Nissan Leaf owner are helpless in Sri Lanka

Dear friends,
I am from Sri Lanka. There are around 5000 electric vehicles in Sri Lanka and more than 3500 Nissan Leaf on road which are imported as reconditioned or brand new conditions from Japan or United Kingdom by local vendors or personal importers. I also bought a one year used Nissan Leaf for Rs. 3,300,000/- (USD $ 22, 750) YOM 2014, 24kwh.
Authorized dealer of Sri Lanka for Nissan is AMW (Authorized Motor Ways) and currently they are not importing Nissan Leaf to Sri Lanka. Also they do not take any responsibility regarding the Nissan leaf in Sri Lanka. Unfortunately several leaf owners of 2012 2013 even 2014 models facing the battery bar loss even 4 or 5 bars out of 12 bars. Their state of health of battery is around 60%. Unfortunately they don't have any warranty by the unauthorized dealer or any others. They lost their capacity before 5 years or 60000 miles. May be our climate have an affect on it. Our temperature is around 25c to 32c around the year. This is the main problem what we are currently facing and seeking solutions.

We do not have much infrastructure for Nissan Leaf service and repair. Even the fast charging. Only 40 fast chargers available in entire island which are owned by private investors. We cannot use the navigation system installed in car and even we cannot change the language of Japanese model to English. Carvings or any other software are not supported to Sri Lanka and we are unable to take maximum out of Nissan Leaf.

Individually people contacted Nissan Japan but their helps also not receiving to us. They wanted to come through the authorized dealer and that is another headache.

I am writing in this international forum to find any other ways to get the help of global Nissan for this poor Nissan leaf owners. As a forum i hope you will advise us or help us to come over this situation.

Regards,

Shafras Wahid
[email protected]

Your hot climate is definitely half of the problem here. Leafs manufactured in Japan and the US though 3/2013 lose capacity quickly in hot climates, and much more slowly in cool climates. Those made beginning in April of 2013 are slightly more heat-resistant, but even the so-called "Lizard pack" installed from the 2015 model year onward still loses capacity much faster in higher heat. I hope that you and others like you can get Nissan to help you.

Unfortunately your experience is much like that of New Zealanders who have also imported former Japan-market Leafs. Nissan NZ is giving them little or no support unless their cars were officially imported into the country.

shafraswahid said:

Unfortunately several leaf owners of 2012 2013 even 2014 models facing the battery bar loss even 4 or 5 bars out of 12 bars. Their state of health of battery is around 60%. Unfortunately they don't have any warranty by the unauthorized dealer or any others. They lost their capacity before 5 years or 60000 miles. May be our climate have an affect on it. Our temperature is around 25c to 32c around the year. This is the main problem what we are currently facing and seeking solutions.

...

I am writing in this international forum to find any other ways to get the help of global Nissan for this poor Nissan leaf owners. As a forum i hope you will advise us or help us to come over this situation.

Regards,

Shafras Wahids
[email protected]

Click to expand...

This probably isn't much help in terms of Nissan, but I had lost 7 capacity bars, so 5 capacity bars remaining at just under 60k miles. I was down well into the 46% battery health. The "good news" if it can be called that is I was still able to drive the LEAF, although relatively slower than most would want to go, and could still get 40 to 50 miles before low battery warning when I was down 5 or 6 capacity bars. Even down the 7 capacity bars, I could get 26 miles before LBW, and I never pushed it to the turtle mode, but at LBW there were still a few more miles I could have gone. With a bit more planning, it is possible to keep going.

This also anecdotally shows that the QC has little to no effect on battery life, as it was stated there are so few QCs there.

As an alternative, it might be better to contact Nissan of Japan and try to work with them, appealing to their sense of commitment to the LEAF, and possibly make some progress? As one of so few Nissan LEAFs in the country, you are somewhat a LEAF ambassador for Nissan, and they should treat you fairly and honorably.