Nissan "Out-of-Warranty" support for battery pack degradation

[SageBrush]

When the car loses the fourth capacity bar, possibly sometime next year, I will consider pushing for warranty relief. Regenerative braking is very, very limited, which would now constitute a safety hazard if I were to attempt to drive the car "normally" down our mountain, with a reasonable battery temperature (four or five temp bars) to the nearest Nissan dealer. For this very reason, it's been almost a year since I last drove our LEAF all the way down the mountain, and when I did so, I had to make multiple stops to let the brakes cool off.

Is this different than any ICE car ?

[davewill]

When the car loses the fourth capacity bar, possibly sometime next year, I will consider pushing for warranty relief. Regenerative braking is very, very limited, which would now constitute a safety hazard if I were to attempt to drive the car "normally" down our mountain, with a reasonable battery temperature (four or five temp bars) to the nearest Nissan dealer. For this very reason, it's been almost a year since I last drove our LEAF all the way down the mountain, and when I did so, I had to make multiple stops to let the brakes cool off.

Is this different than any ICE car ?

Sure! Any ICE car would have a low gear selection that would allow engine braking to be used so that the brakes didn't overheat. It's a safety hazard as it is since the heating could come on with little warning and cause an accident.

[abasile]

So why are you waiting for the fourth idiot bar to drop?

Good question. Maybe I shouldn't be waiting. I guess I've figured that my case is more likely to get attention from Nissan if four bars are missing, but it's absolutely true that the above-mentioned safety issue exists today.

In a way, this has been like the case of boiling a frog to death in water that gradually heats up. Our LEAF's regenerative braking was great when new, and it remained pretty decent for a couple of years. It gradually got worse and worse, requiring us to adapt our driving behavior. Now it's lousy even at lower SOCs. We've dealt with this by not driving down the mountain, but that truly is absurd on the face of it. The car still has enough range to climb the mountain (there's now an EVgo QC right at the base of CA-330), so we're limited by regen behavior more than anything else.

[wwhitney]

so we're limited by regen behavior more than anything else.

I'm curious, have you had the 2013 P3227 service campaign done? I recall there were reports that it limited regen more than the original 2011 programming. Presumably that would have been in order to reduce stress on the battery and extend battery life to reduce claims under the then-new warranty capacity.

FWIW, I have a 2011 Nissan Leaf as well and am waiting for the 4th bar to drop to pursue a battery replacement. I opted out of the class action settlement and have avoided the P3227 service campaign so far.

Cheers, Wayne

[abasile]

I'm curious, have you had the 2013 P3227 service campaign done? I recall there were reports that it limited regen more than the original 2011 programming. Presumably that would have been in order to reduce stress on the battery and extend battery life to reduce claims under the then-new warranty capacity.

Yes, I did allow our local Nissan dealer (down the mountain, of course) to apply that update back in 2013.

If that statement is correct, it sounds to me like your LEAF had a defect in its design, which Nissan had a duty to disclose to you at the time of sale, and it certainly sounds like you consider this defect to be causing you a major problem today.

Yes, I do believe there is a serious design defect in that Nissan is excessively limiting regenerative braking. Not only do regen kW levels drop unnecessarily as vehicle speed increases, we also find that regen is much more limited than DC fast charging even though it's essentially equivalent in terms of what happens with the battery. Nissan seems to have greatly limited regen in order to slow the rate of capacity loss in their defective batteries, albeit at the expense of safety for their customers.

There are two possible remedies that Nissan could provide to us:
(1) A new battery pack that's capable of accepting enough regenerative braking to safely navigate all California state highways
(2) Allow existing battery packs to accept more regenerative braking

Perhaps it would be worth opening a case...

[SageBrush]

When the car loses the fourth capacity bar, possibly sometime next year, I will consider pushing for warranty relief. Regenerative braking is very, very limited, which would now constitute a safety hazard if I were to attempt to drive the car "normally" down our mountain, with a reasonable battery temperature (four or five temp bars) to the nearest Nissan dealer. For this very reason, it's been almost a year since I last drove our LEAF all the way down the mountain, and when I did so, I had to make multiple stops to let the brakes cool off.

Is this different than any ICE car ?

Sure! Any ICE car would have a low gear selection that would allow engine braking to be used so that the brakes didn't overheat. It's a safety hazard as it is since the heating could come on with little warning and cause an accident.

The LEAF also has a 'B' mode, at least my model does. Does it work when the battery is full ? There is no air throttle like an ICE, but perhaps heat is released at the generator.

And so long as we are on the topic, what would happen to a diesel car that does not have a throttle plate ?

[abasile]

The LEAF also has a 'B' mode, at least my model does. Does it work when the battery is full ? There is no air throttle like an ICE, but perhaps heat is released at the generator.

Our 2011 LEAF has no 'B' mode. In any event, in models that have it, 'B' mode doesn't increase the total available regen, it just more available via the accelerator pedal. It won't be of any use on a full battery.

And so long as we are on the topic, what would happen to a diesel car that does not have a throttle plate ?

What is a throttle plate? I've never driven a diesel vehicle and my interest in auto mechanics was pretty near zero until hybrid and electric vehicles became available. All I know is that our 2011 LEAF is the only car I've ever driven that can't provide adequate engine or regen braking on a long downgrade.

It should be considered normal, and an acceptable solution, to avoid fully charging a BEV immediately prior to making a significant mountain descent, and our Tesla Model S accommodates this quite well. It's therefore all the more odd that Nissan provides no good options for charging its current LEAFs to anything less than "full". For mountain dwellers, that's a safety issue as well.

[SageBrush]

It should be considered normal, and an acceptable solution, to avoid fully charging a BEV immediately prior to making a significant mountain descent, and our Tesla Model S accommodates this quite well. It's therefore all the more odd that Nissan provides no good options for charging its current LEAFs to anything less than "full". For mountain dwellers, that's a safety issue as well.

Does your car have a charge timer ?

[abasile]

Does your car have a charge timer ?

Yes, and it has an "80%" charge setting. For someone whose LEAF lacks the 80% setting, the workaround is to estimate how many hours of charge are desired, and set the charge timer accordingly. The problem is that, if you need to target a particular SOC, you can't just set the timer and forget it - you have to tweak it every time and manually correlate charge time with SOC. It's do-able, but Tesla's SOC "slider" approach is far better, particularly for newbies.

That said, with four or five temperature bars, our LEAF's regen is now poor even at relatively low SOCs. On a long downgrade, the LEAF also tends to limit sustained regen. So even if I were to start the 4,900' descent with 15 kW of regen available on a good day, there'd be practically no regen available after maybe 2000' of elevation loss.

[edatoakrun]

...

If that statement is correct, it sounds to me like your LEAF had a defect in its design, which Nissan had a duty to disclose to you at the time of sale, and it certainly sounds like you consider this defect to be causing you a major problem today.

Yes, I do believe there is a serious design defect in that Nissan is excessively limiting regenerative braking. Not only do regen kW levels drop unnecessarily as vehicle speed increases, we also find that regen is much more limited than DC fast charging even though it's essentially equivalent in terms of what happens with the battery. Nissan seems to have greatly limited regen in order to slow the rate of capacity loss in their defective batteries, albeit at the expense of safety for their customers.

There are two possible remedies that Nissan could provide to us:
(1) A new battery pack that's capable of accepting enough regenerative braking to safely navigate all California state highways
(2) Allow existing battery packs to accept more regenerative braking

Perhaps it would be worth opening a case...

I opened my case with BBB ~three weeks ago, and no signs of progress yet, so they don't seem to move too fast.

In my LEAF's case I mentioned DC charger rate and limited regen, though in my circumstances I believe limited regen is a efficiency/range/capacity problem, not safety, at this point.

My primary dispute with Nissan, is that it has and will cause me damages on both ends of the battery pack purchase/return transaction.

I believe Nissan sold me a 2011 LEAF equipped with a "24 kWh" pack that did not, in fact, have 24 kWh capacity.

And by requiring me to exchange that OE pack for a lousy $1,000 as a condition of selling me a replacement, Nissan would cause me further damages.

...FWIW, I have a 2011 Nissan Leaf as well and am waiting for the 4th bar to drop to pursue a battery replacement. I opted out of the class action settlement and have avoided the P3227 service campaign so far.

Cheers, Wayne

Why wait for the fourth bar?

P3227 only adjusts the LBC reported capacity higher temporarily, it has no actual effect on available capacity.

In the case of My LEAF, the only time the LBC capacity was plausibly close to reality was right after P3227 bumped it up, ~7% IIRC?

I opted out of the C/A settlement also, BTW.