Possible 2012 purchase

Durandal said:

Drove it. Loved it. Bought it. It had 156 GIDs when they dropped it off, so it looks like it is about to drop to 9 bars. I'm Ok with that. With a 20 mile commute each way, and a charger near work, I should be set.

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Yes, make sure to drive it like you stole it and you may win the new battery lottery. Make sure to keep reading at MNL and you'll learn what you need to know about it. This could be YOU:
http://mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=19967&start=350#p470679

I checked the car fax on it, and it was purchased in 9/2012, so the battery capacity warranty should last until 9/2017.

So I've not lurked enough to get a full feeling of the stats on Leaf Spy, I have a decent impression after leaving it trickle charging last night after some quick spins driving it like I stole it. lol. Commutes will be in Eco mode, though.

I have no idea how to take a screen shot on this POS Android phone that I keep for a backup phone, so this is what it says:
72.2%; GIDs 203, SOC 93.5% 15.7kWh Remain

It is charging, and says 393.8V, I've not looked to see what the usual voltage of a Leaf pack is, I thought it was 400v, so maybe 2 cells are bad?

It had 153 GIDs when they dropped it off yesterday, so I'm guessing when this is fully charged it should get up to 207 GIDs. I may be wrong, I'm just guessing here.

I can tell by the speed of the trickle charger that I am probably going to want to put in an L2 pretty soon for those times when I know I'm going to need to drive around town a little bit more than normal. That's fine, I can drop the few hundred to run the wiring over there. Until then I will trickle at home and trickle at work. Speaking of, is that power brick 100% weather safe? (It looks like it is, but I couldn't find any info last night.)

I tried to register my car to You+Nissan, but it wouldn't take my VIN, I assume I will have to call customer care to get them to unlock the car for registering, although I don't even know if the issue is moot right now due to the 2G to 3G issue. I did a search for CarWings on the forum, but I failed to find anything useful there. Is there any point in trying to register for it right now?

It is interesting watching LeafSpy as it trickle charges, going anywhere from 900 watts going into the battery pack to as little as 100 watts, I assume it is slowly leveling the battery pack.

Anyhow, you guys have lives, and I don't expect answers to everything. It's all new and I'm excited. I usually will spend hours each day researching things, but I'm going to school full time in addition to my full time job and having a wife and kid, so time is a little more limited than usual for my extracurricular obsessions.

Charge to 100% daily, starting as soon as you get home from work and let the battery sit at full charge when not in use.

Take care of the 12v tho...

HeY.. That is not fair... YOu are giving the guy a prescription on how to destroy his battery to get a freebee.. That is called fraud. If the guy bought a used car and will some day need a new battery, then let him pay for it as anyone should.. The batter warrantee is for a new car protection from a defective battery prematurely....

Looting when the lights go out is also fun... But wrong....

I don't intend on altering my behavior to further advance the degradation of the battery pack by any means. After all, there is no guarantee that they will replace it.

I do feel, however that Nissan dropped the ball with these battery packs, as losing 40%+ capacity in 5 years isn't acceptable. Most people consider being able to squeeze 10 years or 100,000 miles out of a car as "normal." At the rate that the packs are losing capacity, that is far below the standard of expectations for vehicle purchases. One certainly would expect a 2012 year model car purchased in late 2016 to have 80% of it's usability through 2022. When you look at the degradation of the Tesla packs in comparison, either there is a design flaw in the chemistry, or the design on keeping the batteries happy. I suspect it's mostly due to Nissan not having active cooling on the batteries. If they had tested properly, they would have known this was going to happen, so either they failed on testing, or they knew the batteries were going to go bad, and claimed otherwise.

That said, even if the SOH drops to 50%, I still can find use for it, just much less use. It would be something to drive to my friend's house or such, but it would severely reduce its usability to me. I'm pleased as punch with the car at the moment, and as long as it works long enough for me to buy a used Tesla Model 3 in 2020 or 2021, I will be doubly pleased.

I was able to download some data from LeafSpy, so now I have better info:
Gids SOC AHr Pack Volts
194 901998 484521 392.83

Hx 12v Bat Volts Odo(km)
53.37 13.84 38646

SOH
73

Looks like I'm averaging 4.2 miles per KWh so far, which is pretty good I think. I'm good about coasting, and I drive in D mode most of the time unless I want to maximize the regen, in which I drop it into Eco, then put it back into D when I'm done with my regen.

Oh, I just had a thought regarding the warranty. Supposedly the car needs to have a yearly battery check in order to qualify for the warranty, correct? Is there any way I can determine if this has been done without taking my car down to the dealership? For instance can Nissan Customer Car verify the service history on the vehicle?

Durandal said:

I don't intend on altering my behavior to further advance the degradation of the battery pack by any means. After all, there is no guarantee that they will replace it.

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Good move as the verbiage in the warranty contains a blurb about any deliberate action taken to reduce battery life voiding the warranty.

They specifically spell out in the owners manual on my 2014 that exposing the car to temps of over 120 degrees for 24 hours voids the battery warranty. No leaving the car in a paint booth with the heat lamps on as some have mentioned the intend to do to hasten the batteries early demise.

Durandal said:

Oh, I just had a thought regarding the warranty. Supposedly the car needs to have a yearly battery check in order to qualify for the warranty, correct? Is there any way I can determine if this has been done without taking my car down to the dealership? For instance can Nissan Customer Car verify the service history on the vehicle?

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At least two years of battery checks were missed when I purchased a 2012 Leaf. Recently the GOM went to 8 bars. The local dealer checked it out and has ordered a new battery under warranty. The "battery report" sent into Nissan power train warranty group was nothing more than the "5 star" rating sheet (with all 5 stars). I did keep the battery charged at near 100% daily because I needed the range! I'd recommend you call your local dealer(s), tell them about your purchase, see if they will give you a "complimentary" battery test - mine did right after I bought it. Drive it as much as you can, use each charge as much as you can, do DCQC charges as much as you can, keep it 100% as much as you can. It is still a cr**-shoot.

I'm now averaging 4.5 miles/KWh on my commute, and I ordered the heater mod.
Turns out I mis-read PlugShare, and the plugs nearby me are actually 240v, so I can charge fully at work, and negate charging at home if I want to. So 3 hours of being plugged in, then I can move my car to a normal spot, and be pleased that where I plug in has a large solar array. (Although it's unlikely the solar array generates enough for the building it is beside, but hey...)

Sweet nothing like free gas(or electricity in our case)! I normally use the 80% charge mode(only charge to 80%) but do use 100% whenever I have the time and access to free electricity

I know that there is not definitive way to determine without going to the dealership to find out if the Leaf has the latest software upgrades on it, but I have noted the past few days that I can easily get 3-4 bubbles of regen, and assuming the battery is warm enough and low enough, 5 bubbles of regen. This leads me to believe that the latest software updates have not been applied yet. Nissan is doing their Car Care Event this October, so if I can get them to do a free 100 point inspection (Probably 20 points on a Leaf) then they probably will do updates at that time as well. My understanding is that if I want to be eligible for a battery replacement, I will need to make sure the software updates are complete, correct?

Get over yourself, powersurge. Is charging to 100%, 'fraud'? Don't be a Jackhole, especially as the battery isn't holding up as well as Nissan let on, especially in hot climates. So sit and spin. The 'fraud', as you say, moron, is really on Nissan's side.

Of course summer does the most damage, but here's the loss so far I've accumulated on my leaf...
Date odo mi AHr SOH Hx AHr Delt
09/22/2016 23924 48.426 73% 53.32 0
10/21/2016 25072.3 48.662 74% 53.75 0.236
11/22/2016 26167.2 48.104 73% 52.76 -0.558
12/22/2016 26893.6 48.052 73% 52.71 -0.052
01/22/2017 27958 48.275 73% 53.08 0.223
02/22/2017 29295.2 48.091 73% 52.77 -0.184
03/22/2017 30347.1 48.000 73% 52.62 -0.091
04/24/2017 31598 47.298 72% 51.47 -0.702
05/24/2017 32678.5 47.081 71% 51.17 -0.217
06/22/2017 33562.1 46.694 71% 50.48 -0.387
07/22/2017 34740.2 46.018 70% 49.38 -0.676
08/10/2017 35421.3 45.808 69% 49.04 -0.21
-0.238 avg/mo
-0.3725 avg summer
-2.618 Total Loss


My warranty expires 11/26/2017. It looks like I probably won't lose that 4th bar in time... Sigh.

Just picked up a '12 with 10 bars and from what I'm seeing on these boards everyone says the battery replacement warranty is 5 years. The dealer I purchased it from said the battery is warrantied for 8/100,000. Am I missing something?

greeneggs0 said:

Just picked up a '12 with 10 bars and from what I'm seeing on these boards everyone says the battery replacement warranty is 5 years. The dealer I purchased it from said the battery is warrantied for 8/100,000. Am I missing something?

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Don't confuse battery capacity warranty: (5yrs/60K mi) with battery defect/failure (8/100K).