150,000 Miles on my original battery 2011

My Nissan Leaf Forum

Help Support My Nissan Leaf Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Let's see if I can respond to some of the questions and comments:

Yes, one set of tires at 93,000 miles
No brake parts replaced/resurfaced etc.
Battery capacity loss - I have a suspicion that starting to use QC started me down the slope.

I have tried very hard to avoid the QCs with the 2014. I have over 30,000 miles and only 26 QC sessions. Eventually the 2011 started needing multiple charges a day and I could see GID counts change - not steady but still a drop. For some time, we didn't have GID meters on phone apps. I did borrow a wired meter from Fairwood Red a couple of times.

When the temperature bars rarely would go to 8 on the 2011, I didn't charge. One afternoon I let it sit until the evening and had my Wife come get me - after dinner I came back and charged.

I'm taking the car in for a once over before I give it to my Mom. I'll update with any findings on the regeneration loss and grab/release brakes.

From other posts, it looks like I am not the first LEAF to 150,000 miles - a taxi in UK is about a week earlier. I should say I am the first non commercial owner/driver to 150,000 miles.

Thanks for all your kind comments - please share with other LEAF owners and EV want to be owners. Steve
 
That is pretty amazing that the tires lasted so long also no brake change for so many miles :) I wonder if the check up will mention anything about them. Please keep us updated on the finding for the regen!

for the record you still feel the magnetics breaks going down hill just nothing goes in the battery? Do you still see green dots?
 
Wow, 93k on tires is pretty good. I kind of expected the brakes to still be original as we also have a hybrid at 130k with original brakes. I've read that hybrids and EVs with regenerative braking have very long lasting brakes.

And I must say you've gone above and beyond to get that mileage out of the car. And apparently have a very understanding wife too.

I don't think a commercial vehicle such as a taxi should count for the purpose of high mileage awards, at least not for being first to clear a threshold. A commercial vehicle can be used 24/7 as the company could assign it out to multiple shifts of drivers. So I think you have a valid claim. And Nissan would do well to recognize you for it and get you into a commercial or at least print ad or newsletter/website article.
 
DarthPuppy said:
I don't think a commercial vehicle such as a taxi should count for the purpose of high mileage awards, at least not for being first to clear a threshold. A commercial vehicle can be used 24/7 as the company could assign it out to multiple shifts of drivers. So I think you have a valid claim. And Nissan would do well to recognize you for it and get you into a commercial or at least print ad or newsletter/website article.
The OP was already featured in a bunch of things for breaking the 100K mark:
http://nissannews.com/en-US/nissan/usa/releases/video-report-nissan-leaf-owner-turns-100-000-gas-free-commuting-miles
http://nissannews.com/en-US/nissan/usa/releases/washington-nissan-leaf-owner-celebrates-100-000-all-electric-miles
http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/News/2013/12/WAcelebrates100000AllElectricMiles.htm

I'm guessing the amazing life on the tires is due to a commute where he's able to do steady speeds with not much turning, stopping and accelerating. I've also heard amazing tire life numbers from (IIRC) 2 fas 4 u on Priuschat. His Priuses are listed at http://prius.wikia.com/wiki/Lifespan/Operating_costs. 2 fas 4 u's 2014 Prius v wagon is past 191K miles. His 09 Prius was traded in for a '12 Prius v wagon when it hit 465K miles.
 
TaylorSFGuy said:
When the temperature bars rarely would go to 8 on the 2011, I didn't charge.

I only rarely see 6 TB, usually 5 in summer and 4 in winter. While I'm in a bit cooler climate, that doesn't explain it. Is getting 7 and 8 TBs related to quick charging? Do you see 7 or 8 TBs now that you are mostly avoiding daily quick charging?
 
WetEV said:
TaylorSFGuy said:
When the temperature bars rarely would go to 8 on the 2011, I didn't charge.

I only rarely see 6 TB, usually 5 in summer and 4 in winter. While I'm in a bit cooler climate, that doesn't explain it. Is getting 7 and 8 TBs related to quick charging? Do you see 7 or 8 TBs now that you are mostly avoiding daily quick charging?

Which goes back to why I said his bar losses were related to heat.

I'm way further south, see higher average temperatures but I don't charge the car if the pack gets above 80F which means about 75F outside when I start the charge in the worst case. I don't even watch the temp bars because I use leafspy.

Temp Bar 8 is 97F to 120F
Temp Bar 7 is 73F to 117F
Temp Bar 6 is 50F to 100F
Temp Bar 5 is 27F to 81F

So yeah, If I saw temp bar 6 or higher I wouldn't charge unless I was sure to get a free battery from Nissan. Since I don't expect to get one I'm not charging when the pack is hot.
 
cwerdna said:
The OP was already featured in a bunch of things for breaking the 100K mark:

Ah very good. I hadn't seen the articles on Nissan's website. Glad to see the recognition.
 
WetEV said:
TaylorSFGuy said:
When the temperature bars rarely would go to 8 on the 2011, I didn't charge.

I only rarely see 6 TB, usually 5 in summer and 4 in winter. While I'm in a bit cooler climate, that doesn't explain it. Is getting 7 and 8 TBs related to quick charging? Do you see 7 or 8 TBs now that you are mostly avoiding daily quick charging?
I'm going to make a guess here, but since his commute was 65 mi each way, the car was either driving (discharging at about 20 KW on the freeway) or charging (L2 at 3.8 KW for 8 hrs at work and 8 hrs while sleeping). Even though the vehicle was in a nice cool, wet PNW, the battery was constantly warmer than ambient due to constant charge/discharge. How much so? I don't know, but LeafSpy has always shown my battery at least 5-10 F higher when charging than when not charging overnight (some nights I charge, some I don't). Also, my driving pattern is all city 20-40 mph and low mileage 5-10 mi/d. I'll hazard a guess that Steve's battery was constantly 10-20 F higher than ambient, maybe even more. When you add Steve's full charge/discharge cycles (almost always 0 to 100% which is hardest on LiON batteries), and later addition of 2x daily DCQC's, I'd say he fully utilized a 1st gen battery and vehicle that was probably designed for less than 75,000 mi. If I recall correctly, Nissan's CEO once stated that his engineers told him the design wasn't ready for release, but the marketing people forced it (perhaps pushed by GM's Volt release in 2010). Also, the "leading environmentally-friendly affordable family" (LEAF) car is really for in-town use (motor was optimized to 35 mph).

So, OT, Steve, congratulations on a job well-done! You've done more than your part. For those who think he should have just bought a 50 mpg diesel, remember that WA's electricity is nearly 100% hydro and we send more than half of it to CA. Steve is walking the walk, saving tons of CO2 emissions, and Taylor Shellfish is in this for the long haul. Spend some time to read more about how CO2 is acidifying the oceans, and causing massive problems for Taylor and other shellfish companies:

http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt...limate-change-is-changing-the-oyster-business
http://thestorygroup.org/oyster-farmers-and-ocean-acidification/
http://globaloceanhealth.org/tag/taylor-shellfish/
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/10/28/3713061/washington-oregon-ocean-acidification/
http://mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=52&t=4768&p=441837&hilit=taylor#p441837
 
I took the LEAF in today to Nissan of Fife (WA), asking the dealer to inspect the brakes and look at the lack of regeneration. Their reply:

Verified Cust Concern. Found HV Battery is not able to accept regen charging anymore. Needs new battery ... is too weak to accept regen charging. Needs new and improved battery. Cost to replace battery - $6,294.65 plus tax.

As for the brakes - 5mm on front and 6mm on rear. The advisor went on to say that I should expect they will wear out faster now that the regeneration has gone away.
 
LEAF has ceramic brake pads so they will still last a while. Since ceramic pads cause more wear on the rotors, the rotors will likely need replacement when the pads are worn out so you might as well use the original brakes as long as you can (then replace pads and rotors).

Gerry
 
TaylorSFGuy said:
I took the LEAF in today to Nissan of Fife (WA), asking the dealer to inspect the brakes and look at the lack of regeneration. Their reply:

Verified Cust Concern. Found HV Battery is not able to accept regen charging anymore. Needs new battery ... is too weak to accept regen charging. Needs new and improved battery. Cost to replace battery - $6,294.65 plus tax.
The crazy thing is (and there's a whole thread about this already), if you can charge the car, the car can take at least some regenerative braking. On a '11, you'd think that would be a minimum of 3 kW of regen. With LeafSpy or LeafDD, one can easily see that the car severely limits the amount of regenerative braking depending on vehicle speed and SOC by looking at regen power and battery pack voltage. The battery can take regenerative braking, but it's programmed not to and the limits get more and more conservative as the battery loses capacity.

TaylorSFGuy said:
As for the brakes - 5mm on front and 6mm on rear. The advisor went on to say that I should expect they will wear out faster now that the regeneration has gone away.
Duh!
 
drees said:
TaylorSFGuy said:
I took the LEAF in today to Nissan of Fife (WA), asking the dealer to inspect the brakes and look at the lack of regeneration. Their reply:

Verified Cust Concern. Found HV Battery is not able to accept regen charging anymore. Needs new battery ... is too weak to accept regen charging. Needs new and improved battery. Cost to replace battery - $6,294.65 plus tax.
The crazy thing is (and there's a whole thread about this already), if you can charge the car, the car can take at least some regenerative braking. On a '11, you'd think that would be a minimum of 3 kW of regen. With LeafSpy or LeafDD, one can easily see that the car severely limits the amount of regenerative braking depending on vehicle speed and SOC by looking at regen power and battery pack voltage. The battery can take regenerative braking, but it's programmed not to and the limits get more and more conservative as the battery loses capacity.

TaylorSFGuy said:
As for the brakes - 5mm on front and 6mm on rear. The advisor went on to say that I should expect they will wear out faster now that the regeneration has gone away.
Duh!
My thoughts exactly on the brakes. I was trying to link the lack of regeneration to the grab and release braking I experience at LBW or VLB with light brake application (exiting from freeway or approaching a light). My simple interpretation is the system wants to put the energy to the battery but it can't and the brakes have to release - it can be quite a jerking motion in this situation as I come to a light.

The advisor told me the reading they were getting off my car was 6 and the normal range is 20 to 25. What the units are I don't know. That's all I can add to the request for an update on my brakes and regen. Steve
 
TaylorSFGuy said:
Cost to replace battery - $6,294.65 plus tax.

+$6499 battery
-$1000 core
+$225 retrofit kit
------------------------
$5724 total for parts at full MSRP
+$570.65 labor???

Looks like they are charging you full MSRP price on the battery (you can find the battery for over $1000 below list price at other dealers- a good comparison is Courtesy Nissan at CourtesyParts.com). Also, Nissan's own labor estimates for a battery swap is 3 hours. So they are charging $190.22 for labor too, which is high, or they overestimated the labor time.
 
kubel said:
+$6499 battery
-$1000 core
+$225 retrofit kit
------------------------
$5724 total for parts at full MSRP
+$570.65 labor???
Is there sales tax on a replacement battery? That's 9% - 10% in California.

Cheers, Wayne
 
TaylorSFGuy said:
I took the LEAF in today to Nissan of Fife (WA), asking the dealer to inspect the brakes and look at the lack of regeneration. Their reply:

Verified Cust Concern. Found HV Battery is not able to accept regen charging anymore. Needs new battery ... is too weak to accept regen charging. Needs new and improved battery. Cost to replace battery - $6,294.65 plus tax.

As for the brakes - 5mm on front and 6mm on rear. The advisor went on to say that I should expect they will wear out faster now that the regeneration has gone away.

That is pretty incredible ! 150k miles and the brake pads are still good to go :) Imagine if the regen had never given up? The pad would be in even better shape! I just wish Nissan could do a replacement on the battery for half that cost :(. I guess that they did not check on the rotors? Someone mentioned they could be a little more worn due to the ceramic break pads. So I guess when someone said the rotors wouldn't last as much as the pads might be correct after all.

What is the main wear for rotors? I read http://www.intuneautos.com/brake-rotors/what-causes-brake-rotors-to-wear-out-or-become-warped/ and it sounds to me like it would be braking. Though it also mentions heat? But really I'd say what would cause the most heat is when you apply the brakes? Regular heat from the atmosphere can't possibly cause damage to the rotors... can it? It also mentions dirt and other debris.... would rust be another factor? But if it were rust it would be more if you live in a moist area? Very humid? Would it be safe to say if you didn't ever need to use the regular breaks that the rotors could almost last indefinitely???

I still wish Nissan would have done something for Mr. Taylor. Even a discount on a battery replacement would have been great (Down to less than 50% cost would be good). Thoughts?

Thank you so much for the update! From what I read here if the battery can still intake regular charging from an outlet it should still allow regenerative breaking....
 
Congrats Steve on making 150k, bummer your car can't make the commute anymore. I too have a substantial commute and use my LEAF to save money. My commute is 44 miles each way, I am actually the Mechanical Designer for a company that makes level 2 EVSE. I purchased a 2014 LEAF on Memorial Day weekend in 2014. My car just turned 63K yesterday (26 mo). We have level 2 charging station at work and have additional level two station at home. I haven't lost a bar yet, but estimate I'm down 12%, though I lost range after purchasing none eco tires. The Ecopia tires wear right off it, drove them to bald and only got 37k. I was fortunate to take advantage of the Georgia EV tax credit of $5k before they eliminated it in 2015. I actually leased two of them so have $10k credit over 5 years. I just turned in the 2015 LEAF with 24K after 2 year a my wife lost her job so I wanted to drop the payment. My goal will be to reach 150K also. I do not use DC quick, only 2 times in the two plus years. My driving patterns have worked out that I can put 600 mi/wk on without quick charging. I level 2 charge 3x/day, once at work, immediately when I get home for 30 minutes and then overnight after all the driving of my kids to work and sporting practices. Haven't spend a dime on maintenance on the car and hope it continues. I hope the 2014 battery holds up a little longer than your 2011.
 
Back
Top