Capacity Loss on 2011-2012 LEAFs

[cwerdna]

For some reason, this person wanted to buy a used '11 and they claim it showed up and has only 4 capacity bars, so back the car will go (hopefully): https://www.facebook.com/groups/4377412 ... 524667097/.

[cwerdna]

https://www.facebook.com/groups/nissan. ... 513491302/ (closed group unfortunately), has a pointer to a '12 Leaf with only 5 capacity bars left for sale in Glendale, AZ for a whopping $5900! Ad proclaims "need nothing more than new owner in excellent condition". Allegedly has only 32K miles on it.

[LeftieBiker]

"need nothing more than new owner in excellent condition".

They're going to have to be, to push the car the last 10 miles to their destinations.

[cwerdna]

It's very disturbing to me the # of people I've seen seeing on FB groups poking around about '11 and '12 Leafs w/o knowing about capacity bars, the chemistry of the battery it came with, etc.

Here's another case of that. This person (initials JR) posted at https://www.facebook.com/groups/4377412 ... 034002079/ "2012 leaf SL 7 battery bars left and 51,000 miles on it.. would this be a bad buy?"

I didn't realize that 15 hours before, they posted at https://www.facebook.com/groups/NissanL ... 701970634/ about the same vehicle that they're having trouble charging. They already bought it? I didn't bother reading the thread as I had no time and a bunch of people already jumped in trying to troubleshoot. They used an extension cord and generally sounded like they no idea what they were doing.

[cwerdna]

https://www.facebook.com/groups/nissan. ... 885581945/ has dashboard pics of a '12 Leaf imported to Colombo, Sri Lanka from Japan which at 176K km shows it's down to 3 (!) capacity bars, So, it's a 9 bar (!) loser. I think this is a record for me, so far. I don't recall hearing of any that are worse than this, yet.

If https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colombo#Climate is accurate, that is a pretty unkind climate to Leaf batteries.

I assume the car spent more time in Sri Lanka than Japan.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/Nissan. ... 341199353/ pointed to a post by the world famous Bjorn: https://www.facebook.com/Teslabjorn/pos ... 5141077612. It's a 3 bar remaining '12 in Thailand. Oddly, it somehow (?) only has about 16K km on it. Bjorn said "The owner has been charging it to 100 % every day for the past 2.5 years." Well, if the owner didn't need to do that, they didn't do their battery any favors.

If the odometer's accurate, during the 2.5 year span, that means they were averaging about 18.2 km/day (about 11.3 miles/day) of driving. Uhh... good job with that charging to 100% every day. This assumes the car wasn't driven at all before the 2.5 years.

Within the comments, I stumbled across another 9 bar loser at https://www.facebook.com/Teslabjorn/pos ... 1771027949. I can only assume it's an '11 or 12 since it has 155K km on it. Seems like that person's in Portugal.

[cwerdna]

Anyone know of any '12 Leafs on their original battery which still have 12 capacity bars? The guy at https://www.facebook.com/groups/4377412 ... 659900483/ is posting one w/Carfax at https://www.carfax.com/VehicleHistory/p ... P2CT015480. It has 40K miles, was built Oct 2011 and was always serviced in Maryland. It sounds like the auto seller (not a private party) wants $7500.

It's a '12 Leaf allegedly with all 12 capacity bars and no signs of the big HV battery being replaced. I find it highly unlikely than any Leaf built in late 2011 that's on its original HV battery still could legitimately have all 12 capacity bars. To me, either the HV battery was replaced or it's a reset victim but how much actual capacity remains is a big question mark. I have wild guesses and wouldn't want to spend much $ on such a car unless it's known the HV battery was changed.

[LeftieBiker]

I wouldn't be at all surprised to see '12 or '13 Canary packs with 12 bars in cool climates like the UK, Northern Europe, or Canada, but Maryland? Nah. Reset.

[cwerdna]

It's very disturbing to me the # of people I've seen seeing on FB groups poking around about '11 and '12 Leafs w/o knowing about capacity bars, the chemistry of the battery it came with, etc. At least this person asked and got the proper responses of run away and it is out of capacity warranty.

More on a disturbing trend is the guy at https://www.facebook.com/groups/4377412 ... 870066995/ asking about '11 Leafs for $11K (!!!) and asking "Do they really get 100 mile range?" From his questions, I don't think he knows anything about the capacity bars, battery degradation let alone the crap chemistry on the '11 Leafs.

[cwerdna]

Here we go again.

This guy (initials RO) at https://www.facebook.com/groups/4377412 ... 595924789/ has a '12 Leaf with under 36K miles that has lost its 4th bar. He believes his extended warranty extends the capacity warranty to 8 years/100K miles (sigh) so that he's eligible for replacement. But, from all the back and forth, it seems he's mistaken. No surprise.

I wonder if he'll end up deleting his own thread out of embarrassment.

[cwerdna]

Here were go yet again. Someone bought a used '11 Leaf at https://www.facebook.com/groups/4377412 ... 028469879/, doesn't tell us how many capacity bars it has, says they feel the range is about 30 miles and was apparently told that a replacement battery is $1.3K. Sigh...