Degradation Issues with VIN 222. A MUST Read!!

Maybe not the appropriate subforum but wanted to get this out to as many as possible.

Have a WAtonian purchased a used 2011 LEAF VIN 222 this year. It had all 12 bars but in the span of 4 months, she has lost THREE CAPACITY BARS.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10152923793646098&set=gm.872339326130839&type=1" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

This to me is an obvious issue with used LEAFs coming from a hot climate. Pretty sure this car was reported to have lost several bars before being returned to a dealership. But she bought it in July and it had all 12 bars.

Has anyone else purchased a used LEAF that seemed to degrade quickly? In her case, her commuting needs are very modest so she did not really know how much range the LEAF had when she bought it a few months ago but now that 3 bars are gone (she is losing them at the rate of one per month) this strongly suggests it was previously a 3 bar loser that was manipulated for sale.

**UPDATE**

As mentioned, this car was originally purchased by omcar? a few years ago and he documented his 3rd bar loss in Jan 2014 (bar disappeared in Nov 2013 or thereabouts)

The lady in question took the car in to have it inspected and that result combined with the paper trail created by Nissan's warranty tracking program has set wheels in motion for a very favorable conclusion to this nightmare. Stay tuned!

has anyone put an aftermarket capacity meter on her car to see what it says?

I hope the car is not also branded with the optOut label as well.

Thanks for sharing, that is why NISSAN must make it right for ALL model year 2011-2012 drivers. NISSAN must guarantee a new battery replacement with no regard to years nor mileage.

NISSAN must do the right thing!

2011-2012 owners must unite to have a single request to NISSAN.

NISSAN
Make it RIGHT for model year 2011-2012 pioneers.

Just DO IT !

braineo said:

Thanks for sharing, that is why NISSAN must make it right for ALL model year 2011-2012 drivers. NISSAN must guarantee a new battery replacement with no regard to years nor mileage.

NISSAN must do the right thing!

2011-2012 owners must unite to have a single request to NISSAN.

NISSAN
Make it RIGHT for model year 2011-2012 pioneers.

Just DO IT !

Click to expand...

She is likely to qualify for a warranty replacement easily but she bought the car 4 months ago thinking it had a real 12 bars or at least 11 and a fraction and BOOM she has lost 3 bars in less than 4, 000 miles. We all know that is likely to have lost them bars before and the GOM was reset but that is not the issue, its the deception on the part of the dealer in So Cal.

the car was likely purchased at auction by Tacoma Nissan so its going to be tough to determine what they knew going in. But this illustrates an issue and to me its like rolling back the odometer...

braineo said:

Thanks for sharing, that is why NISSAN must make it right for ALL model year 2011-2012 drivers. NISSAN must guarantee a new battery replacement with no regard to years nor mileage.

Click to expand...

Do you realize what you just said? No regard to years or mileage? So if the car is 20 years old with 500,000 miles on it, they should still replace the battery?

The hysteresis on the "bars disappearing" is really slow and requires a number of drive/charge cycles at some critical capacity before the vehicle will lose a bar on the display.

So my guess is either one of two things happened here:

Somebody reset the BMS and it took a while for the bars to re-disappear.

or

The car started with a low 12 bars (say 56-58Ah) then sat in a moderate/warm climate for a lot of months without being driven.

As the car was driven the BMS slowly realized it was a lot lower in capacity and the bars fell off...

This happened to my car as I left it garaged at around 55.5Ah capacity for a few months this summer. As I started driving it again the Ah capacity kept dropping day by day getting as low as 53.8Ah before the 12th bar actually vanished.

And yes, this really blows for someone shopping for a used Leaf. Even with an aftermarket scan tool the BMS would have likely reported something in the 54-55Ah range when the car was delivered with 12 bars. Perhaps that at least would have been nice to know.. (i.e. 12 bars with 54Ah or 12 bars with 64Ah)

This is equivalent to rolling back the odometer and is one area where the law needs to catch up to the new technology so that consumers are protected and such fraud can be vigorously prosecuted.

GregH said:

The hysteresis on the "bars disappearing" is really slow and requires a number of drive/charge cycles at some critical capacity before the vehicle will lose a bar on the display.

So my guess is either one of two things happened here:

Somebody reset the BMS and it took a while for the bars to re-disappear.

Click to expand...

well aint that about obvious

or

The car started with a low 12 bars (say 56-58Ah) then sat in a moderate/warm climate for a lot of months without being driven.

As the car was driven the BMS slowly realized it was a lot lower in capacity and the bars fell off...

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no...no...no... What we need is someone with a bit of time and search skills to dig up the history of VIN # 222 which I am pretty sure was one of the ones that posted CP losses in a thread about the subject.

I am not in a position to really do that right now but I am sure (as there always is) there is someone who knows the person I am talking about and can post a link?

^^^^^^^^
ah, FB comes thru

I had a SoCal 3 bar loser:

Car 222 omkar Irvine, CA
3 bars lost at 35 months (11/19/2013) / 33,700 miles
2 bars lost at 29 months (5/25/2013) / 29,500 miles
1 bar lost at 20 months (9/5/2012) / 19,000 miles

Click to expand...

http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=349037#p349037" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Good find! Intentionally resetting the BMS to obscure the battery capacity is every bit as bad as resetting an odometer. Since there could be legitimate reasons to reset the BMS, it really comes down to intent. That said, it should be the law that any seller of an EV either (1) make a good faith effort to provide a reasonable estimate of the true battery capacity, normally the reading reported by the car, or (2) disclose that the battery condition is unknown and/or incorrectly reported.

In this case everything should work out fine in the end, since that car should end up qualifying for a new battery under warranty. But with a higher mileage or older car that can't qualify for the warranty, the buyer could end up in a world of hurt.

adric22 said:

braineo said:

Thanks for sharing, that is why NISSAN must make it right for ALL model year 2011-2012 drivers. NISSAN must guarantee a new battery replacement with no regard to years nor mileage.

Click to expand...

Do you realize what you just said? No regard to years or mileage? So if the car is 20 years old with 500,000 miles on it, they should still replace the battery?

Click to expand...

You have a point, but does anyone think a 2011/2012 LEAF battery is going to make it to 20 years or 500K miles? :lol:

Nubo said:

This is equivalent to rolling back the odometer and is one area where the law needs to catch up to the new technology so that consumers are protected and such fraud can be vigorously prosecuted.

Click to expand...

Exactly. I would raise one hell of a **** about this. That dealer got the car at auction with 9 bars and reset them to 12 before selling it. That has got to be fraud.

pkulak said:

Nubo said:

This is equivalent to rolling back the odometer and is one area where the law needs to catch up to the new technology so that consumers are protected and such fraud can be vigorously prosecuted.

Click to expand...

Exactly. I would raise one hell of a **** about this. That dealer got the car at auction with 9 bars and reset them to 12 before selling it. That has got to be fraud.

Click to expand...

oh trust me when I say we got all kinds of wheels rolling on this one!

All this would be a moot point if NISSAN owned that the battery for all 2011/2012 had a defective chemistry and they would stand behind it.

It is also possible that it may have been a mistake.
TickTock's dealer ended up resetting the BMS two different times when doing software installs or something.
That could have happened here.

But it does highlight that the BMS needs some tracking mechanism added to clearly reveal that all values reported could be completely wrong for three to five months when it is reset :shock:

Hmm..

Well I would certainly go to the dealer and raise a stink about being sold something that clearly had been tampered with. IF they do the right thing they will raise a stink wherever they bought it OR simply eat the loss to make it right (new battery, whatever). I would not back down - I'd take them to small claims court if necessary to say "hey this is just like rolling an odometer back".

With that said - there is the "too good to be true" issue here... Really - someone buys a 2011 car with early VIN and over 33,700 miles on it and isn't surprised to see 12 bars? Buyers have a responsibility (especially with used) to understand what they are looking at. And again - I can find fault in the dealer for not realizing this would be a truly exceptional vehicle.

For others - forgo the complex analysis of the vehicle if buying new. Simply get a full charge on it and then go for a couple hours driving - the 'real' range you can achieve (monitor miles/kwh) will tell a lot about the battery condition.

TimLee said:

But it does highlight that the BMS needs some tracking mechanism added to clearly reveal that all values reported could be completely wrong for three to five months when it is reset :shock:

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ICE cars sort of do this where if the battery goes flat and the computer gets reset, you won't be able to get a smog check until the car has been driven about 100 miles or so in order to collect readings again. Experienced this recently with my dad's F-150 that had been sitting in the garage for a couple months. Had to drive two loops around the 101, 23, 118, and 405 before the smog computer would even talk to it. No idea what takes BMS so long to reset, but there should be a way to determine that last reset or something to prevent this going forward.

This issue should be brought to the attention of the FTC, since the case in question also crossed state lines. I'm sure they'd be interested, and in fact their new proposed guidelines (which they are currently seeking comment on, as of yesterday) deal with similar issues: http://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2014/11/ftc-seeks-comments-additional-proposed-changes-used-car-rule" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

adric22 said:

Do you realize what you just said? No regard to years or mileage? So if the car is 20 years old with 500,000 miles on it, they should still replace the battery?

Click to expand...

abasile said:

You have a point, but does anyone think a 2011/2012 LEAF battery is going to make it to 20 years or 500K miles? :lol:

Click to expand...

No, but the original point is well-taken: there have to be some sort of parameters placed on any warranty. Otherwise we can forget anyone (let alone Nissan) ever building an EV again.

DaveinOlyWA said:

^^^^^^^^
ah, FB comes thru

I had a SoCal 3 bar loser:

Car 222 omkar Irvine, CA
3 bars lost at 35 months (11/19/2013) / 33,700 miles
2 bars lost at 29 months (5/25/2013) / 29,500 miles
1 bar lost at 20 months (9/5/2012) / 19,000 miles

Click to expand...

http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=349037#p349037" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

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Not to be too conspiratorial here, but doesn't the P3227 update reset the BMS?
If it was sold by a dealer, they probably did all the service bulletins on it before selling it.
Although even if that were the case, not disclosing the known true capacity is akin to rolling the odo..

pkulak said:

Nubo said:

This is equivalent to rolling back the odometer and is one area where the law needs to catch up to the new technology so that consumers are protected and such fraud can be vigorously prosecuted.

Click to expand...

Exactly. I would raise one hell of a **** about this. That dealer got the car at auction with 9 bars and reset them to 12 before selling it. That has got to be fraud.

Click to expand...

And I would say the corollary to this is that EVs should be required to display the battery capacity, in unambiguous terms. Bars, Turtles, and Gids are all very fun and cute, but the unit of concern is kilowatt hours and this is the only way to have a standard to compare different makes. Or for a new purchaser to understand what the heck they are buying. All ICE car manufacturers will tell you how much fuel the tank holds and they don't use abstractions to do so, but litres and gallons.

braineo said:

All this would be a moot point if NISSAN owned that the battery for all 2011/2012 had a defective chemistry and they would stand behind it.

Click to expand...

Nissan does at the fourth bar lost.

Maybe we need to help calculate if the car will meet the warranty requirement.