Did I get scammed? 2015 S loses battery capacity FAST

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Jneumark

New member
Joined
Jul 27, 2017
Messages
4
Hi, new Leaf owner here! I bought a used 2015 S from a second hand dealer in the LA area for $8200. I've been a little surprised by how quickly the battery is drained. Despite many attempts, I can't get LeafPro to give a full accounting of the battery. It gives some readouts but not the SOH or other seemingly important ones.

The car has 43,000 miles, which is a lot for a 2-yr-old EV. (Maybe that was a red flag?) It starts at 13 bars and quickly loses the first bar. That would be normal enough, but I find it loses capacity a bit faster than the guess-o-meter predicts, and that's driving conservatively often without AC. The real range seems to be 50-60 miles.

I've read about the possibility of the meter being reset. That would be surprising to me given the utter lack of knowledge these dealers had about the Leaf and electric cars. But something seems up.

Any way, I guess my question is if anyone knows of a person/mechanic/dealer in the LA-area that can do some sort of diagnostic for a newbie like myself?

Thanks so much for any guidance/advice anyone can offer!
Jared
 
For starters, the GOM is useless. Don't expect anything logical from it. Secondly, there are only 12 bars, so you couldn't have 13. We need to know how many of the SMALL bars there are. That will tell us about the car's current capacity. How far have you run the car down? If you're leaving 2 or more bars, there's a lot more range than you think there is. Finally I'd suggest posting a screenshot from LEAFSpy. It doesn't make sense that you can't get the SOH and other stats.
 
He's talking about charge bars, of which there are also only 12.

Highway speed drains range, so if you are driving 65 or faster, that's the problem.
 
You can estimate the health of the battery pretty well by doing a range test.

  • Note the current state of charge (SOC) BEFORE you start driving
  • Reset the energy economy gauge and trip counter BEFORE you start driving
  • Drive on a highway, in good weather, maintaining 50 mph until the state of charge has dropped by 25% from the SOC you noted earlier
  • Get off the highway ASAP and note how many miles you drove and the energy economy reading on the dash

With the above information, you can estimate the kWh capacity of the battery. For example, if you drove 20 miles @ 4.5 miles/kWh then here's the math on the kWh consumed:

20 miles / 4.5 miles/kWh = 4.44444444 kWh consumed by an SOC drop of 25%

Then, multiply that number by 4 (i.e. 17.7 kWh) to get the estimated pack capacity in kWh. Report back that kWh calculated value
 
Thanks for all the replies so far! Yeah it has all the small bars still there, 12 not 13. The lowest I've taken it is down to two bars. I've mostly driven on the highway at 70mph so maybe it's just that. But man does it lose bars quickly.
 
The efficiency graph seems to show a steady drop in energy economy, I'm guessing since you got the car. That is probably the highway speed, and maybe low tire pressure. I suggest you inflate the tires to 40-42psi cold, and drop your highway speed to 65MPH (60-62 would be even better, if possible).
 
There is nothing wrong with driving 70 mi/hr as long as you understand the range is lower. There is substantial range after the first Low Battery Warning and still about 5 miles after Very Low Battery Warning so you are leaving significant range in reserve if you never take it below 2 bars. I doubt that your capacity bars have been reset because your range sounds reasonable for your driving conditions. I recommend at least 40 psi tire pressure for best handling, tire wear, traction, and range because the Leaf is a heavy car. I personally ran the original tires at 44 psi (maximum listed on sidewall). I run a little higher with my replacement tires that are rated 51 psi.
 
Jneumark: The Leaf Spy screens you posted were totally useless.

You weren't connected (yellow box in the lower right) and you didn't post the screens w/AHr, SOH and Hx while connected. That's what we need.

See http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=504419#p504419 and the video there.
 
Thank you very much for posting that tutorial! Seriously a lifesaver. Got it working, here are the readouts:

CtWQxq.png

jj9h5h.png


So it seems like it's in good/decent shape, or what you can expect from a 2015 with 43K miles?
 
Jneumark said:
jj9h5h.png


So it seems like it's in good/decent shape, or what you can expect from a 2015 with 43K miles?
The car is pretty close to losing a capacity bar, from those stats.

As for what to expect, it depends. Any idea where it resided before (via Carfax and/or Autocheck)? If it was in a hot climate, that wouldn't surprise me at all. If it was in the cool PNW, those readings would be way abnormal and unexpected.

This guy is down 1 bar in blazing hot Phoenix with his '15:
http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=24407&p=502456&hilit=11+bars#p502456
http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=24209&p=499072&hilit=11+bars+satisfied#p499072

My 5/2013 built '13 (no lizard battery yet) SV w/over 47K miles is likely in better shape than your car. SOH is around 84 to 86% and Hx has been around 84.xx%.

If you drive 70 mph, you will get not very good efficiency and range autonomy.

You may want to d/l these two charts from http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?t=4295. (All the images are busted due to Photobucket holding them hostage.)
Use this 93% chart for a one year old or more battery that still has all 12 capacity bar segments.

Use this 82% chart for a battery that has 11 of 12 capacity bar segments.
 
I'll guess the lower Hx is due to the 500+ history of DCFC use, but the more important Ahr and SOH are concordant and show ~ 84% of new capacity. If EPA new range is 84 miles then EPA range on your battery is 84*0.84 = 70 miles. The impression of 50-60 miles range is partly driving habits and mostly appropriate avoidance of driving the battery SoC (charge) down to zero.

OP: you were not scammed, battery is +/- average for an unknown past climate and high DCFC use.
 
I wonder is it was one from " My evercar" the car sharing deal for Ubber, that went BK . that is the few leafs I know with 41K in 2 years and the fast charge would match? any idea on the history of the car?
 
According to the Carfax it was purchased/resided in Sacramento. Do you know where that car share company was located? Or was it all over? That might make sense.

Sorry for the newbie question, but I'm inferring that a high amount of fast charging is bad for the battery's long term health?
 
Jneumark said:
According to the Carfax it was purchased/resided in Sacramento. Do you know where that car share company was located? Or was it all over? That might make sense.

Sorry for the newbie question, but I'm inferring that a high amount of fast charging is bad for the battery's long term health?
It can be. Depends more on the battery's temperature. QCing does raise the battery's temperature some. A lot of QC's back to back along with hard driving and hot weather could have a bad effect. QCs spread out with time for the battery to cool is not such a problem.
 
Jneumark said:
According to the Carfax it was purchased/resided in Sacramento. Do you know where that car share company was located? Or was it all over? That might make sense.

Sorry for the newbie question, but I'm inferring that a high amount of fast charging is bad for the battery's long term health?

Basically that is true. Batteries love slow charging, as it's less stress on the battery material! On the other end of the charging spectrum you can imagine feeding a battery enough charging power to pop the batteries' cells!

John Kuthe...
 
Jneumark said:
According to the Carfax it was purchased/resided in Sacramento. Do you know where that car share company was located? Or was it all over? That might make sense.
That explains things. Sacramento gets pretty hot during the summer.

I would say what you're seeing is roughly normal then. If it belonged to a car share program, then it would even further explain things.

The high # of QCs might be due to folks taking advantage of https://www.nissanusa.com/electric-cars/leaf/charging-range/charging/no-charge-to-charge/ and https://www.ez-charge.com/faq/. QCing really heats up the battery and if it's already hot out...
 
Does driving fast kill your battery and would the dealership know I've been speeding I do about 10 miles an hour over the speed limit on my way to work most days so if it's 60 I'm doing 70 I'm just wondering because now my battery is failing at 6,000 mi before the warranty at 100,000 gives up but when I start at the bottom of this one hill by the time I get to the top even if I have 80% and it's only about 5 mi the battery just drops off like 1% every second sometimes it'll just take a 10% chunk off I know this is probably cells dying the leaf spy pro tells me four of the cells are bad but the dealership won't replace my battery even though I can't make a 20-mile trip to work without it going into turtle mode
 
Hi, new Leaf owner here! I bought a used 2015 S from a second hand dealer in the LA area for $8200. I've been a little surprised by how quickly the battery is drained. Despite many attempts, I can't get LeafPro to give a full accounting of the battery. It gives some readouts but not the SOH or other seemingly important ones.

The car has 43,000 miles, which is a lot for a 2-yr-old EV. (Maybe that was a red flag?) It starts at 13 bars and quickly loses the first bar. That would be normal enough, but I find it loses capacity a bit faster than the guess-o-meter predicts, and that's driving conservatively often without AC. The real range seems to be 50-60 miles.

I've read about the possibility of the meter being reset. That would be surprising to me given the utter lack of knowledge these dealers had about the Leaf and electric cars. But something seems up.

Any way, I guess my question is if anyone knows of a person/mechanic/dealer in the LA-area that can do some sort of diagnostic for a newbie like myself?

Thanks so much for any guidance/advice anyone can offer!
Jared
Driving a Leaf over 60 mph will absolutely drain the battery faster. As well, driving above 80 mph will quickly elevate battery core temperatures into the red zone, especially on early (24kWh) models. This is especially true if ambient temperatures are high to begin with. I wouldn't drive it like that when ambient temperatures are above 95F. And don't stop at a DCFC (Fast Charger) between periods of extended high-speed driving or you'll cook your battery. If you're getting 60 miles with a 2015 that has nearly 45k miles you're doing about average. Be happy, that's not the best I've seen (I had 62k miles on my 2015 and was still getting 70 miles of range), but it's not terrible either. The GOM will calculate expected range based upon your previous (10-15 miles?) of driving and which accessories are being used (AC, Heat Pump, etc...).
Download Leaf Spy onto your phone or tablet and get a BlueTooth dongle made to plug into your OBDII port under the dash. I'm not sure about Leaf Pro but Leaf Spy and Leaf Spy Pro will provide SOH and other important metrics on your battery.
 
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