
...When the car loses the fourth capacity bar, possibly sometime next year, I will consider pushing for warranty relief...
Why wait for the fourth capacity bar to drop, and the non-existent warranty?

abasile said:
...Regenerative braking is very, very limited, which would now constitute a safety hazard if I were to attempt to drive the car "normally" down our mountain, with a reasonable battery temperature (four or five temp bars) to the nearest Nissan dealer. For this very reason, it's been almost a year since I last drove our LEAF all the way down the mountain, and when I did so, I had to make multiple stops to let the brakes cool off. Any reasonable person should be able to agree that the car has a defective and not fully functional battery system...
If that statement is correct, it sounds to me like your LEAF had a defect in its design, which Nissan had a duty to disclose to you at the time of sale, and it certainly sounds like you consider this defect to be causing you a major problem today.

So why are you waiting for the fourth idiot bar to drop?
 
abasile said:
When the car loses the fourth capacity bar, possibly sometime next year, I will consider pushing for warranty relief. Regenerative braking is very, very limited, which would now constitute a safety hazard if I were to attempt to drive the car "normally" down our mountain, with a reasonable battery temperature (four or five temp bars) to the nearest Nissan dealer. For this very reason, it's been almost a year since I last drove our LEAF all the way down the mountain, and when I did so, I had to make multiple stops to let the brakes cool off.
Is this different than any ICE car ?
 
SageBrush said:
abasile said:
When the car loses the fourth capacity bar, possibly sometime next year, I will consider pushing for warranty relief. Regenerative braking is very, very limited, which would now constitute a safety hazard if I were to attempt to drive the car "normally" down our mountain, with a reasonable battery temperature (four or five temp bars) to the nearest Nissan dealer. For this very reason, it's been almost a year since I last drove our LEAF all the way down the mountain, and when I did so, I had to make multiple stops to let the brakes cool off.
Is this different than any ICE car ?
Sure! Any ICE car would have a low gear selection that would allow engine braking to be used so that the brakes didn't overheat. It's a safety hazard as it is since the heating could come on with little warning and cause an accident.
 
edatoakrun said:
So why are you waiting for the fourth idiot bar to drop?
Good question. Maybe I shouldn't be waiting. I guess I've figured that my case is more likely to get attention from Nissan if four bars are missing, but it's absolutely true that the above-mentioned safety issue exists today.

In a way, this has been like the case of boiling a frog to death in water that gradually heats up. Our LEAF's regenerative braking was great when new, and it remained pretty decent for a couple of years. It gradually got worse and worse, requiring us to adapt our driving behavior. Now it's lousy even at lower SOCs. We've dealt with this by not driving down the mountain, but that truly is absurd on the face of it. The car still has enough range to climb the mountain (there's now an EVgo QC right at the base of CA-330), so we're limited by regen behavior more than anything else.
 
abasile said:
so we're limited by regen behavior more than anything else.
I'm curious, have you had the 2013 P3227 service campaign done? I recall there were reports that it limited regen more than the original 2011 programming. Presumably that would have been in order to reduce stress on the battery and extend battery life to reduce claims under the then-new warranty capacity.

FWIW, I have a 2011 Nissan Leaf as well and am waiting for the 4th bar to drop to pursue a battery replacement. I opted out of the class action settlement and have avoided the P3227 service campaign so far.

Cheers, Wayne
 
wwhitney said:
I'm curious, have you had the 2013 P3227 service campaign done? I recall there were reports that it limited regen more than the original 2011 programming. Presumably that would have been in order to reduce stress on the battery and extend battery life to reduce claims under the then-new warranty capacity.
Yes, I did allow our local Nissan dealer (down the mountain, of course) to apply that update back in 2013.

edatoakrun said:
If that statement is correct, it sounds to me like your LEAF had a defect in its design, which Nissan had a duty to disclose to you at the time of sale, and it certainly sounds like you consider this defect to be causing you a major problem today.
Yes, I do believe there is a serious design defect in that Nissan is excessively limiting regenerative braking. Not only do regen kW levels drop unnecessarily as vehicle speed increases, we also find that regen is much more limited than DC fast charging even though it's essentially equivalent in terms of what happens with the battery. Nissan seems to have greatly limited regen in order to slow the rate of capacity loss in their defective batteries, albeit at the expense of safety for their customers.

There are two possible remedies that Nissan could provide to us:
(1) A new battery pack that's capable of accepting enough regenerative braking to safely navigate all California state highways
(2) Allow existing battery packs to accept more regenerative braking

Perhaps it would be worth opening a case...
 
davewill said:
SageBrush said:
abasile said:
When the car loses the fourth capacity bar, possibly sometime next year, I will consider pushing for warranty relief. Regenerative braking is very, very limited, which would now constitute a safety hazard if I were to attempt to drive the car "normally" down our mountain, with a reasonable battery temperature (four or five temp bars) to the nearest Nissan dealer. For this very reason, it's been almost a year since I last drove our LEAF all the way down the mountain, and when I did so, I had to make multiple stops to let the brakes cool off.
Is this different than any ICE car ?
Sure! Any ICE car would have a low gear selection that would allow engine braking to be used so that the brakes didn't overheat. It's a safety hazard as it is since the heating could come on with little warning and cause an accident.
The LEAF also has a 'B' mode, at least my model does. Does it work when the battery is full ? There is no air throttle like an ICE, but perhaps heat is released at the generator.

And so long as we are on the topic, what would happen to a diesel car that does not have a throttle plate ?
 
SageBrush said:
The LEAF also has a 'B' mode, at least my model does. Does it work when the battery is full ? There is no air throttle like an ICE, but perhaps heat is released at the generator.
Our 2011 LEAF has no 'B' mode. In any event, in models that have it, 'B' mode doesn't increase the total available regen, it just more available via the accelerator pedal. It won't be of any use on a full battery.

SageBrush said:
And so long as we are on the topic, what would happen to a diesel car that does not have a throttle plate ?
What is a throttle plate? I've never driven a diesel vehicle and my interest in auto mechanics was pretty near zero until hybrid and electric vehicles became available. All I know is that our 2011 LEAF is the only car I've ever driven that can't provide adequate engine or regen braking on a long downgrade.

It should be considered normal, and an acceptable solution, to avoid fully charging a BEV immediately prior to making a significant mountain descent, and our Tesla Model S accommodates this quite well. It's therefore all the more odd that Nissan provides no good options for charging its current LEAFs to anything less than "full". For mountain dwellers, that's a safety issue as well.
 
abasile said:
SageBrush said:
It should be considered normal, and an acceptable solution, to avoid fully charging a BEV immediately prior to making a significant mountain descent, and our Tesla Model S accommodates this quite well. It's therefore all the more odd that Nissan provides no good options for charging its current LEAFs to anything less than "full". For mountain dwellers, that's a safety issue as well.
Does your car have a charge timer ?
 
SageBrush said:
Does your car have a charge timer ?
Yes, and it has an "80%" charge setting. For someone whose LEAF lacks the 80% setting, the workaround is to estimate how many hours of charge are desired, and set the charge timer accordingly. The problem is that, if you need to target a particular SOC, you can't just set the timer and forget it - you have to tweak it every time and manually correlate charge time with SOC. It's do-able, but Tesla's SOC "slider" approach is far better, particularly for newbies.

That said, with four or five temperature bars, our LEAF's regen is now poor even at relatively low SOCs. On a long downgrade, the LEAF also tends to limit sustained regen. So even if I were to start the 4,900' descent with 15 kW of regen available on a good day, there'd be practically no regen available after maybe 2000' of elevation loss.
 
abasile said:
...
edatoakrun said:
If that statement is correct, it sounds to me like your LEAF had a defect in its design, which Nissan had a duty to disclose to you at the time of sale, and it certainly sounds like you consider this defect to be causing you a major problem today.
Yes, I do believe there is a serious design defect in that Nissan is excessively limiting regenerative braking. Not only do regen kW levels drop unnecessarily as vehicle speed increases, we also find that regen is much more limited than DC fast charging even though it's essentially equivalent in terms of what happens with the battery. Nissan seems to have greatly limited regen in order to slow the rate of capacity loss in their defective batteries, albeit at the expense of safety for their customers.

There are two possible remedies that Nissan could provide to us:
(1) A new battery pack that's capable of accepting enough regenerative braking to safely navigate all California state highways
(2) Allow existing battery packs to accept more regenerative braking

Perhaps it would be worth opening a case...
I opened my case with BBB ~three weeks ago, and no signs of progress yet, so they don't seem to move too fast.

In my LEAF's case I mentioned DC charger rate and limited regen, though in my circumstances I believe limited regen is a efficiency/range/capacity problem, not safety, at this point.

My primary dispute with Nissan, is that it has and will cause me damages on both ends of the battery pack purchase/return transaction.

I believe Nissan sold me a 2011 LEAF equipped with a "24 kWh" pack that did not, in fact, have 24 kWh capacity.

And by requiring me to exchange that OE pack for a lousy $1,000 as a condition of selling me a replacement, Nissan would cause me further damages.

wwhitney said:
...FWIW, I have a 2011 Nissan Leaf as well and am waiting for the 4th bar to drop to pursue a battery replacement. I opted out of the class action settlement and have avoided the P3227 service campaign so far.

Cheers, Wayne
Why wait for the fourth bar?

P3227 only adjusts the LBC reported capacity higher temporarily, it has no actual effect on available capacity.

In the case of My LEAF, the only time the LBC capacity was plausibly close to reality was right after P3227 bumped it up, ~7% IIRC?

I opted out of the C/A settlement also, BTW.
 
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