My 2013 Leaf S experience so far!

[regor57]

I have a 2013 Leaf S That I bought on Labor Day last year (2013) I have a little over 3,000 mils on the car so far. I really like the car and it really works great for my commute to and from work. It is about a 35 mile round trip so I can make it on a 80% charge with some left over. So here is the down side. I had the car about a month and after leaving the car set for about 36 hours I got int the car to go to work and it was completely un responsive. The 12 volt battery was dead. I checked and it was not left on over night it just went dead. I took it to the Dealer and they re programed it and that problem was fixed! About a month ago we were having really cold weather (about 13 degrees overnight) and I noticed my heater was not working. I took it to the dealer and they had to order parts to repair the heater. About a week or so later the parts came in and the car was returned to the dealer for the repair. They gave me a loaner car at no expense and had the car about a week and fixed the heater. So that is 3 trips to the dealer. Now the outside mirrors ( power mirrors) do not work, and also i get a" i-key system fault" warning every time I get into the car, and the little buttons on the outside door handles will not lock or unlock the doors when pushed. The car will start but I get that warning! So this is going to be ANOTHER trip to the dealer for repairs. I am getting to the point where if the car is going to give me this many problems @ 3,000 miles what am I in store for for the next 2.5 years till my lease runs out. I have bought a lot of new cars over the years, just bout even make you can think of and I never had to return them to the Dealers for repairs like this car! If I could i would trade it in for a ICE! My Dealer is very good about fixing the car and I have not problem with them, it is the car that has me upset!

 

[leafedbehind]

Wow -- very disappointing to hear! Sorry about your experience. The problems with the heater and the charging unit in the 2013 LEAF are well-known in the forum, but I haven't seen the issue with the door locks or side mirrors before, so they must be less common. It is very unfortunate to hear that the US-made LEAFs seem to be less reliable. Our 2011 has had basically zero problems in 2.5 years and almost 20K miles. I hope Nissan can get back to that level of reliability with the Tennessee LEAFs!

 

[jsongster]

I have a 2013 SL and have had no problems whatsoever. I am supposed to take it in for the reprogram for the charger bug but I haven't gotten around to it.

If I were you and had another dealer nearby I would go there. With parts in hand none of those jobs should have taken more than a day. When the battery died... they probably didn't reset the system properly and caused the key failure. As to the mirror... when they open that up and fix it be sure to check all the door functions before driving away... because a dealer like that might not reconnect everything properly.

Sorry you are having a such a bad time... good luck with it from here. I would also ask them how long the job is supposed to take when you give it to them, and expect them to get the job done in close to that amount of time. They should only have well trained techs looking at these cars as the details of how you set them up again after things like a dead battery can be very important. This ain't no 60's cruiser... more like 1/2 car 1/2 computer.

Nissan might want to hear this story too... that dealer might be charging them for some of their screw-ups.

 

[voganni]

My 2013 S has been flawless for 9k miles EXCEPT for the ongoing recurring battery drain issue, documented elsewhere on this forum. I have reopened my case with Nissan, and will get it to the dealer next time it happens. A software update performed in Nov. 2013 kept it normal for 2 months, then it returned to it's whopping .95 amp vampire drain. I'm quite confident many of these dead battery problems are of a similar nature. I never leave my Leaf for more than 12 hours or so without putting it on the battery tender. The car just can't be trusted. When the 12v runs dead, all sorts of unpredictable things happen. Sorry about your other problems.

 

[CRLeafSL]

Wow I have a 2012 and have never had a 12v battery problem and our temps have dropped to -20 degrees F, this winter. I did have a few other issues when the temp got that low but the car was never unresponsive or had a dead 12v battery. I would agree with the previous poster that while it was at the dealer repairs shouldn't take that long. I think I would be taking the car to a different dealer. Mines only been to the dealer twice since I leased it a year ago once for the battery charger update and the other time for the issues I was experiencing with the cold weather which I already have another forum post describing what happened there.

 

[voganni]

Yes, the 2013's are a completely different animal. The entire charger/inverter/dc-dc converter is now all in one unit under the bonnet. (love that British jargon!). I'm beginning to think no dealer has gotten a chance to observe one "in the act" of this condition. The dealer in Edmonds had the chance, but they blew it and disconnected the battery (after I TOLD the service manager not to do it), which of course reset the computer and "everything's normal." Maybe next time, if my lease isn't up by then!

 

[davewill]

That newest problem might be the key itself. Have you tried the other one?

 

[UBUYGAS]

I have a friend who just bought an Altima and both his Fobs were bad. Lots of weird issues. His dealer replaced both and all is fixed.

Sorry you're having so many problems, Knock on wood my 13 SL has been strong with only one issue at 3K miles. I needed the 13-069 update which caused the charging to stop before being fully charged. Since that update all has been strong and is the Best car I ever owned!

Sal

 

[GoneSilent]

The ikey fault and the power mirrors not working makes me think you should check the connector from the door to the car body. If the body computer is missing one of the door antenna's you will see that fault.

 

[mkjayakumar]

ZERO problems with my 2011, which I just turned it in a month ago. But more importantly I paid zero maintenance cost for driving 30K miles over two years.

My new 2014 SV just has 1000 miles on it. We will see it how goes.