Battery Replacement Race with the Warranty

Seeking your advice.

Location: Austin, Texas
Miles: 56900
Bars: 9
LeafDD "C" (Ahr) = 43.49
GIDS full charge = 181

5 year warranty is up in the fall. I will reach 60k long before then (May or June) if I keep driving it like I do.

The question is, should I keep driving it , or should I park it out front for two months or so and drive my old car until the heat of the summer kicks in?

I think I'm close. I was at 45.2 Ahr two months ago, which is about 0.85 Ahr loss per month (during the winter). So if that rate is accurate AND keeps up, I should hit 41 Ahr within 3 months, which would almost certainly cause that 9th bar to drop....right?

I'd much rather just keep driving the Leaf because my old car is not insured or registered (and so I would have to do those things, which costs money). And I think I'm close. But would prefer some internet affirmation of my beliefs.

I dropped my 4th bar at 41.79 AHr and was one of the lowest on record. Also, my GIDs were at 180. You pose some very good questions on what strategy to use and apparently have read a bit to gain this knowledge and seem intuitive to doing what may work. I find in the Arizona climate, that mileage is not the big trigger, but heat over a calendar period of time seems to be. So, using what we know, why don't you factor in how many miles you have remaining and divide that by how many months you have left. Then drive the car only that many miles per month making sure you do not go over 59,999 before presenting it to a Nissan dealer. If you start getting anxious anywhere during this time, you can power up parts of your home using an inverter with your Nissan Powerwall. The idea behind all of this strategy is that it will keep your car updating as well as regular heating continuing as frequently as possible inside and out as well as cycling. It will also keep your brain in the game. Good luck! I suspect that you will make it.

Evoforce said:

. So, using what we know, why don't you factor in how many miles you have remaining and divide that by how many months you have left. Then drive the car only that many miles per month making sure you do not go over 59,999 before presenting it to a Nissan dealer. If you start getting anxious anywhere during this time, you can power up parts of your home using an inverter with your Nissan Powerwall. The idea behind all of this strategy is that it will keep your car updating as well as regular heating continuing as frequently as possible inside and out as well as cycling. It will also keep your brain in the game. Good luck! I suspect that you will make it.

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I basically agree. I'd definitely not want to keep driving so much and hit 60K in May/June and still have 9 CBs.

Keep the mileage down and be sure to store it outside in the heat at 100% SoC. If you want to really be on the safe side, keep the driving to an absolute minimum or leave it parked almost the whole time.

Evoforce said:

I dropped my 4th bar at 41.79 AHr and was one of the lowest on record. Also, my GIDs were at 180. You pose some very good questions on what strategy to use and apparently have read a bit to gain this knowledge and seem intuitive to doing what may work. I find in the Arizona climate, that mileage is not the big trigger, but heat over a calendar period of time seems to be. So, using what we know, why don't you factor in how many miles you have remaining and divide that by how many months you have left. Then drive the car only that many miles per month making sure you do not go over 59,999 before presenting it to a Nissan dealer. If you start getting anxious anywhere during this time, you can power up parts of your home using an inverter with your Nissan Powerwall. The idea behind all of this strategy is that it will keep your car updating as well as regular heating continuing as frequently as possible inside and out as well as cycling. It will also keep your brain in the game. Good luck! I suspect that you will make it.

Click to expand...

Currently I switched to the strategy of only driving the car to work and back, and using the wife's car for extra trips/weekends. But this will get me to June, given the miles to work. That's why I asked about the second (really third) car option. I don't have the option to only drive x # miles per month without registering and insuring my third car (when I just want to sell the thing).

I do agree about the calendar time being a huge factor. It seems to be the common thread here.

Another thing I was thinking was to drive the car another 1000 miles to 58000 and if it still hasn't dropped (about a month and a half to work and back) THEN switching to the other car for a couple months before trying to hit 8 bars before 60k.

But I think I'm really really close. Too bad the lizard battery doesn't seem to live up to expectations.

personally I wouldn't go past x = (60,000 - 50 - miles from home to the dealer)

I also wouldn't use up my miles to x before the 3 days from the 60 months cut off.

I'd make sure to charge with the 120V instead of 240V or Chademo and I'd never charge long enough to let the cells balance. Keep the SOC high but don't leave the car charging past 90% unless you are watching it like a hawk with leafspy and can unplug the EVSE before it spends any appreciable time doing less than 1KW.

Why charge at 120V? It's way less efficient especially on the 6.6KW charger and will heat the pack more. But even with the 3.6KW charger its less efficient at 120V than at any higher charge rate. Sitting on asphalt plugged into a 120V socket is a sure way to heat the battery.

Worrying too early.
Charge to 100% and keep it hot.
Discharging below 10% and hard acceleration (near home to be safe :lol: )
will heat up the battery and also have negative effect on it.
Do not rapid charge using ChaDeMo. It temporarily raises the capacity.

If you arrive really low at home just keep AC/car on to run it down to dead.
Let it stay dead for as long as possible.
Charge some and suck it down to dead. Then when it's hot, charge to 100%.
Use 240V. You are wasting electricity and time on 120V.

dhanson865 said:

Why charge at 120V? It's way less efficient especially on the 6.6KW charger and will heat the pack more.

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120V charging is less efficient, but the heat doesn't go into the pack, it goes into running computers and pumps.

Charge and discharge at the fastest rate possible to put the most heat into the pack.

dhanson865 said:

personally I wouldn't go past x = (60,000 - 50 - miles from home to the dealer)

I also wouldn't use up my miles to x before the 3 days from the 60 months cut off.

I'd make sure to charge with the 120V instead of 240V or Chademo and I'd never charge long enough to let the cells balance. Keep the SOC high but don't leave the car charging past 90% unless you are watching it like a hawk with leafspy and can unplug the EVSE before it spends any appreciable time doing less than 1KW.

Why charge at 120V? It's way less efficient especially on the 6.6KW charger and will heat the pack more. But even with the 3.6KW charger its less efficient at 120V than at any higher charge rate. Sitting on asphalt plugged into a 120V socket is a sure way to heat the battery.

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I have no intention of going past the warranty miles before five years or cutting it too close. The question is whether to stop driving it NOW or stop driving it 60-k minus 1000 miles or something like that.

I have a 2011, with the 3.6kw charger. What is the benefit of charging below 100%? Do the cells rebalance more at 100% increasing capacity?

arnis said:

Worrying too early.
Charge to 100% and keep it hot.
Discharging below 10% and hard acceleration (near home to be safe :lol: )
will heat up the battery and also have negative effect on it.
Do not rapid charge using ChaDeMo. It temporarily raises the capacity.

If you arrive really low at home just keep AC/car on to run it down to dead.
Let it stay dead for as long as possible.
Charge some and suck it down to dead. Then when it's hot, charge to 100%.
Use 240V. You are wasting electricity and time on 120V.

Click to expand...

I think I would take a less aggressive approach so as not to invalidate the warranty : http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1073334_nissan-leaf-battery-warranty-what-you-must-do-to-keep-it-valid.
Surely over the course of the approaching summer with temps in the 80s and 90s the pack will degrade enough. Try to use the vehicle normally but keep that mileage below the threshold.

Here's some advice from someone who actually qualified for a warranty replacement pack (I think one other has posted in this thread).
You didn't say exactly when your 60 month date is, but based on the fact you are in TX (like me), the first thing I would do is charge to 100% and stop driving it.
Heat is the major contributor to degradation, and we know it gets really hot in TX by July and stays that way through September; I even got some good degradation out of October last year. Based on your commute, figure out how many weeks/months you can drive until you hit 60k miles and go back to driving at that time. You can read these threads until you're "blue in the face", but basically charge to 100% at every opportunity, drive as hard as possible, park in the sun, and don't let the battery pack "cool down". I have no doubt you can get in the 42.xx AHr range within a couple of thousand miles in the heat of the summer, but you have to leave a buffer of time and mileage (no one knows exactly how much) to actually drop that 4th bar; for me it was something like a month and a 1000 miles (I spent all of November in the 42's before I dropped that bar).
Good luck!

drees said:

dhanson865 said:

Why charge at 120V? It's way less efficient especially on the 6.6KW charger and will heat the pack more.

Click to expand...

120V charging is less efficient, but the heat doesn't go into the pack, it goes into running computers and pumps.

Charge and discharge at the fastest rate possible to put the most heat into the pack.

Click to expand...

I charge in a asphalt parking lot at work and in my garage at home. For me at least I see:

1. charging on 120v on the asphalt is hotter pack per leafspy battery sensor readings than just sitting on the asphalt.
2. sitting on the asphalt is hotter than sitting in my garage charging on 240v
3. charging in my garage is hotter than just sitting in my garage
4. sitting in my garage is cooler than all the above.

Now maybe if I had access to 240v while sitting on asphalt in mid day sun I could get more heat than 120v on asphalt but since I don't have that option I can't give definitive numbers on the 240v vs 120v in that case.

I do think sitting in a parking lot charging is likely to be the hottest you'll see without pushing something that will invalidate the warranty like putting it in a paint booth.

DrillbabyDrill said:

I have a 2011, with the 3.6kw charger. What is the benefit of charging below 100%? Do the cells rebalance more at 100% increasing capacity?

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Charging adds heat to the pack, so charging to 100% is good but there is a period in the charging process where you stop adding full power to the pack. rebalancing could reduce degradation if it brings a cell down from a slight overcharge and the longer it sits in the charging process the more likely it is to rebalance (some recommend a 120v charge to rebalance even if you daily charge on 240v).

But I agree with stanton, if you aren't driving it keep the SOC high.

and he and I agree stop driving in the cooler weather if that allows you to drive more in hotter weather.

So you still have a ways to go before the bar drops. I parked mine, ran the heater at night and charged it to 100% at all times. fast charge to put heat in the battery if you can, you are right to keep the miles off, keep the car as hot as you can. good luck on the battery lottery .

Thanks for the advices. I'll fire up the old car and drive the Leaf more sparingly until summer hits.

I was so nice to this battery. I always charged to 80% (until I needed the range), kept the car out of sunlight while charging. Covered garage at work and at home. No quick charges it until it was 3 years old. And still the range is down to 50 miles.

From a warranty loser... park it now. Only drive it when temp is well over 100 degrees. Do not waste those precious miles now! Drive it hard and get the battery HOT. Don't risk losing out on $6500.

-Karl

If you can QC twice in a day it will definitely help you. I don't believe in letting the car set unless you have run out of available mileage. I've also been a big loser but new battery recipient and I want you to join me before it's too late.

I lost from 10 bars to 8 bars in seven months without even wanting to, except when it degraded to such low miles and range. I was lucky to have plenty of warranty time and mileage.

Look at my degradation chart in the thread " Lizard Pack Holding Up" and try to correlate that to your temps. I was also getting the same monthly losses (without the lizards headroom) on my other leaf without lizard. What are your daytime temps? Bring it to me and it will be degraded in plenty of time... If you notice in my signature I have 2 lizards now. But... they are not lasting any better than originals in AZ.

kolmstead said:

From a warranty loser... park it now. Only drive it when temp is well over 100 degrees. Do not waste those precious miles now! Drive it hard and get the battery HOT. Don't risk losing out on $6500.

-Karl

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+1 Charge it up and park it until July one.

Thanks y'all with the hints. I'm at 9 bars and about 30,000 miles since I got my 2011 SL in December 2012. Bet than in less than two years I will get the "free" warranty pack. I will definitely try to delay as much as possible. A 2017 pack would be fantastic if all the have are 30 KWH packs.

Great advice from everyone, so here's mine: Another wrinkle could be NOT driving it. There is someone on the forum who is trying to drop the last bar as well, but is over 59,900 mi. Their last bar is holding on longer than it should, perhaps because no miles are being driven. So my recommendation much like other's: Keep it at 100%, in the sun, black asphalt and all. Absolutely charge/discharge as many times as possible, as quickly as possible (USE that accelerator at every light), all the while driving as few miles as possible. Yes, cycle the battery by running the heater/defrost on 90 F or the A/C at 60 F, perhaps even in the driveway. However, I still think some miles need to be added on the odometer on each cycle. Use this vehicle for all of the short, aggressive drives (not for long sedate commuting at a constant speed). Use your other car for the commute. A 5 mi drive that gets on/off the freeway, hits every red light, etc. is much more likely to help your cause than a constant 60 mph on the freeway. GOOOOOOOOOD LUCK!

I really wish we could figure out what conditions it takes for AHr to update and then what conditions must be met for the bar to update. It would make the finals miles/months so much less stressful as you do whatever is needed to work towards meeting them without having to worry if it'll happen in time or if you'll go over miles before it happens.