Need new battery, nissan sucks

Nubo said:

downeykp said:

The mistake that many of us made was thinking this could be a car that would last many years as a very usable vehicle and at the end of the day would provide a lot of value. But, $8000 for a battery in a $2000 vehicle!
My 2011 has 7 bars left and only has 34K mi. It would scare me to think what it is worth.

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The wrong way to evaluate, imho. It's not a matter of whether the new battery price is justified by the market value of the car (with worn-out battery). It's whether or not the new battery (which should give much better service than the original) is worth the price. The vehicle itself is basically already fully depreciated. You've already taken that hit.

With 34K mi, it's safe to say the vehicle itself can provide many more years and miles of service. So factor the $8000 over the miles/years you could expect the newly refurbished vehicle to provide service.

bradleydad said:

Then, consider how cheaply you can buy a used Leaf. I paid $8.000 for my 2015 with about 30,000 miles. It looks and drives like a new car.

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A very important point for OP to consider. The LEAF battery problems were factored into the price of the used car. In effect you were already compensated for those shortcomings when purchasing the used vehicle.

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I find it interesting about how everyones memory about what was said by Nissan before launch. They really put in the spotlight the mileage figures that the Leaf would get. They did talk about real world mileage but it was more of an afterthought. They also talked about not doing a lot of dc fast charges because of what it might due to the batteries. They did not talk about how horrible the heater was. The stupid solar panel that did nothing. I was stupid enough to think that this car would be something to drive into the ground like all of the cars I have bought. For this reason I bought it.

Many of us here knew what we were getting into and were hoping that Nissan would take care of us as early adopters. Thats us. What about the people (the bulk of the buyers) who were not glued to this site gleaning everything about this car? They are the real losers. They just took it for granted that all would be well.

Electric vehicles obviously have limitations. Long commutes, battery degradation, long summer vacations would be the biggest problems. Even the longest range Tesla's have some of these same limitations.

Don't get me wrong the 7 bar car that I own as long as it does not go down to less than 40 mi. range will suit my needs to go into town a couple times a week. Being retired makes this possible. If I had to commute I would not feel this way.

The stupid Solar Panel that did nothing.

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I agree with the rest of your post, but it turns out that the little solar panel did help keep the 12 volt battery charged - IF the car was parked in the sun regularly.

LeftieBiker said:

The stupid Solar Panel that did nothing.

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I agree with the rest of your post, but it turns out that the little solar panel did help keep the 12 volt battery charged - IF the car was parked in the sun regularly.

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Really?

alembic42 said:

Also what can i do, practically speaking, short of spending $7500 on a battery for my $2000 car?
Thanks in advance

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I assume you mean the car is now worth $2k, not that you paid $2k for it. Your 9 bar 2012 is worth far more than $2k. You can reasonably get $5-6k for that car quite easily. The cheapest 2012 on Cars.com (in the whole US) is listed for $5,499 and it is a 7 bar car with 63k miles.

You have five viable options:
1) List and sell the car for ~$5k, assuming it's still fairly low mileage. You may even be able to get more.

2) Buy a replacement battery for ~$8k, installed, from Nissan. This will have a new capacity warranty of 5yr/60k miles and will be the new chemistry. It will likely last a good while longer than your existing battery--approximately 10 years until you get to where you are now. If you do this, be sure to speak to your insurance company and get a rider to cover the battery or exclude the battery from coverage. If you get in a collision with the new battery, the insurance payout value on your Leaf will NOT cover the battery value.

3) Sign up for Fenix Power. See details and costs on their website:
https://fenix.systems/leafbattery

Note: They're a startup, batteries won't be available until the end of this year at the earliest, and there's a risk they could go bankrupt.

4) Buy a battery from a wrecked Nissan Leaf and do the swap yourself or hire someone to do the swap. Bring it to the dealer and activate it. Will likely cost $3k if you do it yourself and ~$5k if someone does it for you.

5) Continue to drive the car if it meets your range needs.

I can tell you're quite frustrated, and I understand that. I bought my Leaf with an 8 bar battery for $5500, fully intending to drive it and replace the battery with this year or next year's tax refund. The day after I bought my Leaf, Nissan raised the replacement cost from $5500 to $8000.

However, I would encourage you to consider your current situation. You're driving a low mileage fairly new car that gets very good fuel economy. If the new battery lasts 8 years (which it's very likely to do), that means the battery will cost $83 a month, which is likely less than you would spend on gas for a different car.

I have a 2011 model with just 6 bars left and the warranty will time out this May. So I'm kind of hoping to find a 3rd party that may be able to refurbish the battery with new cells to restore some range without spending $8500 that the dealer quoted, anyone have any leads on any such service in the San Diego area?

sredlin said:

I have a 2011 model with just 6 bars left and the warranty will time out this May. So I'm kind of hoping to find a 3rd party that may be able to refurbish the battery with new cells to restore some range without spending $8500 that the dealer quoted, anyone have any leads on any such service in the San Diego area?

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See posts by Cor at http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=51&t=21997.

Approximately, where are you located? Can you update your location info via your user name in the upper right > User Control Panel > Profile tab? That way, we don't need to ask in future posts/threads or do sleuthing to deduce it.

Not sure what you mean by "the warranty will time out this May." You talking about the defects warranty? You're well past the 5 years/60K capacity warranty.

sredlin said:

I have a 2011 model with just 6 bars left and the warranty will time out this May. So I'm kind of hoping to find a 3rd party that may be able to refurbish the battery with new cells to restore some range without spending $8500 that the dealer quoted, anyone have any leads on any such service in the San Diego area?

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The 8 year defect warranty applies only to manufacturing defects in cells, and not to capacity loss in which all of the cells lose capacity more or less evenly. There was no capacity loss warranty when the car was sold. Nissan provided a 60k miles, 5 year (to the day, no longer) capacity warranty in 2013, IIRC, as a class action suit was being brought against them.

Thanks for the quick reply, I'll have a look at the other thread in a little bit. I updated my location, I live in Rancho Bernardo/Poway area of San Diego County. So what I mean by my warranty will time out is that I will reach the 8 years or 100k miles mark in May. I only have about 67K miles now, so I won't get anywhere near 100K miles before the car is 8 years old. So unless the battery completely fails, I will be stuck with my roughly 40 mile range Leaf at that point. Therefore, with the manufacturer's warranty expired, I see no reason not to look for custom battery options to restore some range. And I know there are EV builders out there, so I'm hoping to find some options to consider before giving up on what otherwise seems like a very good running car. Thanks again for the quick reply, I'll spend some time poking through the various threads as I consider my options.

LeftieBiker said:

Nissan provided a 60k miles, 5 year (to the day, no longer) capacity warranty in 2013, IIRC, as a class action suit was being brought against them. I'm not even certain that there was a defect warranty when the car was sold in 2011...

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Yes on the former. There most certainly was an 8 year/100K HV battery defects warranty even on the '11 and '12 from day 1, but it didn't cover "gradual" capacity loss.

I've pointed to the video at http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=22446&p=469608&hilit=percent+perry#p469608 w/Mark Perry numerous times, from before the existence of the capacity warranty. He conveniently "retired" when I was down at Alt Car Expo (in Santa Monica, CA) in late 2012 (IIRC). Was very surprised when a MNLer I met with (I met two of them there, I think mwalsh and Boomer23) told me about it. I didn't know since I had to drive over 300 miles to get there.

Thanks, Cwerdna. I've corrected my post.

^^^
You can also refer to the '11 warranty booklet at https://owners.nissanusa.com/content/techpub/ManualsAndGuides/LEAF/2011/2011-LEAF-warranty-booklet.pdf.

There are also snapshots if the page goes 404: https://web.archive.org/web/*/https://owners.nissanusa.com/content/techpub/ManualsAndGuides/LEAF/2011/2011-LEAF-warranty-booklet.pdf.

Is that booklet only for the US? I live in Canada, have 9 capacity bars and the dealer says my warranty was only 5 years. If 8 years is true, I have until September 1, 2019!

EDIT: I just checked the glove box and my warranty booklet says 8 years or 160,000 km. I guess I have to take the booklet in to show them and see what they say.

I just bought it for $8,500 CAD (Super Black 2011 SL with 129,000 km)

trobious said:

Is that booklet only for the US? I live in Canada, have 9 capacity bars and the dealer says my warranty was only 5 years. If 8 years is true, I have until September 1, 2019!

EDIT: I just checked the glove box and my warranty booklet says 8 years or 160,000 km. I guess I have to take the booklet in to show them and see what they say.

I just bought it for $8,500 CAD (Super Black 2011 SL with 129,000 km)

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The 8 yr/160km warranty is for defects in manufacturing. Battery degradation is not applicable.

SageBrush said:

trobious said:

Is that booklet only for the US? I live in Canada, have 9 capacity bars and the dealer says my warranty was only 5 years. If 8 years is true, I have until September 1, 2019!

EDIT: I just checked the glove box and my warranty booklet says 8 years or 160,000 km. I guess I have to take the booklet in to show them and see what they say.

I just bought it for $8,500 CAD (Super Black 2011 SL with 129,000 km)

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The 8 yr/160km warranty is for defects in manufacturing. Battery degradation is not applicable.

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Even though the Klee class action lawsuit was for US customers, I'm reasonably sure that countries outside the US also retroactively received a capacity warranty on '11 and '12 Leafs around the same time we got ours in the US. So, it'd probably be 5 years/100K km.

What Sage said in bold is correct.

Thanks so much! Good thing I only commute a 14 km round trip, park in a garage and put less than 10,000 km on the car per year! It should last as long as the Prius!

cwerdna said:

^^^
You can also refer to the '11 warranty booklet at https://owners.nissanusa.com/content/techpub/ManualsAndGuides/LEAF/2011/2011-LEAF-warranty-booklet.pdf.

There are also snapshots if the page goes 404: https://web.archive.org/web/*/https://owners.nissanusa.com/content/techpub/ManualsAndGuides/LEAF/2011/2011-LEAF-warranty-booklet.pdf.

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As I recall, there was also a completely separate agreement the buyer had to sign for the battery, 3 or 4 pages that went into detail about how all batteries age, many variables, etc... This was when I leased in Dec 2011, so long before the battery debacle and lawsuit there was already a rearguard CYA movement in motion within Nissan that foreshadowed the events to come.

Truth is that none of the cars with degraded batteries have a case for a FREE battery. We need to either sell it, or cough up the $$$ to keep using the car for another 8 years.... For $1000/ year, it is not such a bad deal....

I'm going to do it when my number is up...

hi, i'm trying to upgrade my 2012 LEAF with a 2015 battery and having problems. can anyone clue me in on this?

https://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=28067

Thanks

powersurge said:

Truth is that none of the cars with degraded batteries have a case for a FREE battery. We need to either sell it, or cough up the $$$ to keep using the car for another 8 years.... For $1000/ year, it is not such a bad deal....

I'm going to do it when my number is up...

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Nissan is charging about $400 a kWh for a battery that degrades by the month.
By the time you have to either swap or trash your car I expect retail car kWh costs to be $50 - $100. We'll see if you sing the same tune then.

The reason that the early Gen 1 LEAFs battery replacements cost so much is that they are an obsolete part that hasn't been manufactured since 2017. They are also a very low demand part and as the remaining NOS parts are expended, replacements will be remanufactured parts which will also be very expensive to do as they are essentially bespoke BTO parts. The universe of 2010-2013 vehicles still in service continues to decline as with the demand for battery replacements as do warranty replacements being outside the warranty guarantee. As the technology continues to improve there is little if any incentive to continue to support these obsolete early vehicles batteries except as required by law.

In 2016 and 2017, Nissan did offer a subsidized program for those that were out of warranty but did want to replace their battery. That program's funds were a one-time only limited program and has since ended.

It does look like there may be a third party solution in the works, and those early LEAF owners can look to that as a solution. Otherwise, it is probably worth cutting your losses, and moving on to another BEV.