lost one bar of charge capacity

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WichitaKS

Member
Joined
Feb 14, 2013
Messages
14
Location
Wichita, KS, USA
My 2012 Nissan leaf has reported to me this morning it has lost one bar, giving me only 11 bars. I was wondering if it was normal? The car is 21 months old, has 13,000 miles, is always charged only to 80% at night and rarely driven to the point of going below 40% charge, it has been charged to 100% only 8 times, and only 5 times did it go down to 2 bars in the red. In addition to this it is stored in a partially heated and air conditioned garage.
 
That is pretty low mileage to see a bar go away. You might want to log it into the survey thread.
http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=16516" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Did the car sit on the dealer lot for a long time before your purchase ?
 
KJD said:
That is pretty low mileage to see a bar go away. You might want to log it into the survey thread.
http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=16516" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Did the car sit on the dealer lot for a long time before your purchase ?

Yes the car had some hail damage from a storm in May of the year I bought it (same storm took off my house roof) and then I bought it in December, so it sat on the dealers lot for 7 months. However, it only had 8 miles when I bought it.
 
The situation that could be an issue for the battery capacity is if your car sat on the dealer lot for those 8 months with a 100% charge.

Unfortunately, you probably have no way of really knowing that...Hopefully you got a good deal on the car :)
 
WichitaKS said:
My 2012 Nissan leaf has reported to me this morning it has lost one bar, giving me only 11 bars. I was wondering if it was normal? The car is 21 months old, has 13,000 miles, is always charged only to 80% at night and rarely driven to the point of going below 40% charge, it has been charged to 100% only 8 times, and only 5 times did it go down to 2 bars in the red. In addition to this it is stored in a partially heated and air conditioned garage.

It probably sat at 100%.

My LEAF baked in the summer (we had an extremely hot summer in 2013- no garage storage), during the winter I charged to 100% every night, and I drive it like I stole it. I lost my first bar at 27 months, 31,000 miles.
 
Randy said:
The situation that could be an issue for the battery capacity is if your car sat on the dealer lot for those 8 months with a 100% charge.

Unfortunately, you probably have no way of really knowing that...Hopefully you got a good deal on the car :)

I think it was a good deal, only 85$ a month, plus the trade in of my old classic Sabb whos transmission died and at 198,000 miles I did not feel like putting in a new transmission to that Sabb.
 
WichitaKS said:
Randy said:
The situation that could be an issue for the battery capacity is if your car sat on the dealer lot for those 8 months with a 100% charge.

Unfortunately, you probably have no way of really knowing that...Hopefully you got a good deal on the car :)

I think it was a good deal, only 85$ a month, plus the trade in of my old classic Sabb whos transmission died and at 198,000 miles I did not feel like putting in a new transmission to that Sabb.

I meant a 3 year and 3 month lease at 85$ a month.
 
kubel said:
WichitaKS said:
My 2012 Nissan leaf has reported to me this morning it has lost one bar, giving me only 11 bars. I was wondering if it was normal? The car is 21 months old, has 13,000 miles, is always charged only to 80% at night and rarely driven to the point of going below 40% charge, it has been charged to 100% only 8 times, and only 5 times did it go down to 2 bars in the red. In addition to this it is stored in a partially heated and air conditioned garage.

It probably sat at 100%.

My LEAF baked in the summer (we had an extremely hot summer in 2013- no garage storage), during the winter I charged to 100% every night, and I drive it like I stole it. I lost my first bar at 27 months, 31,000 miles.

The summer that was only a few months before I bought the Leaf was 45 days about 100 F and never below 85, plus 18 of those days were above 110 F, the host summer on record in Wichita. Clearly my car was on the lot during that summer.
 
kubel said:
WichitaKS said:
My 2012 Nissan leaf has reported to me this morning it has lost one bar, giving me only 11 bars. I was wondering if it was normal? The car is 21 months old, has 13,000 miles, is always charged only to 80% at night and rarely driven to the point of going below 40% charge, it has been charged to 100% only 8 times, and only 5 times did it go down to 2 bars in the red. In addition to this it is stored in a partially heated and air conditioned garage.

It probably sat at 100%.

My LEAF baked in the summer (we had an extremely hot summer in 2013- no garage storage), during the winter I charged to 100% every night, and I drive it like I stole it. I lost my first bar at 27 months, 31,000 miles.

It looks like it is not a question of miles driven but age of the battery, out cars have similar numbers and the battery is probably the same age, and they both lost a bar about the same time.
 
Even if you keep the battery in a low state of charge (e.g., 20-40%) most of the time, your battery will still degrade. I've been babying mine like that and still lost my first bar before 20,000 mi. I may have slowed it down a bit, but it's mostly temps, hard driving, and time. Miles driven will also affect the capacity, because of battery cycling, but it is hard to remove that variable without comparing two cars side-by-side. Enjoy the car and if you are leasing, then yes, you got a good deal. If you bought, then well, just drive as many miles as you can as quickly as you can.
 
WichitaKS said:
kubel said:
WichitaKS said:
My 2012 Nissan leaf has reported to me this morning it has lost one bar, giving me only 11 bars. I was wondering if it was normal? The car is 21 months old, has 13,000 miles, is always charged only to 80% at night and rarely driven to the point of going below 40% charge, it has been charged to 100% only 8 times, and only 5 times did it go down to 2 bars in the red. In addition to this it is stored in a partially heated and air conditioned garage.

It probably sat at 100%.

My LEAF baked in the summer (we had an extremely hot summer in 2013- no garage storage), during the winter I charged to 100% every night, and I drive it like I stole it. I lost my first bar at 27 months, 31,000 miles.

The summer that was only a few months before I bought the Leaf was 45 days about 100 F and never below 85, plus 18 of those days were above 110 F, the host summer on record in Wichita. Clearly my car was on the lot during that summer.

Yeah, unfortunately I think you're experience is about right. I got my 2012 Leaf June, 22, 2012 in KC. It was an order from Japan so it only sat on dealer lot a couple of days. They had 0 stock. I just lost my first bar last Friday. 26 months, 27,000 miles. Summer of 2012 put a serious dent into the capacity of the midwest batteries I think. No one else has reported a bar down up here yet but I expect them to any day now. Last summer was much better from a temp standpoint and this week has been the only week the battery didn't cool off down to 5 temp bars over night in the garage. Heck, much of this summer it didn't rise out of 5 temp bars even with the ambient air in the 80's.

Tom
 
Time seems to be the most important factor after climate. I run it down to VLB every weekday, and charge to 100% every night. I lost my first bar after 28 months, but I had 42,000 miles.
 
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