Dealer is trying to price gouge me for a new battery - any recommendations?

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jhartman

Member
Joined
Apr 23, 2010
Messages
9
Location
Los Angeles
I've lost the 4 bars but am two months past the time for a free replacement battery for my 2011 Leaf. The place I took my car for service (Downtown Los Angeles) originally quoted me $9,500 for a new battery! I replied this was ridiculous as I knew the MSRP was $5,500 plus labor and installation kit. They then dropped it down to $7,500, which I still won't pay. I spoke with Nissan customer service and their wasn't anything they could do as it is up to the dealer as to the what price they want to charge. I tried calling one other dealership in town but they never returned my voicemail message.

Has anyone else been in a similar situation? Any service people in the LA area that are not price gougers?

Has anyone installed a third party battery?

Thanks!
Jennifer
 
TomT said:
That is ludicrous. Try a different dealer. (Or simply get ride of it and buy something else - preferably non-Nissan...)

You no longer own a Leaf and do nothing but criticize it! Why don't you try posting on a different EV forum...preferably non-Nissan?
 
Hi Jennifer,

I'd try to find someone local with a leaf spy to read the battery data. Although you have lost 4 bars, you will probably find that if you had the battery checked, you may only have a few individual cells that are dragging the rest of the pack down to 4 bars.
You may then find a local repairer to drop the battery pack and only replace the bad cells in your original pack.

I know this happened before on the uk where a leaf owner had lost 4 bars after warranty and he had his battery checked, he needed 4 cells to be replaced, and his battery went back up to 11 bars.

You could pay maybe $100 per cell, plus a specialist to fit them, darn cheaper than replacing the whole pack.

It's worth a try anyway.
 
Glyndwr1998 said:
I'd try to find someone local with a leaf spy to read the battery data. Although you have lost 4 bars, you will probably find that if you had the battery checked, you may only have a few individual cells that are dragging the rest of the pack down to 4 bars.
Very unlikely this would help. You are probably down to 4 bars because most all of the cells are low.
 
Unfortunately the battery warranty is all or none, whereas Nissan should have offered a prorated option to match the 8yr/ 100k mile warranty of the battery. However there are some threads on arbitration that turned out favorably for some owners, albeit a time consuming process. In any case the arbitrators will most likely side with you. Even paying the $5500 battery cost is ridiculous.
 
Im no expert, however, without and diagnostics, apart from the loss of 4 bats and a huge cost to replace the pack, its worth a look at any options.

Any battery pack is only as strong as its weakest cell. Also, with the leaf chemistry, the battery charge percentage curve is quite linear, so the higher the charge, the higher the cell voltage.

If, after looking at a full charge from empty, the same cells are the highest and lowest after charge and discharge, they are your weakest cells. If the voltage is quite large at empty between the weakest and the rest, and it can be measured or estimated they AH capacity difference, then you could have a scenario where the weakest cells are much lower in capacity, and maybe worth looking at.

It wont cost a great deal to get this diagnotics done, anyone with a leafspy and could do it, take the pack to empty, record all the cells voltage one by one, then fully charge the battery, again at full, record every cell voltage one by one, and then see what amp hour capacity could be gained by swapping out the weak ones.

For sure, if all the cells are the same voltage at the lowerst and highest voltages, then for sure a whole new pack is required, but I for sure would inversigate if there was a few weak ones in there.

At least it would be worth the time to investigate before opting for a $5500 bill for a new battery.


Stoaty said:
Glyndwr1998 said:
I'd try to find someone local with a leaf spy to read the battery data. Although you have lost 4 bars, you will probably find that if you had the battery checked, you may only have a few individual cells that are dragging the rest of the pack down to 4 bars.
Very unlikely this would help. You are probably down to 4 bars because most all of the cells are low.
 
Glyndwr1998 said:
...
For sure, if all the cells are the same voltage at the lowerst and highest voltages, then for sure a whole new pack is required, but I for sure would inversigate if there was a few weak ones in there.
...
But most peoples observations have been that the LEAF keeps the cells well balanced and they lose capacity fairly uniformly.

If you do actually have individual cells that are markedly worse, that is covered under the 8 year 100,000 miles defects warranty.
 
Hi Timlee,

totally agree with you, but it wont do any harm or cost a great deal to investigate. If they are all roughly the same capacity, then the bms has done its job well and the whole pack is worn equally.
 
I thought that the lowest cells only were the weakest. Anyway, Glyndwr1998 may be confusing the few packs that have developed bad cells and been fixed with the majority of degraded packs, in which all the cells degraded.
 
jhartman said:
I've lost the 4 bars but am two months past the time for a free replacement battery for my 2011 Leaf. The place I took my car for service (Downtown Los Angeles) originally quoted me $9,500 for a new battery! I replied this was ridiculous as I knew the MSRP was $5,500 plus labor and installation kit. They then dropped it down to $7,500, which I still won't pay. I spoke with Nissan customer service and their wasn't anything they could do as it is up to the dealer as to the what price they want to charge. I tried calling one other dealership in town but they never returned my voicemail message.

Has anyone else been in a similar situation? Any service people in the LA area that are not price gougers?

Has anyone installed a third party battery?

Thanks!
Jennifer
Sorry to bear bad news... But you are on the short end of the stick...

Keep in mind that if you have a collision with your car, that your insurance might total out the car (it won't take much more than a few fenders), and you will possibly not get any compensation for the new battery... If you really need the capacity, it might be a better choice to move out of your LEAF. By the way, the pricing is indeed absurd, as the total value of the car, sadly is 5-6 thousand (I am in the same boat albeit only missing 2 bars), but I can roll fine until I get down to six bars as I am local and have charging...

Good luck...
 
The OP hasnt elaborated on the battery other than the vehicle has lost its 4th bar.

The op may not be technically minded, or an enthusaist, so all i say is try having the battery loke dat in detail.

It may be the battery as a whole has degraded equally, and the only course of repair is a full battery replacement.

It could be that the battery has developed a few weak cells and that may be a far cheaper fix.

Without analasys its hard to determine the health of the battery other than its lost its 4th bar.

If it were my car, I would want to identify the issues with the battery fully before i paid out a major sum of dollars on a replacement.

After all, if it was a petrol car, and you pulled up to a garage with a fault, to be told the whole engine has gone kaput, and the bill to repair it is a cmplete replacement engine at $5500 youd ask further questions. Well i would anyway.
 
jhartman said:
I've lost the 4 bars but am two months past the time for a free replacement battery for my 2011 Leaf... Has anyone else been in a similar situation?

Thanks!
Jennifer
A 2011 ~8 capacity bar leaf has most of the utility of a ~12 capacity bar 2011 for many buyers, so its market value is within a few thousand dollars of the same price as one with a 12 bar replacement battery.

Meaning if you replace your battery, even at the discounted prices some have reported, you will receive a lesser increase in the market value of your LEAF than your replacement battery will cost you.

So its not surprising that very few LEAF owners have gone to the large expense of replacing the battery, if they have to pay for it themselves.

If you want more range than you have from your 2011, it is often more cost-effective to buy another new or used LEAF, or an even cheaper compliance BEV from another manufacturer, particularly in CA with the large incentives available for new BEV sales and leases.

Are you really that attached to your 2011?
 
jhartman said:
... Thanks!
Jennifer
Hi Jennifer, Did you know you can lease a leaf for 3 years for $7,500 or less? Spark EVs are even less. https://plus.google.com/u/1/+DanielCardenas/posts/CAQ6K93hXcU
You can buy very good used Leafs from craigslist for $10K or less. Lastly you can buy a used Leaf battery and find someone to install it. Expect the prices to drop significantly after the Bolt is available. Could be as soon as next month.
 
I appreciate the comments - but no one has really answered my question! Yes I could get a new car, but I drove the 2016 model and was so very disappointed in it really didn't have anything my 2011 does. I live in Los Angeles which has a large sales tax and no more state rebates so the cost is more than the sticker price. Plus my insurance would go up. My idea is to get a new battery which will hopefully last 4 years and then replace the car when a better model is available.

My car is in the heat and I have charged it to 100% for a number of years hence the loss in bars isn't really a surprise.

So back to my original question - anyone have a honest service person or can recommend a third party party? I did contact one company about a third battery battery but haven't heard back from them.

Jennifer
 
Thanks for the rebate update! Since I am a working Mom I don't always get a chance to read everything. I will also pass this along to a friend who had bought an EV the day after they closed the rebate.
 
jhartman said:
...

So back to my original question - anyone have a honest service person or can recommend a third party party? I did contact one company about a third battery battery but haven't heard back from them.

Jennifer
I think you will need to contact all the dealers in the LA area within a reasonable distance and request a written quote.

When TayolrSFGuy considered replacement a couple years back he contacted multiple dealers in the Seattle area.

Prices varied widely.

LA is a big place.
Has to be quite a few dealers.
Nashville, TN has something like ten.
LA may have 15 or 20.

I don't think there are any third party options yet.
There is a thread on MNL of somebody putting in used cells.
But pack has to be disassembled.
Pretty involved.
 
Welcome to the club - I also lost my 4th capacity bar 2 months out of warranty. IMO, here's the best route to take.

1. Call the Nissan EV hotline and ask for out-of-warranty assistance. This has worked for many people to get anywhere from 50%-100% of the cost covered, but the real question is what does Nissan use to make that judgement. In my case, I was denied outright.
2. Start BBB Arbitration. Others have reported success in getting warranty coverage this way. I am currently in the middle of this.
3. Find a used LEAF for cheap that has lost 8 bars and is still in warranty, confirm with the EV hotline that it's under warranty and see what the other dealer will take for your LEAF (give them some lame excuse like you just want a slightly newer car) and hopefully you'll get a new pack for about half the retail cost.
4. Drive the car until it's so weak that it won't power the car any more. Get this done under the 8-year 100k-mile pack warranty. Not sure how long this will take, but you'll have to get down under 6 bars remaining.
 
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