Nissan Battery Replacement Program, Cost

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Bilbobaker said:
I would eventually like to replace my battery when it drops to low bars.. however this seems like something I should be able to do myself ..
I have rebuilt motors transmissions and done all the maintenance needed for all my previous vehicles so why not the simple battery exchange on my 2013 Nissan Leaf?

I agree with your sentiment however we are entering into a new era of motor vehicles where we no longer own them lock stock and barrell. Manufacturers are beginning a trend towards obstructing non approved repairs and parts from going into service.

Tesla are famous for intentionally bricking cars. Enthusiasts attempting to put a Tesla chassis and drivetrain into another vehicle using salvaged vehicles find that Tesla can remotely brick the cars OTA if they detect this activity.

There is an EV enthusiast, Jack Ricard, who obtained a practically new Smart EV car without a battery. He enquired about buying a new pack from Mercedes, after some humming and harring they gave him a price but backed out of the deal suddenly when he tried to order the battery when they realised he didn't have a core to return. As far as I am aware he never did get them to sell him the battery. What this means essentially is that we buy a battery that comes included with a car.

Only a few states have "right to repair" laws that protect consumers from this disturbing practice.
 
Bilbobaker said:
I would eventually like to replace my battery when it drops to low bars.. however this seems like something I should be able to do myself ..
I have rebuilt motors transmissions and done all the maintenance needed for all my previous vehicles so why not the simple battery exchange on my 2013 Nissan Leaf?

several have done so, so what is stopping you? Your best bet (and likely best value) is the salvage yards
 
I was thinking salvage yards for a used battery might be the best option too.... thanks for all the replies...

Wonder if Doorman will make a replacement for the Leaf too...
 
Bilbobaker said:
I was thinking salvage yards for a used battery might be the best option too.... thanks for all the replies...

Wonder if Doorman will make a replacement for the Leaf too...

Physically replacing the main battery pack is relatively easy. Making it work with the car is very difficult. The BMS in the battery pack needs to be paired with the car. This requires a Consult tool and special key card from Nissan. To get around this, you either need an identical battery pack so you can swap the BMS card between them, or you need to crack open the battery packs and physically swap the cells and wiring harness between them. There is a user (Cor) that has done this, with a thread posted in the Pacific forum.
 
There are always questions to which there is no answer.

In my case, even though bars are down and maximum range is only 60 miles, I keep on driving as it does not affect me having some miles less than before.

Other than that, the investment/maintenance funds issue is not an issue to me. If the money issue is an issue for you, you can not afford such a high tech vehicle and should have not gotten it in the first place.

Such a car will eventually require maintenance and/or repair, and this will cost money.

Maybe you should getting something you can afford.
 
For my update on my 2011 LEAF that is down 5 bars, has 70.5K miles and has been owned since May 2011, I will have a new battery installed with Nissan picking up 80% of the cost.

I took the car into the dealer for regular maintenance (brake fluid and cabin filter) and complained about the degraded battery and range. I got home and called the Nissan EV Customer Support Line requesting assistance for a new battery. Within a couple weeks, Nissan had talked to my Service Rep and offered the 80/20 cost sharing. I did go out of my way to be nice and civil with both my Service Adviser and the Customer Service Rep. It was a pretty easy, no hassle deal.
 
^^^
Wow! That's great news and not a bad price. Good to hear that Nissan is more forthcoming with helping on battery replacement costs on Leafs in these cases.

Perhaps this is also a means of propping up used Leafs prices? Otherwise, more and more Leafs that are out of capacity warranty and below the desired range autonomy will flow to the used market, creating a supply/demand imbalance and depressing prices further.
 
cwerdna said:
^^^
Wow! That's great news and not a bad price. Good to hear that Nissan is more forthcoming with helping on battery replacement costs on Leafs in these cases.

Perhaps this is also a means of propping up used Leafs prices? Otherwise, more and more Leafs that are out of capacity warranty and below the desired range autonomy will flow to the used market, creating a supply/demand imbalance and depressing prices further.

This is has been the trend lately from them. It seems like they are being very favorable to the early adopters more and more and I think that is going to continue.

Remember when it was like pulling teeth to get a pack from them? Its almost as if they knew they weren't replacing packs with something significantly better and wanted us to wait it out a bit longer.

I have to admit that when looking at other EV choices, its hard to ignore the loyalty discounts. This makes Nissan hard to beat.

Now I know a ton of people will respond with horror stories on their experiences but the reality is that was then and its a completely different World today.
 
DaveinOlyWA said:
cwerdna said:
^^^
Wow! That's great news and not a bad price. Good to hear that Nissan is more forthcoming with helping on battery replacement costs on Leafs in these cases.

Perhaps this is also a means of propping up used Leafs prices? Otherwise, more and more Leafs that are out of capacity warranty and below the desired range autonomy will flow to the used market, creating a supply/demand imbalance and depressing prices further.

This is has been the trend lately from them. It seems like they are being very favorable to the early adopters more and more and I think that is going to continue.

Remember when it was like pulling teeth to get a pack from them? Its almost as if they knew they weren't replacing packs with something significantly better and wanted us to wait it out a bit longer.

I have to admit that when looking at other EV choices, its hard to ignore the loyalty discounts. This makes Nissan hard to beat.

Now I know a ton of people will respond with horror stories on their experiences but the reality is that was then and its a completely different World today.

Agreed they are being more helpful nowadays. I recently had the onboard charger fail in my LEAF. Kinda of a bummer since the extended warranty had just run out. I called consumer affairs, almost as a lark, and they agreed to refund me $1,000 of the $2500 repair bill. This was at 107,000 miles and 6 years of age.
 
DaveinOlyWA said:
Now I know a ton of people will respond with horror stories on their experiences but the reality is that was then and its a completely different World today.
I'll believe it when Nissan puts a policy out there in print. Anecdotes are hard to plan by.
 
DaveinOlyWA said:
Now I know a ton of people will respond with horror stories on their experiences but the reality is that was then and its a completely different World today.
I am still trying to get out of warranty assistance. Going on one year now since I dropped to 8 bars, been driving on 7 bars for a few months now and the rate of capacity loss is not slowing down. So much for expecting 70% capacity after 8 years and the rate of capacity loss slowing down on a glide path. I regularly hit LBW between 30-35 mi now and efficiency has taken a dive with the lack of regen, it's hard for me to get much more than 4mi/kWh which does not help range.

I am glad Nissan is providing assistance for many people, but the reality is that Nissan sold a faulty product when claiming otherwise and isn't willing to share what criteria they use to determine if an owner is worthy or not.

I still have a glimmer of hope that they will come through, but I'm not holding my breath.

Seeing a bunch of people with 30 kWh packs suffering from rapid capacity loss makes me wonder if Nissan has learned anything after 6 years of LEAF production.
 
Seeing a bunch of people with 30 kWh packs suffering from rapid capacity loss makes me wonder if Nissan has learned anything after 6 years of LEAF production.


1. Provide a battery capacity warranty, to avoid lawsuits over the lack of one.

2. Ensure that the packs will just about all last long and well enough to avoid triggering that warranty.
 
SageBrush said:
DaveinOlyWA said:
Now I know a ton of people will respond with horror stories on their experiences but the reality is that was then and its a completely different World today.
I'll believe it when Nissan puts a policy out there in print. Anecdotes are hard to plan by.

Nissan did make an official statement in an interview with Chelsea Sexton. The policy as stated in the interview is to deal with complaints on a customer by customer basis.

https://youtu.be/R1tfX7fRWPI?t=9m10s

I don't think we are going to see a LEAF battery specific policy for out of warranty repairs, just their standard customer service pledge. As you say this makes it difficult to plan by since you cannot predict how Nissan will deal with your specific complaint as and when that occurs. That is their policy, take it or leave it.
 
My sister has worked in the auto service industry for years and all dealerships have the ability to get "off paper" things done for those out of warranty facing expensive repairs and actually has a fund for exactly that purpose so the reality is it is a lot of how you present your case, previous history with the dealership, etc.

Online forums are a pretty small sample of LEAF owners out there and by and large started by a small core of hard core EVers most of which still remain here despite many not even driving LEAFs anymore. The overwhelming majority of new people ONLY come here to complain. This has caused a lot of us to get a pretty negative view of Nissan but that is how we Humans roll.

When things go as expected, it simply does not make an impression on us. Now did Nissan have issues? Yep, they did. Even in the "best rated" climate in the US for EVs, I still lost 12% capacity in 45,000 miles and 3 years on my 2011. I leased so it was a somewhat of an inconvenience at first but I leased because like any new tech, I wasn't all that sure it was going to work for me. It was compromise, no doubt but EVERY car is a compromise. I have a gasser and I soon realized that it was much more of one masked by decades of acceptance of "that is how it is"

So when it came time to dump the 2011, I examined my options and found that the LEAF was basically my only choice, So got a 2013 but this time at SUPER CHEAP prices. It undoubtedly proved that Nissan had made progress. I drove pretty much the same way, same areas, same location but ended up with roughly 8% degradation after nearly identical miles. There is no amount of variance that can account for that much improvement. FYI; I think LEAF Spy only helped me to abuse my pack more if deeper cycling is bad because I literally came home EVERY days for months at a time under 10 GIDs.

But the 2013 again was a lease and despite a crazy discount to buy it, I knew that the 2013 LEAF was simply not a "purchaseable" car for many of the same reasons the 2011 wasn't. So again, I looked at the options and there now was viable competition out there including the option toe extend my lease (remember I had one third less degradation so a few more months was easily doable) for a Bolt but realized rather early in the game that Chevy wasn't a company I was going to be happy to deal with.

But Nissan incentives to return were simply too much to ignore. I thought about a 2 year lease but also looked at the timing of other manufacturers and the current nearly comatose build up of public charging and decided to make it a 3 year lease. Whether that works out is still up in the air but the 30 kwh pack was bigger and for the first time in 6 years, I got the 2 free years of charging but again, the price was simply not to be believed making other manufacturers options simply too much more money. But again, the 30 kwh LEAF was not a viable long term option and I ended up with what is essentially a 3 year test drive. A near zero interest loan for a LEAF whose out the door price would be barely more than half its selling price. I figured I had little to lose with a $9,000 residual which I felt could be negotiated down if I decided the car was worth buying later. But the reality was I had the chance to really evaluate Nissan's progress in making a better battery. With free charging, I could abuse the Hell out of the pack with the extra range assuring I would not be too inconvenienced at the end of the lease and that is exactly what I have done. More on that later.

But one thing I have noticed that started just about a year ago is Nissan taking a dramatic change in customer service and huge incentives on new cars was only part of it. Previously I had heard of just a handful of people getting a decent resolution from Nissan if that. The reality was even people completely under warranty were having issues getting things done and when it did happen it was after several weeks or even months. Battery supply issues? Nah, Nissan has a ton of facilities with MUCH more capacity than they were putting out.

But late last year, evidence of huge policy shifts became evident. All of a sudden, I was hearing about people out of warranty sometimes by a year or several thousand miles getting packs hugely discounted or in some cases free. It started a bit slowly but I realized that what we were seeing here wasn't representative of what was really happening. The great deals were actually happening in bunches.

Again, it seemed like Nissan had added a page to its customer service rules without telling anyone. This is typical of how they operate. They have been tweaking the LEAF for a better customer service experience without letting us know any progress they have made. Remember the announcement of the 24 to 30 kwh upgrade for the S trim on the 2016 LEAF? Yeah, neither do I since there essentially wasn't one.

But the news of deals on replacement packs kept rolling in. I am now hearing 3-5 a week including one guy who has over 100,000 miles on his 2011 and got a battery for 80% off. He is almost double the warranty mileage and several years past his 5 year time line. But he is not alone. Its almost as if Nissan knew the earlier replacement packs were not going to be significantly better than what the customer had and was hesitant to provide them but now that they had improved the chemistry, BMS, etc. They had something that they could be proud of and wanted to pass them out to anyone who asked, hence the crazy discounts.

So back to my 2016 LEAF. I got the car Nov 11, 2016. Since the 30 kwh S trim upgrade wasn't really announced, its anyone's guess as to when they started building them in TN but my build date was 10/16.

So why did Nissan upgrade the S trim literally weeks before the 2017's hit the streets? Wouldn't have been better to hold off until then? Or was it simply "proud parent" syndrome winning the day?

To date I have driven 18,226 miles with (just checked 5 mins ago) ahr 82.34, SOH 100%, Hx 100.56%, 363 GIDs, 28.1 kwh available (GIDs = 77.5 wh) with 159 QCs, 189 L2s. All these numbers are the same as the day I picked up the car (Actually Hx was 99%) Now, our "perfect" climate for battery longevity is on hiatus this Summer. On Thurs night according to someone on Facebook (did not verify because I was too hot to care at the time) but at 11 PM, Seattle had a higher temperature than Phoenix AZ. Granted we don't (does anyone?) touch Phoenix for daytime temps but only provided the info to show that this Summer is as far from normal as... well as this past Winter was from our normal Winters.

So does this mean that despite baking the pack to 125º a few dozen times during both cold and hot weather without any signs of battery fade mean that Nissan has finally hit one of their performance goals? Well, its simply too early to tell to be honest with you. But the signs bode well so far. My 2013 started its decline at roughly the same time period (but 5,000 less miles) so I might be just around the corner from seeing 99%. FYI; because of out of town job assignments, a long 4th of July weekend (trust in the fact that going anywhere that weekend is insanity) combined with a few local jobs, my LEAF actually did see 81.90 ahr and 98% SOH after 9 days of averaging 25 miles a day and charging only a few hours every 2-3 days including one QC that literally lasted me almost a week. But my normal driving patterns made that a memory after 3 days.

We are now one month away from another "proud parent" day for Nissan. This time the stakes are much higher. Gone is the pie in the sky expectations present in December of 2010. Present on September 6th will be the still vivid memories of "100 miles of range" "70% after 10 years" "30 cents on the dollar for lightly used LEAFs" For those of you that have had negative dealership or corporate interactions in the past, this will be a hard thing to believe, but this is Nissan's chance to thank the early adopters for their loyalty. Already, they have made it clear that current LEAFers will have incentives available to them on the 2018 LEAF and whether you took an extension on a lease ending this year (along with the 3 free months) or you bought yours so many years ago, you will be the beneficiaries. Just as Tesla rewarded their current customers, Nissan will do the same.
 
Interesting post DaveinOlyWA

I see we have covered approximately the same number of total EV miles in our LEAF's. I took the outright purchase route, you took the multiple lease approach. If you're up for it I'd be interested in comparing how much we spent overall using these two different approaches. My depreciation cost is probably less than your 3 vehicles, *but* you cashed in three times on the $7,500 fed tax credit while I only had one opportunity for that. We could share highlights of the comparison as for the folks on this forum. PM me if you're interested.

On another note, my take on Nissan's recent favourable change in taking care of its LEAF owners is somewhat different to yours. I believe their motivation to be more generous is the fact that they are now number five in US EV sales despite their willingness to discount the LEAF. The heavy discounts take care of the complaint that EV's are too expensive to buy. Now they have to work on the negative press the car received due to the weak batteries. If Nissan want to regain their dominance in the US market, discounting further won't work, they have to shore up the cars reputation. I'm sure that is a reason people are thinking twice about a LEAF. On my blog the top viewed post is the one detailing the need to replace my battery, all the favourable posts I made over the last 6 years are dwarfed by this one post.

The bad rap the LEAF has is down to how Nissan handled the battery issues out of the gate. I remember Jack Rickard commenting that Nissan should be "Tucking Owners into bed at night" rather than stonewall them over the battery/range issues. Jack is a curmudgeon but I agree with his assessment. I believe Nissan are now fixing this customer service mis-step.

Despite Nissan's recent generosity, Tesla will be my next EV. I'll let others take the risk with Nissan this go around and see how it works out before considering their EV's again. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.
 
JPWhite said:
Interesting post DaveinOlyWA

I see we have covered approximately the same number of total EV miles in our LEAF's. I took the outright purchase route, you took the multiple lease approach. If you're up for it I'd be interested in comparing how much we spent overall using these two different approaches. My depreciation cost is probably less than your 3 vehicles, *but* you cashed in three times on the $7,500 fed tax credit while I only had one opportunity for that. We could share highlights of the comparison as for the folks on this forum. PM me if you're interested.

On another note, my take on Nissan's recent favourable change in taking care of its LEAF owners is somewhat different to yours. I believe their motivation to be more generous is the fact that they are now number five in US EV sales despite their willingness to discount the LEAF. The heavy discounts take care of the complaint that EV's are too expensive to buy. Now they have to work on the negative press the car received due to the weak batteries. If Nissan want to regain their dominance in the US market, discounting further won't work, they have to shore up the cars reputation. I'm sure that is a reason people are thinking twice about a LEAF. On my blog the top viewed post is the one detailing the need to replace my battery, all the favourable posts I made over the last 6 years are dwarfed by this one post.

The bad rap the LEAF has is down to how Nissan handled the battery issues out of the gate. I remember Jack Rickard commenting that Nissan should be "Tucking Owners into bed at night" rather than stonewall them over the battery/range issues. Jack is a curmudgeon but I agree with his assessment. I believe Nissan are now fixing this customer service mis-step.

Despite Nissan's recent generosity, Tesla will be my next EV. I'll let others take the risk with Nissan this go around and see how it works out before considering their EV's again. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.


Well, as we all know the cutting edge meant paying full boat so total lease cost on my 2011 was 15,746. On the 2013, $8355.50 and the 2016 will be about the same since the last two were both zero down and monthly is .24 cent difference.

the real total is slightly different as all three had registration fees refunds. the 2011 was small, like $40 or so but both the 2013 and 2016 were in the $100 to $150 range based on some sort of quirk where the EV tab fees are not billed on new registrations.

But the reality is I could not have survived with a car as degraded as yours was. My time constraints at work did not allow me the same freedom I have today in 2012 when I first started the job I have now.
 
DaveinOlyWA said:
JPWhite said:
Interesting post DaveinOlyWA

I see we have covered approximately the same number of total EV miles in our LEAF's. I took the outright purchase route, you took the multiple lease approach. If you're up for it I'd be interested in comparing how much we spent overall using these two different approaches. My depreciation cost is probably less than your 3 vehicles, *but* you cashed in three times on the $7,500 fed tax credit while I only had one opportunity for that. We could share highlights of the comparison as for the folks on this forum. PM me if you're interested.

On another note, my take on Nissan's recent favourable change in taking care of its LEAF owners is somewhat different to yours. I believe their motivation to be more generous is the fact that they are now number five in US EV sales despite their willingness to discount the LEAF. The heavy discounts take care of the complaint that EV's are too expensive to buy. Now they have to work on the negative press the car received due to the weak batteries. If Nissan want to regain their dominance in the US market, discounting further won't work, they have to shore up the cars reputation. I'm sure that is a reason people are thinking twice about a LEAF. On my blog the top viewed post is the one detailing the need to replace my battery, all the favourable posts I made over the last 6 years are dwarfed by this one post.

The bad rap the LEAF has is down to how Nissan handled the battery issues out of the gate. I remember Jack Rickard commenting that Nissan should be "Tucking Owners into bed at night" rather than stonewall them over the battery/range issues. Jack is a curmudgeon but I agree with his assessment. I believe Nissan are now fixing this customer service mis-step.

Despite Nissan's recent generosity, Tesla will be my next EV. I'll let others take the risk with Nissan this go around and see how it works out before considering their EV's again. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.


Well, as we all know the cutting edge meant paying full boat so total lease cost on my 2011 was 15,746. On the 2013, $8355.50 and the 2016 will be about the same since the last two were both zero down and monthly is .24 cent difference.

the real total is slightly different as all three had registration fees refunds. the 2011 was small, like $40 or so but both the 2013 and 2016 were in the $100 to $150 range based on some sort of quirk where the EV tab fees are not billed on new registrations.

But the reality is I could not have survived with a car as degraded as yours was. My time constraints at work did not allow me the same freedom I have today in 2012 when I first started the job I have now.

So you may up paying $32,457 by end of lease.
I paid $33,160 but got fed credit of $7,500 and state rebate of $2,500, but with regular maintenance and the recent high dollar repairs I've paid closer to $33,000.

You still have a warranty to pay for future repairs, I don't. So I'd say you are ahead at this stage. The model 3 can't come soon enough.
 
I read Nissan's improvement in customer service the same way as JPWhite: shoring up a (deserved) poor reputation in preparation for the 2018 debut.

I'm very happy with our LEAF, but that is more a case of buying cheap and demanding little from the car. There is just no way I would spend $30k+ on a Nissan product, and with the Model 3 on the horizon Nissan is a history footnote in the EV space.

I'll remember Nissan as the first general car company to make a real effort at volume EV production
I'll also remember that when their adventure went poorly they treated their customers like ****.
 
Had my battery replaced in my 2012 Leaf on October 27 2016. At that time car had 29,450 mikes on it and new battery was reporting 100% SOH. Now I have 35,590 mikes on it and it's August 7 2017 and still shows 100% SOH. I didn't buy this car New so was wondering how long other people that either go their car New or had the battery replaced it took for SOH to drop below 100%? The HX is at 98.8% right now.

Thanks,

John
 
jjleejr said:
Had my battery replaced in my 2012 Leaf on October 27 2016. At that time car had 29,450 mikes on it and new battery was reporting 100% SOH. Now I have 35,590 mikes on it and it's August 7 2017 and still shows 100% SOH. I didn't buy this car New so was wondering how long other people that either go their car New or had the battery replaced it took for SOH to drop below 100%? The HX is at 98.8% right now.

Thanks,

John

there has been a constant improvement in battery chemistry over time and as my previous post suggests, I think we shall realize another significant date of Nov 2016 or later for the preferred build date of the 30 kwh pack just as after April 2013 was preferred for the 2013 build.
 
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