The Battery Replacement Thread

[TimLee]

... At least by the 6 bars showing I can't make it 32 miles to work!!
...

That is why having LEAF Spy Pro is so helpful.
Mine will often hit Low Battery Warning with 3.5 kWh remaining.
And then hit Very Low Battery Warning and the miles estimate goes to --- with over 2.0 to 2.5 remaining.

By setting LEAF Spy Pro miles to 1.0 kWh remaining and a conservative 3.3 miles per kWh I have clear indication of miles left.

If you want to be agressive Turtle happens at 0.4 kWh remaining.

But the car will soon be dead in the water as High Voltage Disconnect happens at 0.3 kWh remaining.

I have only hit Turtle once driving.
I was lucky to get back in the garage.

 

[hobbyguy]

Ok, I have a code reader on the way and will post my findings as soon as I get it hooked up.
Thanks all.

 

[Evoforce]

Well, a few days ago, lost a bar on the ten bar car so it is now nine bar car. Leafspy said it was coming. Was at 71% for a while before finally dropping the bar off the gauge. Don't know if nine bar car is going to qualify. I have just shy of a year to make warranty at 8. We all know Murphy's Law.

 

[TimLee]

... Don't know if nine bar car is going to qualify. I have just shy of a year to make warranty at 8. ...

At least you have a year
I barely have nine months.
Hard to lose 4 amp hours in nine months when it is already August.

 

[mtndrew1]

Man if I were in your shoes I'd be cycling the hell out of those batteries. Every day when I got home I'd burn down the charge to turtle with the heater and then immediately charge to 100%.

Even if you're only cooking off 25% additional charge every day that's almost eight extra cycles a month. Hell I'd be hitting a QC once a week too.

Fingers crossed for your warranty replacement.

 

[edatoakrun]

Man if I were in your shoes I'd be cycling the hell out of those batteries. Every day when I got home I'd burn down the charge to turtle with the heater and then immediately charge to 100%.

Even if you're only cooking off 25% additional charge every day that's almost eight extra cycles a month. Hell I'd be hitting a QC once a week too.

Fingers crossed for your warranty replacement.

I have too say I'm glad to have opted out of the 8-bar warranty settlement, even though I might have been able to get my LEAF to drop four Capacity Bars by five years, just by parking it in my ( well-insulated) garage at night.

It must be hard to have to worry so much about battery capacity loss.

Both that your pack is losing capacity too fast, and that it is not losing capacity fast enough...

 

[Evoforce]

... Don't know if nine bar car is going to qualify. I have just shy of a year to make warranty at 8. ...

At least you have a year
I barely have nine months.
Hard to lose 4 amp hours in nine months when it is already August.

Yea, that is what I think I also have is 9 months. I thought I had till sometime till July, but going through some paperwork it looks as though it is probably in May. It's my other Leaf that had the delivery date in July. I have to try to figure this one out for sure.

Edit: (9 bar car) has a customer purchase date of 9/3/11. So I do have about 13 months! So I will probably make warranty.

 

[mwalsh]

It must be hard to have to worry so much about battery capacity loss.

Oh, it is.

 

[mwalsh]

Hard to lose 4 amp hours in nine months when it is already August.

You may have to consider buying forced air heaters for your garage this coming winter. Keep the air under the car heated to the point that you can get the battery temp up considerably over ambient and you may have a shot!

 

[Soviet]

I haven't logged in in a long time & I'm actually amazed to see the new design of the site. However, I have to report that I had my 7-bar battery replaced today at Gunn Nissan of San Antonio, Texas with a 12-bar hot battery. I picked the car up with 6 bars of charge and I drove 46 miles with 7 miles remaining. So the new battery really is a new battery!

Hope others' have stories as successful/more successful as mine.

 

[TimLee]

...
It must be hard to have to worry so much about battery capacity loss.

Both that your pack is losing capacity too fast, and that it is not losing capacity fast enough...

An excellent new definition of angst. :roll:

 

[Valdemar]

...
Hope others' have stories as successful/more successful as mine.

The most successful story on this forum I've seen so far is from TomT who got his pack replaced after losing the 4th bar at like 59,999 miles, hard to beat that.

 

[Evoforce]

Checked my stats on nine bar car tonight.

AHr=45.59
SOH=69%
Hx=48.67%
odo=34090
Volts=394.01
SOC=97.9%

2% loss in roughly a month.

Edit: As of 8/15/15

AHr=45.11
SOH=68%
SOC=97.7%

 

[Soviet]

...
Hope others' have stories as successful/more successful as mine.

The most successful story on this forum I've seen so far is from TomT who got his pack replaced after losing the 4th bar at like 59,999 miles, hard to beat that.

Oh, that's just unbelievable! So lucky. Wow.

 

[dhanson865]

...
Hope others' have stories as successful/more successful as mine.

The most successful story on this forum I've seen so far is from TomT who got his pack replaced after losing the 4th bar at like 59,999 miles, hard to beat that.

Oh, that's just unbelievable! So lucky. Wow.

It's just a little exaggerated, by 16 miles I guess.

http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=8802&start=7210

Yep, I planned to and actually had the turn-in date set. Two days before, I dropped the fourth bar as I backed out of the driveway at 59,983 miles... So, I thought about it a bit, and had it towed to Nissan who confirmed with corporate that I was indeed entitled to a new battery (I had opted back in earlier). I then called Nissan Finance who said I could cancel the turn-in if I wanted to and extent the lease on a month by month basis. At that point I negotiated the two months lease credit and a third month by grinding them a little since my car would be out of service for a while while the new battery was ordered and installed (they also gave me a loaner Altima)... So, I told them OK and here we are. It gives me a brand new Lizard battery, three months free, and some time to see what cars the future brings...

I am still amazed that I dropped the fourth bar just before the warranty ended at 60K as I was not expecting that based on the numbers! Geez, 17 miles short!

 

[SilverLeaf]

Joining the club. Just lost my 4th bar last night. Reported the loss to Nissan this morning.
I updated the Wiki with my details, repeating here for consistency.

Report #40, Date of Loss August 17, 2015, Location Scottsdale, AZ, Mileage at Loss 24, 697, Months 52
Manufacture Date 04/11 Case # 1981-9945 Reported to Nissan August 18, 2011
I will be taking my LEAF to Nissan at the end of October, no need to put new battery through this summer too

LEAFSTAT Info
GIDS 177
kWh 13.71
SOC 91.29
SOH 65.15
HX 44.70
Ahr 43.16
Temp 100.9

as of 8/18/15 at 6:10 am

I will not be taking the LEAF to Nissan until the end of October, as I wish to avoid the remainder of this summer for the new battery.

 

[hobbyguy]

ok, finally got LeafSpyPro and ran numbers, but confused as to what I am seeing.
Car is at 71,341 miles, when starting car have 4 white and 2 red bars.

LEAFSTAT Info
GIDS 138
kWh 10.7
SOC 90.3
SOH 52%
HX 30.84
Ahr 34.13
Temp 79.9

when starting after a full level 2 charge, says 38.3 miles (4.0) 138 GIDS (49.1%)
10.7 kWh remain

what does all that mean? Any help is appreciated.

 

[Valdemar]

^^^ It means nothing good, unfortunately. Your pack/range is down to almost half of when the car was new. Worse yet it seems that you might have missed an opportunity to get your battery pack replaced under warranty as most likely your car was already missing 4 capacity bars prior to 60,000 miles. Do you keep your annual battery report printouts? If so you might be in luck if you can find one showing 4 missing bars and less than 60,000 miles on odometer. Sad.

 

[dgpcolorado]

ok, finally got LeafSpyPro and ran numbers, but confused as to what I am seeing.
Car is at 71,341 miles, when starting car have 4 white and 2 red bars.

LEAFSTAT Info
GIDS 138
kWh 10.7
SOC 90.3
SOH 52%
HX 30.84
Ahr 34.13
Temp 79.9

when starting after a full level 2 charge, says 38.3 miles (4.0) 138 GIDS (49.1%)
10.7 kWh remain

what does all that mean? Any help is appreciated.

Those are the lowest battery capacity numbers I've seen here. 4 white and 2 red capacity bars says that you have lost six capacity bars (the car started with twelve). You are at a bit over 50% of original battery capacity, usually thought to be 66.25% Amp•hours when new.

A new 2011 LEAF likely would have had these numbers:

GIDS 281 (at "100%" charge); a "Gid" is nominally 80 watt•hours, of which 75 Wh seems to be usable.
kWh about 22 kilowatt•hours usable energy (a new LEAF battery was rated at 24 kWh but not all of that energy capacity was usable).
SOC when fully charged the "State Of Charge" might be as high as 94-95%; the reason it is never 100% is that some of the battery capacity is reserved to protect it from over or undercharging.
SOH 100%. "State of Health" is an estimate of remaining battery capacity in percentage terms.
HX 100? The meaning of HX is unknown, but is thought by some to be related to increased resistance in the battery as it ages/degrades.
Ahr 66.25. Amp•hours is the main measure of battery capacity, which is the amount of energy it can store. (To put that in perspective, my battery has about 56.07 Ahr capacity after three years and eight months of use in a cool climate.)
Temp The temperature of the battery will vary widely, depending on driving and weather conditions. Temperature is important because higher battery temperatures, especially above 90ºF, increase battery degradation.

Hope that helps. Perhaps others can explain the numbers better. If you need more range you might want to consider the purchase of a new battery pack (about $6000). The newer packs should last longer, due to improved chemistry (although this isn't certain yet).

 

[mwalsh]

^^^ It means nothing good, unfortunately. Your pack/range is down to almost half of when the car was new. Worse yet it seems that you might have missed an opportunity to get your battery pack replaced under warranty as most likely your car was already missing 4 capacity bars prior to 60,000 miles. Do you keep your annual battery report printouts? If so you might be in luck if you can find one showing 4 missing bars and less than 60,000 miles on odometer. Sad.

He lost bar 9 at 62,000 miles and basically Nissan told him to pound sand. He's somewhat typical of what I thought would happen to a majority when it came to the capacity warranty, as it was (IMO) cunningly designed to work.

I don't feel 100% out of the woods myself yet, even as I anticipate being in good shape.