Repair or replace my 2017 Leaf LE?

[govols97]

Hello everyone!

We are in Atlanta and have had our Leaf since July 2017; it's my husband's main commuting car. (In 2014 we leased a Leaf, and when it came time to give it back, I asked him what he wanted to drive next, and he thought about it and said, another Leaf.) It now has about 51K miles. We are very fond of it, but I will be the first to say we have not taken good care of it:

• There's a 1-inch or so tear in the front bumper that cannot be repaired, I got an estimate of about $1K to fix (replace) that.
• I accidentally backed into our garage door before it had fully opened, destroying the cover of the light at the top of the rear door and leaving nasty scratches in the roof. That estimate was about $1200 or so to replace. (Those two estimates were last fall; the prices have probably gone up by now.)
• There are other dents here and there; the body shop at the dealership I took it to said it would be about (IIRC) $8K to get it looking absolutely brand new.
• And then we had a rat problem over the winter. I'm not sure how much total damage they did, but what we can see is pretty significant. They chewed through the windshield wiper fluid hose. There's visible damage to the stuffing and cover of the rear seat and chew marks on the plastic in the trunk. That happened after I got the estimates above so I'm not sure how much the total cost of repairs would be now.

On top of all this, we lost the ninth bar last fall, so we should qualify for a new battery under warranty. So it's possible that the car is actually worth a fair bit more than it looks because it could be getting a shiny new 40 kWh battery. Or there could be not enough shiny new 40 kWh batteries going around and we get something of smaller capacity. I'm not sure; that's part of why I came here.

It's still drivable! (We figured that if the rats had chewed through something crucial, we'd have noticed by now.) It claims to get about 70 miles at 100% charge, though it did turtle unexpectedly on my husband once, and I get worried if I'm on the highway and I'm down to about 20. My husband's commute has changed so it works fine for him as a daily car so long as he doesn't have to run too many errands. So we haven't demanded a new battery yet while we've been figuring out our options.

Which, as I see it, are:

1. Pay for the major repairs (the front and rear damage, the interior damage, replace the chewed hose), get the battery replaced, and plan to drive it for the immediate future.
2. Get the battery replaced, repair only damage that could long-term affect driving, and keep the car in less-than-perfect shape because within 18 months we'll have a 15-year-old who needs to start learning how to drive.
3. Trade in or sell the car (presumably to someone who would immediately replace the battery) and get something else, maybe a newer Leaf in better shape.

I went on KBB and they gave me a trade-in value of about $8K, but I wasn't sure if that took the battery swap into account. I know from reading around that if I were serious about trading in I should talk to Carvana and get cash offers. My husband is neither emotionally attached* enough to insist on repairs nor chomping at the bit to get a new car. I tried searching this forum and found some threads on repairing or trading in but it sounded like our car was in worse shape, so I thought I'd lay it all out for y'all. I'm happy to give any more information. Thank you so much for your help!

* you are free to laugh, but last year my car (a 2018 Kia Sedona) got sideswiped on the highway and I was almost in tears thinking she'd be totaled. She was not; it took ten weeks and $20K (which my insurance paid for; the other driver ran despite having lost a fair chunk of his car) but she returned to me safe and sound.

 

[Drew21]

Accidents happen, but you might begin by asking why so many happen to you.

Regardless of how you feel about the Leaf, if you keep it there's no point spending lots of money shining it up it if it's just going to get beat up again. If you're someone who just sees a car as transportation, what does it matter if it has a few dents and scratches, especially if your behavior is likely to result in more dents and scratches in the future?

Similarly, even if you're going to sell it soon there may be little point (i.e., return on investment) in getting it fixed up (completely), as the costs you've described to us aren't all that far off the value of the car. On the plus side for you, there's never been a better time to sell a used car. Maybe you can find a buyer who doesn't care about appearances and just wants a low-maintenance short-distance commuter car. I've never understood trading in cars (but then again, I've never understood the economics of buying a new car) as I don't think you get anywhere close to full value. In your case, with a poor condition car for sale, the dealership is going to offer you a very minimal amount so you'll be better off making a private sale.

1) Rat damage - you can easily replace the windshield washer hose yourself. You can also replace the back seat cushions. There probably aren't a lot of Leafs (Leaves?) in junkyards, but I recently saw an ad for one being parted out in my area, including the full interior, so it would be worth your time to call around, check Craigslist, etc. The interior plastic trim can also be easily replaced if you want to do that. All easy DIY jobs.

You might ask how rats got in to your Leaf, and why they came for a visit. No point fixing damage if they have an open invitation to return, or if you're providing motivation by leaving pet or human food, etc., in the car. If they came in through the cabin air intake there's likely damage under the dashboard as well. I recently had to install 1/4-inch galvanized metal mesh screens over the cabin air intakes on our cars because mice kept building nests on top of the cabin air filters. One of the hazards of living in the middle of the rural New England forest - lots of mice looking for cozy winter homes.

2) Scratches, dents, and bumper - as above, ask yourself how much and why you care. If you just want basic transportation, fix any bare metal to minimize rusting and forget about it.

3) Battery - if you can get a warranty replacement battery, why wouldn't you do it? It makes the car more useful for you today, and dramatically increases any resale value you have in the future.

Good luck.

 

[adavidw]

Considering the condition of the car and the fact that it has a degraded battery now, you're not likely to get great offers to buy it, whether private sale or Carvana/CarMax.

If it really does qualify for battery replacement, then if I were you I'd try for a buyback from Nissan. That might net you more than any other sale option.

I'd get it into the dealer to start the process, then immediately call Nissan and express concerns about the wait time. The arbitration department should respond relatively quickly with an offer to start the buyout process. In my case, I went to the dealer to get the battery ordered, then called Nissan the next day just to ask if they could confirm that the order was placed. I said nothing about wait time or buyback or anything, but got an email in a couple of days from the Arbitration department wanting to start a buyback.

Now, if either of you were emotionally attached, it might be different.

 

[hfletcher]

to govols97: Are you kidding??​

Keep it. get a new battery courtesy of Nissan, fix the worst of the damage (seat?) and it becomes a super vehicle for your 15,16-soon to be 17 year old. he can bump into things and you dont have to worry about comprehensive insurance- which costs a fortune. liability-only insurance will still be plenty no matter what is driven, however. i This will help govern his driving habits a bit (is it possible to lock it in ECO mode??), and ease him into a car from a cost standpoint, without the costs of gas.​

my 2c...​

PS: I'm a happy 2017 leaf-s newbie (of 3 weeks) getting a free battery myself a week after buying it, lucky me! (probably have to wait 4-6 months for it tho, lol​

 

[nlspace]

Option 2.

Get the battery replaced, repair only damage that could long-term affect driving, and keep the car in less-than-perfect shape because within 18 months we'll have a 15-year-old who needs to start learning how to drive.

This is the winner, get the battery pack replaced if it is under warranty, then let the kid drive it till the stirrups are dragging in the mud.

That is what i did with my kid and she drove it all thru high school, band camp, winter guard and to her job making pizza, and $aved a ton of money not buying ga$ and cheaper liability-only in$urance. Then she was off to college and it wasn't practical for her so we swapped cars and i drove the balls (bearings) off of that thang.

Sure you might sell it now and get some fantastic price, but what will it cost you to buy another beater car for the kid and all the fuel cost? There aren't any cheap $1k beaters out there anymore--they start at 5k now for the same POS beater.

 

[Chad E. Mo]

I will join the choir and advise to keep the Leaf, for these reasons:

• Cheap transportation ain't that cheap these days.
• The Leaf is ridiculously reliable from a mechanical standpoint.
• The Leaf is range limited... the kid can't easily drive off to Timbuktu.

Lastly, if the kid is required to pay for the juice, they will learn the economics of ownership and the benefits of conservation. That could lead to a future in sustainable lifestyle, or even an eco-related career. My misspent youth included wrenching on all manner of vehicles, which gave me many practical skills. If I were a teen with an EV today, I'd be finding solar panels and batteries so I could drive "for free" and get a practical understanding of the future of transportation. A decade from now, gasoline will be much more expensive and that little Leaf may still be sipping on ever-cheaper electrons.

 

[Zero Emissions]

Hello everyone!

We are in Atlanta and have had our Leaf since July 2017; it's my husband's main commuting car. (In 2014 we leased a Leaf, and when it came time to give it back, I asked him what he wanted to drive next, and he thought about it and said, another Leaf.) It now has about 51K miles. We are very fond of it, but I will be the first to say we have not taken good care of it:

• There's a 1-inch or so tear in the front bumper that cannot be repaired, I got an estimate of about $1K to fix (replace) that.
• I accidentally backed into our garage door before it had fully opened, destroying the cover of the light at the top of the rear door and leaving nasty scratches in the roof. That estimate was about $1200 or so to replace. (Those two estimates were last fall; the prices have probably gone up by now.)
• There are other dents here and there; the body shop at the dealership I took it to said it would be about (IIRC) $8K to get it looking absolutely brand new.
• And then we had a rat problem over the winter. I'm not sure how much total damage they did, but what we can see is pretty significant. They chewed through the windshield wiper fluid hose. There's visible damage to the stuffing and cover of the rear seat and chew marks on the plastic in the trunk. That happened after I got the estimates above so I'm not sure how much the total cost of repairs would be now.

On top of all this, we lost the ninth bar last fall, so we should qualify for a new battery under warranty. So it's possible that the car is actually worth a fair bit more than it looks because it could be getting a shiny new 40 kWh battery. Or there could be not enough shiny new 40 kWh batteries going around and we get something of smaller capacity. I'm not sure; that's part of why I came here.

It's still drivable! (We figured that if the rats had chewed through something crucial, we'd have noticed by now.) It claims to get about 70 miles at 100% charge, though it did turtle unexpectedly on my husband once, and I get worried if I'm on the highway and I'm down to about 20. My husband's commute has changed so it works fine for him as a daily car so long as he doesn't have to run too many errands. So we haven't demanded a new battery yet while we've been figuring out our options.

Which, as I see it, are:

1. Pay for the major repairs (the front and rear damage, the interior damage, replace the chewed hose), get the battery replaced, and plan to drive it for the immediate future.
2. Get the battery replaced, repair only damage that could long-term affect driving, and keep the car in less-than-perfect shape because within 18 months we'll have a 15-year-old who needs to start learning how to drive.
3. Trade in or sell the car (presumably to someone who would immediately replace the battery) and get something else, maybe a newer Leaf in better shape.

I went on KBB and they gave me a trade-in value of about $8K, but I wasn't sure if that took the battery swap into account. I know from reading around that if I were serious about trading in I should talk to Carvana and get cash offers. My husband is neither emotionally attached* enough to insist on repairs nor chomping at the bit to get a new car. I tried searching this forum and found some threads on repairing or trading in but it sounded like our car was in worse shape, so I thought I'd lay it all out for y'all. I'm happy to give any more information. Thank you so much for your help!

* you are free to laugh, but last year my car (a 2018 Kia Sedona) got sideswiped on the highway and I was almost in tears thinking she'd be totaled. She was not; it took ten weeks and $20K (which my insurance paid for; the other driver ran despite having lost a fair chunk of his car) but she returned to me safe and sound.

Run from Carvana they will only offer you 10 to 25% of your vehicles value and yet when they sell a vehicle they want 120% of its value which is why they will be out of business the first quarter of 2025...So it sounds like you must have a lot of disposable income to let your vehicle deteriorate so badly that your willing to take such a huge loss... Why? Why not take your vehicle to an upholstery shop and have it fixed correctly and fix the holes where Rats get in that's got to be a huge hole! Next take it to a small fair priced local body shop to again have it fixed correctly looks tell the real condition... Then off to Nissan and have the battery replaced (that's up to a 14 grand repair thats free to you!!) it will be upgraded from a 30 KW to a 40 KW due to a class action suit they have to replace 19,000 batteries. Now you have a car that should last another 10 years problem free as long as you take car of it..Why wouldn't you! I hope you take better care of yourself than you seem to be taking care of your beloved LEAF otherwise your both in trouble...just saying. Your vehicle with a new 40KW battery and in clean condition should sell for 12 to 14K KBB is clueless on EV as well as NADA they don't account for the battery being good bad or brand new. If a new LEAF base is say 30K then a used with a new heart (battery) is worth 50% of the new ones and when selling besure to emphasize the longevity of the new 40kw battery. Take care of your LEAF and it will Take of you!

 

[marshallinwash]

Run from Carvana they will only offer you 10 to 25% of your vehicles value and yet when they sell a vehicle they want 120% of its value which is why they will be out of business the first quarter of 2025...So it sounds like you must have a lot of disposable income to let your vehicle deteriorate so badly that your willing to take such a huge loss... Why? Why not take your vehicle to an upholstery shop and have it fixed correctly and fix the holes where Rats get in that's got to be a huge hole! Next take it to a small fair priced local body shop to again have it fixed correctly looks tell the real condition... Then off to Nissan and have the battery replaced (that's up to a 14 grand repair thats free to you!!) it will be upgraded from a 30 KW to a 40 KW due to a class action suit they have to replace 19,000 batteries. Now you have a car that should last another 10 years problem free as long as you take car of it..Why wouldn't you! I hope you take better care of yourself than you seem to be taking care of your beloved LEAF otherwise your both in trouble...just saying. Your vehicle with a new 40KW battery and in clean condition should sell for 12 to 14K KBB is clueless on EV as well as NADA they don't account for the battery being good bad or brand new. If a new LEAF base is say 30K then a used with a new heart (battery) is worth 50% of the new ones and when selling besure to emphasize the longevity of the new 40kw battery. Take care of your LEAF and it will Take of you!

You must have not got the message. Carvana is off life support.

 

[Zero Emissions]

You must have not got the message. Carvana is off life support.

Hum right down the street from my work (Seattle) There is a huge Carvana that has been and still is a Ghost town it seems recently they have been scamming customers forgetting that Washington State is run by the Mafia and the Mafia don't like competition not to mention the latest news of Carvana The company recently reported a quarterly loss of more than $500 million, and has laid off 4,000 employees. In the last 12 months, Carvana piled up debt. Its stock price has fallen more than 95 percent in the last 12 months, Yes you read that correctly a 95% drop in stock price, so would you invest in a poorly run company known for lousy business practices including scamming customers and is getting worse with each passing day...I think not! Not to mention we're now up to three (and climbing) states who temporarily suspended Carvana's operating license after so many consumer complaints. So once again I say 1st quarter in 2025 there will come a reckoning and a judgement day...just saying!

 

[rsbrax]

You may not be able to get a replacement battery just because it dropped below 9 bars during the warranty period.

My 2012 Leaf traction battery dropped below 9 bars during the warranty period. Nissan stated this was due to normal degradation and not due to a defect in the battery. Therefore they would not replace the battery. LeafSpy shows the cells look normal so there is no repair needed.

 

[Zero Emissions]

If you read the class action I seem to recall it stated the battery must fall below 8 bars and it also states that if you use the super chargers all the time that shortens and can void the warranty as battery health and wellbeing it degraded the battery much more rapidly than if you were to charge at lower rates such as with a level two or the supplied with your vehicle level one charger which keeps your battery lasting many years longer. The Irony is most of the LEAF superchargers are owned, built and located at Nissan dealerships where you would think they would of detuned them to be less harmful to your battery, being its like dumping a case of Redbull into your battery with each supercharge...Yikes!

 

[cwerdna]

Then off to Nissan and have the battery replaced (that's up to a 14 grand repair thats free to you!!) it will be upgraded from a 30 KW to a 40 KW due to a class action suit they have to replace 19,000 batteries. Now you have a car that should last another 10 years problem free as long as you take car of it..Why wouldn't you! I hope you take better care of yourself than you seem to be taking care of your beloved LEAF otherwise your both in trouble...just saying. Your vehicle with a new 40KW battery and in clean condition should sell for 12 to 14K KBB is clueless on EV as well as NADA they don't account for the battery being good bad or brand new. If a new LEAF base is say 30K then a used with a new heart (battery) is worth 50% of the new ones and when selling besure to emphasize the longevity of the new 40kw battery. Take care of your LEAF and it will Take of you!

Battery capacity is measured in kWh, not "KW" nor "kw".

Source of "it will be upgraded from a 30 KW to a 40 KW due to a class action suit they have to replace 19,000 batteries"?

The company recently reported a quarterly loss of more than $500 million, and has laid off 4,000 employees. In the last 12 months, Carvana piled up debt. Its stock price has fallen more than 95 percent in the last 12 months, Yes you read that correctly a 95% drop in stock price, so would you invest in a poorly run company known for lousy business practices including scamming customers and is getting worse with each passing day...I think not! Not to mention we're now up to three (and climbing) states who temporarily suspended Carvana's operating license after so many consumer complaints. So once again I say 1st quarter in 2025 there will come a reckoning and a judgement day...just saying!

I had to look this up and wow, you have some pretty wrong info. I looked at all the 2024 earnings press releases at https://investors.carvana.com/financial-reports/quarterly-results/2024 so far. Net income was positive in every single quarter there. For 2023, the last one where they reported a loss was 2Q 2023.

As for their stock, well, it went from about $33 a year ago to $235.99 now. Yes, they were on life support w/stock pummeled before but that was before the 1 year mark. Google for carvana stock then click on 1Y to see this graph.

Perhaps you need to actually do some fact checking before making sweeping statements. (I've never invested in Carvana. I've sold a car to them once but never bought from them. I don't have any strong feelings about them one way or another. Yes, I'm aware of some their ahem... challenges and shady practices (incompetence?) in some states.)

You must have not got the message. Carvana is off life support.

Indeed. His statements were likely accurate awhile ago, including the layoff numbers and stock price drop but don't reflect what's happened in the past year nor the last 5 quarters they've reported results on.

 

[cwerdna]

If you read the class action I seem to recall it stated the battery must fall below 8 bars and it also states that if you use the super chargers all the time that shortens and can void the warranty as battery health and wellbeing it degraded the battery much more rapidly than if you were to charge at lower rates such as with a level two or the supplied with your vehicle level one charger which keeps your battery lasting many years longer. The Irony is most of the LEAF superchargers are owned, built and located at Nissan dealerships where you would think they would of detuned them to be less harmful to your battery, being its like dumping a case of Redbull into your battery with each supercharge...Yikes!

What class action are you talking about? Source of all this?

"Super chargers", superchargers and supercharge? Leaf can't use those. https://mynissanleaf.com/threads/why-wont-it-fit.15821/

Maybe the best it could do is use a Magic Dock location (has CCS1 plug) with a CCS1 to CHAdeMO adapter. Magic Dock locations didn't appear until early 2023: https://electrek.co/2023/02/23/tesla-supercharger-magic-dock-for-non-tesla-electric-cars-spotted-us/.

If equipped with the CHAdeMO inlet, those Leafs can use https://www.chademo.com/products/products_type/chargers.

 

[todd0305]

You may not be able to get a replacement battery just because it dropped below 9 bars during the warranty period.

My 2012 Leaf traction battery dropped below 9 bars during the warranty period. Nissan stated this was due to normal degradation and not due to a defect in the battery. Therefore they would not replace the battery. LeafSpy shows the cells look normal so there is no repair needed.

I purchased my 2017 leaf with the 30kWh pack at 8 bars knowing that it qualifies for the battery replacement. Took it to Nissan dealership the day I bought it and asked them to start the warranty process with Nissan. They called two days later and said it was approved so now I’m just waiting for the new pack to be delivered.

 

[todd0305]

Hello everyone!

We are in Atlanta and have had our Leaf since July 2017; it's my husband's main commuting car. (In 2014 we leased a Leaf, and when it came time to give it back, I asked him what he wanted to drive next, and he thought about it and said, another Leaf.) It now has about 51K miles. We are very fond of it, but I will be the first to say we have not taken good care of it:

• There's a 1-inch or so tear in the front bumper that cannot be repaired, I got an estimate of about $1K to fix (replace) that.
• I accidentally backed into our garage door before it had fully opened, destroying the cover of the light at the top of the rear door and leaving nasty scratches in the roof. That estimate was about $1200 or so to replace. (Those two estimates were last fall; the prices have probably gone up by now.)
• There are other dents here and there; the body shop at the dealership I took it to said it would be about (IIRC) $8K to get it looking absolutely brand new.
• And then we had a rat problem over the winter. I'm not sure how much total damage they did, but what we can see is pretty significant. They chewed through the windshield wiper fluid hose. There's visible damage to the stuffing and cover of the rear seat and chew marks on the plastic in the trunk. That happened after I got the estimates above so I'm not sure how much the total cost of repairs would be now.

On top of all this, we lost the ninth bar last fall, so we should qualify for a new battery under warranty. So it's possible that the car is actually worth a fair bit more than it looks because it could be getting a shiny new 40 kWh battery. Or there could be not enough shiny new 40 kWh batteries going around and we get something of smaller capacity. I'm not sure; that's part of why I came here.

It's still drivable! (We figured that if the rats had chewed through something crucial, we'd have noticed by now.) It claims to get about 70 miles at 100% charge, though it did turtle unexpectedly on my husband once, and I get worried if I'm on the highway and I'm down to about 20. My husband's commute has changed so it works fine for him as a daily car so long as he doesn't have to run too many errands. So we haven't demanded a new battery yet while we've been figuring out our options.

Which, as I see it, are:

1. Pay for the major repairs (the front and rear damage, the interior damage, replace the chewed hose), get the battery replaced, and plan to drive it for the immediate future.
2. Get the battery replaced, repair only damage that could long-term affect driving, and keep the car in less-than-perfect shape because within 18 months we'll have a 15-year-old who needs to start learning how to drive.
3. Trade in or sell the car (presumably to someone who would immediately replace the battery) and get something else, maybe a newer Leaf in better shape.

I went on KBB and they gave me a trade-in value of about $8K, but I wasn't sure if that took the battery swap into account. I know from reading around that if I were serious about trading in I should talk to Carvana and get cash offers. My husband is neither emotionally attached* enough to insist on repairs nor chomping at the bit to get a new car. I tried searching this forum and found some threads on repairing or trading in but it sounded like our car was in worse shape, so I thought I'd lay it all out for y'all. I'm happy to give any more information. Thank you so much for your help!

* you are free to laugh, but last year my car (a 2018 Kia Sedona) got sideswiped on the highway and I was almost in tears thinking she'd be totaled. She was not; it took ten weeks and $20K (which my insurance paid for; the other driver ran despite having lost a fair chunk of his car) but she returned to me safe and sound.

Definitely option 2. If your car has the 30kWh pack, start the process now and call Nissan consumer affairs at (800) 647-7261. State that the range is unsuable anr 8 bars and you need a loaner. Get a case number before bringing it to the dealership. It will be months before they deliver the battery, but with a loaner, the process will be a little quicker. Every week that you have the loaner, Nissan corporate has to pay the dealership about $250 for the loaner. They will also reimburse you for fuel so remember to keep the receipts. If Nissan drag their feet, they will pay more for the loaner and fuel compare to how much your car is worth.

If you have the 24kWh pack, then you’re out of luck since the warranty for that is long gone. One way to tell is by the vin. If the fourth digit is an A then it is a 24kWh pack. If it is a B then it is a 30kWh pack.

 

[Zero Emissions]

What class action are you talking about? Source of all this?

"Super chargers", superchargers and supercharge? Leaf can't use those. https://mynissanleaf.com/threads/why-wont-it-fit.15821/

Maybe the best it could do is use a Magic Dock location (has CCS1 plug) with a CCS1 to CHAdeMO adapter. Magic Dock locations didn't appear until early 2023: https://electrek.co/2023/02/23/tesla-supercharger-magic-dock-for-non-tesla-electric-cars-spotted-us/.

If equipped with the CHAdeMO inlet, those Leafs can use https://www.chademo.com/products/products_type/chargers.

Google it! Do your own research and you will find its also right here on my Nissan LEAF forum: Scroll through and you will find it. I have a 23 page print out that I gave to my Nissan Dealer I will see if I can find it again and give you a link to download it but in the meantime here is a statement from another member check it out its right here in this forum your reading from right now!

TimLee​

Well-known member​

JoinedJan 20, 2011Messages2,823LocationChattanooga, TN

• Jul 13, 2015
• 
  
• Add bookmark
• #245

... It is interesting that they are not really mentioning model years after 11-12 if I remember correctly. That leads me to believe that 13-14 batteries had some sort of tweaking more than has been admitted.

After the debacle with the rapid capacity degradation on the 2011 & 2012, Nissan added the capacity warranty for 2013 forward LEAFs.
Has nothing to do with battery chemistry changes, although there may have been some minor changes on chemistry.

The 2011 & 2012 class action lawsuit came about because Nissan attempted to clearly state there was no capacity warranty,
but they also spoke out of both sides of their mouth and made both written and verbal statements about expected capacity degradation rates.
Is an excellent legal case study that if you are not going to provide a warranty on an issue, you cannot make statements about what the customer can expect on the issue.


Tim Lee
Chattanooga, TN

Man. Date: 03/10/11, VIN # 2026
Delivered 05-17-2011
Blue Ocean, 2011 SL-eTec

 

[Zero Emissions]

What class action are you talking about? Source of all this?

"Super chargers", superchargers and supercharge? Leaf can't use those. https://mynissanleaf.com/threads/why-wont-it-fit.15821/

Maybe the best it could do is use a Magic Dock location (has CCS1 plug) with a CCS1 to CHAdeMO adapter. Magic Dock locations didn't appear until early 2023: https://electrek.co/2023/02/23/tesla-supercharger-magic-dock-for-non-tesla-electric-cars-spotted-us/.

If equipped with the CHAdeMO inlet, those Leafs can use https://www.chademo.com/products/products_type/chargers.

Wow, have you never ever heard of the supercharger at most Nissan dealers its called the CHAdeMO connector it's referred to as a supercharger! In spite of Tesla nerds disagreeing with it being a supercharger! I suppose if your LEAF did not come with one then you wouldn't know about it, I believe most LEAFS came stock with one (my old 2011 even had one) it's the huge port next to the smaller port in your charge compartment and its not recommended as it does your battery more harm than good and too much use can hurt your warranty as well! Also if you do your own research you will find all the documents for the class action suit and even some info on the early models right here in this very forum where you are chatting in right now I suggest you do your own research! Here is a very early statement from the beginning and I have a 23 page document you can find as well covering the 30KWH batteries if you do your own research:
After the debacle with the rapid capacity degradation on the 2011 & 2012, Nissan added the capacity warranty for 2013 forward LEAFs.
Has nothing to do with battery chemistry changes, although there may have been some minor changes on chemistry.

The 2011 & 2012 class action lawsuit came about because Nissan attempted to clearly state there was no capacity warranty,
but they also spoke out of both sides of their mouth and made both written and verbal statements about expected capacity degradation rates.
Is an excellent legal case study that if you are not going to provide a warranty on an issue, you cannot make statements about what the customer can expect on the issue.


Tim Lee
Chattanooga, TN

Man. Date: 03/10/11, VIN # 2026
Delivered 05-17-2011
Blue Ocean, 2011 SL-eTec

 

[Zero Emissions]

Battery capacity is measured in kWh, not "KW" nor "kw".

Source of "it will be upgraded from a 30 KW to a 40 KW due to a class action suit they have to replace 19,000 batteries"?

I had to look this up and wow, you have some pretty wrong info. I looked at all the 2024 earnings press releases at https://investors.carvana.com/financial-reports/quarterly-results/2024 so far. Net income was positive in every single quarter there. For 2023, the last one where they reported a loss was 2Q 2023.

As for their stock, well, it went from about $33 a year ago to $235.99 now. Yes, they were on life support w/stock pummeled before but that was before the 1 year mark. Google for carvana stock then click on 1Y to see this graph.

Perhaps you need to actually do some fact checking before making sweeping statements. (I've never invested in Carvana. I've sold a car to them once but never bought from them. I don't have any strong feelings about them one way or another. Yes, I'm aware of some their ahem... challenges and shady practices (incompetence?) in some states.)

Indeed. His statements were likely accurate awhile ago, including the layoff numbers and stock price drop but don't reflect what's happened in the past year nor the last 5 quarters they've reported results on.

Battery capacity is measured in kWh, not "KW" nor "kw".

Source of "it will be upgraded from a 30 KW to a 40 KW due to a class action suit they have to replace 19,000 batteries"?

I had to look this up and wow, you have some pretty wrong info. I looked at all the 2024 earnings press releases at https://investors.carvana.com/financial-reports/quarterly-results/2024 so far. Net income was positive in every single quarter there. For 2023, the last one where they reported a loss was 2Q 2023.

As for their stock, well, it went from about $33 a year ago to $235.99 now. Yes, they were on life support w/stock pummeled before but that was before the 1 year mark. Google for carvana stock then click on 1Y to see this graph.

Perhaps you need to actually do some fact checking before making sweeping statements. (I've never invested in Carvana. I've sold a car to them once but never bought from them. I don't have any strong feelings about them one way or another. Yes, I'm aware of some their ahem... challenges and shady practices (incompetence?) in some states.)

Indeed. His statements were likely accurate awhile ago, including the layoff numbers and stock price drop but don't reflect what's happened in the past year nor the last 5 quarters they've reported results on.

Perhaps you need to find a new stock broker! Oh and perhaps YOU need to do some Fact Checking before making sweeping statements!!! I stand by statement that carvana is done even a blind man can see that its all smoke and mirrors and many many wrong doings that the FTC is monitoring very closely and like I said and you apparently ignored is that Washington State is Mafia run and the Mafia don't like competition and Bigger state economies such as California and texas will eat your precious Carvana for breakfast Do your research before making accusations your not clearly informed about as you wouldn't want to keep spewing poor advice to investors who may be lurking in this here forum...Just saying! OK sunshine.... Here is the rest of the story! Carvana's Debt Problems Haven't Gone Away.
Carvana earned $4.12 per share in 2023, a vast improvement over the $15.74 EPS loss in 2022, and $0.24 EPS in Q1 2024.
2023 results were helped by debt refinancing efforts and the 2024's Q1 benefited from the fair value gain on a warrant.
Carvana lost money in the fourth quarter of 2023 and the profit in 2024's Q1 isn't exactly a clean number. Impressively, Carvana turned a profit in 2023 and in 1Q 2024. But there's more to the story here.
On the surface, Carvana (CVNA 1.79%) looks like it had a spectacular turnaround year in 2023. Earnings rocketed from a $15.74 per share loss in 2022 to a profit of $4.12 per share. And it also seems like it got off to a big start in 2024, with a first-quarter profit of $0.24 per share. These are impressive results!
But there's more to the story here than there appears to be
1. Carvana had no choice if it wanted to survive
If you examine Carvana's fourth quarter 2023 earnings release, you'll notice this little side note:
• First off, if you pulled out that $878 million gain it would have pushed that $150 net income well into negative territory. So the company didn't do nearly as well as its financial statements might suggest. But what exactly happened? To sum it up, Carvana had so much debt that it was at a very real risk of not being able to pay its creditors. Instead of pushing the company into bankruptcy the bondholders gave Carvana a break and renegotiated the debt.This is good news, for sure, given that there was a real risk of the company going under. But this is not a transaction that was undertaken from a position of strength; it was forced on Carvana. And, even after the debt deal, its debt-to-equity ratio ended the year at over 25 times, which is shockingly high. The company's leverage remains a big problem and you have to continue to monitor it.
• 2. Interest expenses continue to eat Carvana's lunch money
Although intimately tied to the leverage issue, one of the big reasons for the debt renegotiation was to lower its interest expenses. That's one place where the balance sheet and the income statement come together, if you will. Lower interest expenses are a good thing, for sure, but first quarter 2024 interest expense totaled $173 million, up from $159 million in the first quarter of 2023. Perhaps the interest expense is lower than it would have been without the debt renegotiation, but interest expense didn't actually go down on the company's GAAP financial statements. But that's not the biggest worry here. Operating income, which doesn't include the impact of interest expenses, totaled $134 million. That means that interest expenses are still eating away all of the company's operating profits. That's not sustainable over the long term and investors need to keep an eye on what's going on with this important expense given the heavy debt load the company still carries.
3. Carvana didn't make money in 4Q 2023 and 1Q 2024 wasn't exactly a winner, either
The big debt exchange took place in the third quarter of 2023. Which makes the fourth quarter an interesting datapoint because it wasn't impacted by the one-time benefit of the debt renegotiation but the results of the debt deal would have been visible in the quarter's financial results. The outcome? The company's bottom line was in the red to the tune of $1 per share in the fourth quarter of 2023. While that's a huge improvement over the fourth quarter 2022 loss of $7.61 per share, the company clearly remains a work in progress as it attempts to become sustainably profitable.
The first quarter of 2024 was just as complicated as the company's 2023 results. Management reported earnings of $0.23 per diluted share, on net income of roughly $49 million. But then it goes on to note that net income "... included a ~$75 million gain in the fair value of our warrants to acquire Root common stock." Take out that gain from the first quarter 2024 net income figure and Carvana would, again, be back in the loss column. So unless the company can come up with more one-time items in the future, it isn't clear that the company is really profitable at this point.
Carvana likes to highlight numbers like gross profit per vehicle, but that's not enough to really assess the long-term viability of the company. You need to monitor the bottom line, too. If Carvana can't turn a profit for shareholders, without unusual accounting one-offs, it probably isn't worth owning. Not unless you's a fool!

 

[LeftieBiker]

Let's keep the temperature here on the Cool side please, folks.

 

[cwerdna]

• Jul 13, 2015
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• Add bookmark
• #245

TAfter the debacle with the rapid capacity degradation on the 2011 & 2012, Nissan added the capacity warranty for 2013 forward LEAFs.
Has nothing to do with battery chemistry changes, although there may have been some minor changes on chemistry.

The 2011 & 2012 class action lawsuit came about because Nissan attempted to clearly state there was no capacity warranty,
but they also spoke out of both sides of their mouth and made both written and verbal statements about expected capacity degradation rates.
Is an excellent legal case study that if you are not going to provide a warranty on an issue, you cannot make statements about what the customer can expect on the issue.

Yes, I'm well aware of https://mynissanleaf.com/threads/update-on-battery-warranty-enhancement-for-2011-2012-leaf.13192/ that apparently came about due to the Klee vs. Nissan class action settlement. You can search by posts by me with the keyword klee. I've posted about it for years. And yes, '11 and '12 Leaf came w/no capacity warranty so that added to those vehicles and Leafs got capacity warranties moving forward.

I loaned equipment to surfingslovak to help run a range test (https://web.archive.org/web/20160113132627/http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=228326) before the settlement.

"In addition to the existing lithium-ion battery coverage provided under the Nissan Electric Vehicle Limited Warranty for defects in materials or workmanship, the lithium-ion battery for your 2011 or 2012 Nissan LEAF is now also warranted against capacity loss below nine (9) bars (or approximately below 70 percent) as shown on the vehicle’s battery capacity level gauge for a period of 60 months or 60,000 miles, whichever comes first.

This warranty covers any repairs needed to return battery capacity to a level of nine remaining bars on the vehicle’s battery capacity level gauge. If possible, the lithium-ion battery components will be repaired or replaced, and the original battery pack will be returned to the vehicle. If necessary, the lithium-ion battery will be replaced with either a new or remanufactured battery. Any repair or replacement made under this Lithium-Ion Battery Capacity Coverage may not return the battery to an “as new” condition with all 12 battery capacity bars, but it will provide the vehicle with a capacity level of nine bars or more on the battery capacity level gauge. "

There were only 24 kWh Leafs thru model year '15. That has NOTHING to do with "it will be upgraded from a 30 KW to a 40 KW due to a class action suit they have to replace 19,000 batteries".

ALL Leafs model year '13+ received a capacity warranty. There is no automatic free upgrade from 30 to 40 kWh packs. Need to lose enough capacity before expiration. Those with enough capacity loss on 30 kWh Leafs eventually got 30 kWh replacement packs. Eventually, the 30 kWh packs were discontinued, they were for awhile putting in 40 kWh packs to replace them. See https://static.nhtsa.gov/odi/tsbs/2020/MC-10171230-0001.pdf.

For awhile, it seemed like they stopped doing that and offered buybacks instead: https://mynissanleaf.com/threads/the-battery-replacement-buyback-thread.34237/.

No idea where you get "due to a class action suit they have to replace 19,000 batteries". The Klee vs. Nissan suit was settled well before 30 kWh Leafs even existed. Is there some other class action suit and settlement about what you're talking about? If yes, point us to it.

Wow, have you never ever heard of the supercharger at most Nissan dealers its called the CHAdeMO connector it's referred to as a supercharger! In spite of Tesla nerds disagreeing with it being a supercharger! I suppose if your LEAF did not come with one then you wouldn't know about it, I believe most LEAFS came stock with one (my old 2011 even had one) it's the huge port next to the smaller port in your charge compartment

I don't know of the % with and without but on '11, CHAdeMO inlet was optional. You had to get the SL trim then pay extra for the port. On '12, it came with SL trim only.

On '13+ to '17, it was optional (e.g. standard with SL and an option on S and SV trims). IIRC, it was optional for several more model years after that.