Anybody with 2011 or 2012 interested in upgrade to new battery?

cwerdna said:

Side question: Can you confirm that was no fan found inside both the 2011 and 2015 pack?

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Correct, no fans inside. The battery pack is completely sealed, although I had one pack where dust tracked inside from a gap between the shell and the disconnect, where there is a hole in the shell to allow pulling the disconnect plug to disable the HV. But thepack is supposed to be hermetically sealed.
The packs I worked on (4 in total) had no battery heaters either since they were from warmer climates (California mostly, I don't know why the Washington state pack did not have a battery heater, maybe the car started its life somewhere else?)

Cor said:

The packs I worked on (4 in total) had no battery heaters either since they were from warmer climates (California mostly, I don't know why the Washington state pack did not have a battery heater, maybe the car started its life somewhere else?)

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Odd... but not surprising (?) if they were '11s. Battery heater became a forced feature (IIRC) on '12+ models.

cwerdna said:

Cor said:

The packs I worked on (4 in total) had no battery heaters either since they were from warmer climates (California mostly, I don't know why the Washington state pack did not have a battery heater, maybe the car started its life somewhere else?)

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Odd... but not surprising (?) if they were '11s. Battery heater became a forced feature (IIRC) on '12+ models.

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Right, late '11s offered them as part of the Cold Weather option package.

I might be able to get my hands on a brand new 2016 pack for a 2011 warranty replacement.
The price is going to be higher than my first offer, which was for a 2015 pack that was already in my car.
This time it is a pack that still needs to be delivered to the dealer.
I will try to arrange it such that you can have it installed in your car by the dealer, instead of in the car that qualifies for the warranty,
though I do not know if the dealer will fall for that. I can ask.
Else it will be installed in the warranty car and immediately taken out and installed in your car.
Warranty: if I replace it and you do not like the result, I will take it back and mount your original pack back in your car.
(if the dealer installs the pack in your car, obviously you are committed as they return your old pack)
I am thinking of $5000 for this brand new 2016 "Lizard cell" 24kWh pack, including installation in your car.
Who is interested, preferably driving distance from Silicon Valley?

Cor said:

I will try to arrange it such that you can have it installed in your car by the dealer, instead of in the car that qualifies for the warranty, though I do not know if the dealer will fall for that. I can ask.

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I found out that the dealer actually needs to send a photo of the old and the new pack sitting next to each other,
both with the correct battery identification (serial number) to corporate Nissan in order to get paid for the warranty work,
so it is impossible to mount a warranty replacement battery into a different car.
In other words - the only way is still to have the battery delivered and installed as expected, then rip it out,
cut it open (since it is glued shut) and harvest the modules to be mounted into someone's old battery shell after
removing the modules - this includes swapping the BMS wiring from the old to the new modules as the original BMS
must stay with the car, so also the BMS wiring (the new harness is different).

Cor said:

Who is interested, preferably driving distance from Silicon Valley?

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Today I installed the warranty modules into a local Leaf owner's car.
Took most of the day but he drove away tonight with better-than-new range.
Note that it takes 2 hours hustling to just swap the wire harnesses on the modules.
The only specialty tool needed is a T30 security Torx for the cover around the service disconnect.
The rest is just good mechanical skills and enough knowledge of electricity that you know what you can touch and where to stay away.
Two jack stands, a hydraulic jack and a furniture dolly,
a small screwdriver and preferably two ratchets: a big one with 3ft handle extension to break loose the 17mm head mounting bolts of the shell and the 16mm nuts of the stiffening bar inside the pack, the extension is not needed for the 13mm mounting bolts and nuts of the module stacks; the smaller ratchet with 10 mm for most everything else. So, pretty standard stuff. But a lot of prying and fumbling to get all the harness tie-downs loose or opening the latch of the tie-wraps and opening security covers and prying out temp sensors and ....

Interesting project. Great stuff!
What was the total amount of time taken for you to start and finish the swap?
Was it close to what the "book time" requested by the dealers for this work?

Thanks.

Cor said:

Cor said:

I will try to arrange it such that you can have it installed in your car by the dealer, instead of in the car that qualifies for the warranty, though I do not know if the dealer will fall for that. I can ask.

Click to expand...

I found out that the dealer actually needs to send a photo of the old and the new pack sitting next to each other,
both with the correct battery identification (serial number) to corporate Nissan in order to get paid for the warranty work,
so it is impossible to mount a warranty replacement battery into a different car.
In other words - the only way is still to have the battery delivered and installed as expected, then rip it out,
cut it open (since it is glued shut) and harvest the modules to be mounted into someone's old battery shell after
removing the modules - this includes swapping the BMS wiring from the old to the new modules as the original BMS
must stay with the car, so also the BMS wiring (the new harness is different).

Cor said:

Who is interested, preferably driving distance from Silicon Valley?

Click to expand...

Today I installed the warranty modules into a local Leaf owner's car.
Took most of the day but he drove away tonight with better-than-new range.
Note that it takes 2 hours hustling to just swap the wire harnesses on the modules.
The only specialty tool needed is a T30 security Torx for the cover around the service disconnect.
The rest is just good mechanical skills and enough knowledge of electricity that you know what you can touch and where to stay away.
Two jack stands, a hydraulic jack and a furniture dolly,
a small screwdriver and preferably two ratchets: a big one with 3ft handle extension to break loose the 17mm head mounting bolts of the shell and the 16mm nuts of the stiffening bar inside the pack, the extension is not needed for the 13mm mounting bolts and nuts of the module stacks; the smaller ratchet with 10 mm for most everything else. So, pretty standard stuff. But a lot of prying and fumbling to get all the harness tie-downs loose or opening the latch of the tie-wraps and opening security covers and prying out temp sensors and ....

Click to expand...

mxp said:

Interesting project. Great stuff!
What was the total amount of time taken for you to start and finish the swap?
Was it close to what the "book time" requested by the dealers for this work?

Click to expand...

The dealer never swaps module stacks out of a battery.
At the dealer, they only touch the battery case when wearing their high voltage isolating gloves
and they are certainly not going to open a battery voluntarily and voiding the warranty.
At the dealer, they drop the battery case after disconnecting the 12V battery and disconnecting the 2 or 3 plugs
(depending if you have battery warmers or not) by unbolting the 2 or 5 10mm bolts in the little straps
and then the 10 or 12 (old/new style battery) bolts that hold the battery to the frame.
Oh and of course, first remove the 3 battery covers, the plastic belly pan pieces. About 20 10mm bolts and 20 push pins or so.
Once the battery is dropped, the replacement goes in with reverse order of disassembly.
Then the Nissan computer gets involved - there is a paper that comes with the new battery that holds a key
that has to be entered into the Nissan tool to register the battery to the car, the car's computer gets updated to
recognise the new battery computer and they are done.

For me, since I have no access to the Nissan software tools, the only option is to keep the same battery computer with the car.
For my own 2011 Leaf I lucked out, it had a 2016 battery and I had bought a 2015 battery that was a warranty replacement on a 2011
so it already had the correct plug for a 2011 and I could swap the computer from the new installed 2016 battery into that 2015 pack,
re-seal that pack and remount it into my car. That was a (long) evening of work but it did not involve moving module stacks.
Then, the removed 2016 pack minus computer was completely dis-assembled down to module stacks without wiring and the 2011
BMS wiring was installed on them, in order to be able to swap them into a degraded 2011 pack.
The degraded pack that came out of that 2011 received the 2016 wiring and the 2015 BMS so it was again a complete set, to go into an EV truck. Nothing was wasted, but as I said - just swapping the BMS wiring on the 3 module stacks takes about 2 hours of hustling.
Cutting open the new style shell is about half an hour, depending how lucky I get with the knife cutting the glue apart.
The longest time it seems is taken when switching BS wiring and the mounting spots of the wiring changes so the brackets can not fit
on one of the existing bolts. I always find myself untying the HV wires, in order to get it to move over an inch and fit on the mounting
bolts on the halfpack.
Making sure the shell is again waterproof upon closing is another big thing.
And knowing how to jack it up again so it comes into the correct position for bolting it back on.

There were stories here about dealers swapping out individual modules that failed.

Valdemar said:

There were stories here about dealers swapping out individual modules that failed.

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All deteriorated batteries that I have seen till now have all modules equally deteriorated,
so while it may be possible that there are packs where a single module started failing faster and by replacing the single module
the pack was again within spec (marginally), I have not seen that - all cells stay pretty nicely in balance at different charge levels,
so their capacity is the same, else they would differ more than the approx 20mV that LeafSpy reports at different charge levels.

So, I am wondering if those stories are just a "possibility that dealers could bring a pack back in spec IF a single module failed,
similar to the Prius pack often having one or a few cells failing ahead of others due to the lowest capacity cell being extra stressed
as a result of not having any BMS that can balance the pack, only a "gentle over-charging" as a way of rebalancing a pack that is
deteriorating? I have replaced a single module in a Prius pack of a friend whose 2005 started reporting imbalance in one module
and that car has been running fine ever since.

Another reason to doubt the reports of dealers replacing a module: All info from dealers that I am aware of show that they stay
as far away from the battery packs as they can and only handle it with high voltage gloves by specially trained technicians.
I do not see any dealer taking on the liability to have their technicians open up the high voltage pack and be exposed to the
lethal voltages inside that cannot be turned off because there is no on/off switch on batteries and in order to replace a module,
you have to touch live high voltage. I know have worked on 8 Leaf packs so far and I know what I am doing, but I don't think
any dealer wants to have that liability. Just a thought...
Please post any documented cases of people having a refurbished pack put in by a dealer.
I only know of refurbished packs that have been done by individuals like myself and then it was always all 48 modules being replaced
since their capacity must be similar ("matched") so the easiest way to achieve that is to keep the modules from one pack together.
In fact, I have take packs apart that I have to take care of to keep all modules of one pack together and not mix with others
or I risk that the BMS starts "balancing" cells to a different SoC so I will always have a large difference between cells...

BTW, in the near future I will have to buy another battery pack since I need to get a complete set of Leaf computers for a vehicle to move, which is currently having a mis-matched set of 2013 computers: LBC, BCM and VCM plus intelligent key, so that they see each other and
allow the vehicle to move again.
In order to harvest the LBC (BMS computer) I will need to buy the complete battery pack, open it and swap the BMS with the one from the vehicle, so I will have another battery pack available for someone who wants to re-invigorate their Leaf with additional range (provided that I can find a relatively young pack with decent capacity). Let me know if you are interested.

Oh and the upgrade is not limited to old Leafs, I have even seen a 2015 with deteriorated battery pack because it had more miles on the car than my own 2011 has. So any Leaf can get new range by installing a higher capacity battery pack, including 2013, 2014 and 2015. Note that these are all nominal 24 kWh packs, not the new 30kWh 2016 pack. I hope to get my hands on that one some day...

Definitely it was faulty modules, confirmed by LeafSpy and dealers. Lazy to find those threads, but you can if really interested. Rare cases, but real.

I read through all the posts in this topic and want to add my thanks to Cor for his work. I've profited from his work on the Gen 1 Prius over the years so I'm happy to see him here in Leaf Land!
Ed

Valdemar said:

Definitely it was faulty modules, confirmed by LeafSpy and dealers. Lazy to find those threads, but you can if really interested. Rare cases, but real.

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Hi Valdemar,
I don't doubt that it happens. In fact, I an easily see that if a module has one cell with a manufacturing defect or just a failure and it goes "open" so there suddenly is one spot in the series link that does not have a buddy-paired set of cells in parallel, but only a single cells,
then the range suddenly falls to half, the BMS will protect the remaining cell and only half the capacity of the pack is usable, so replacing that one faulty module can restore it to full capacity again. I am only wondering who is going to perform that work, I doubt that a mechanic will be allowed to do this so it must be a specially trained person from Nissan that will need to travel to the dealer or the battery needs to be freighted to him and back - always an expensive and slow proposition. Shipping new batteries to dealers is standard practice....
I'll see if I can find the posts about module swap, that might be interesting.

I found one of the threads about module replacement and indeed, it seems like it is a single cell blowing in a module, causing massive loss of capacity and weird Voltage imbalance errors, leading to Turtle mode and other issues.
http://mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=20106
Two certified techs from Nissan are required to work on replacing a module, so it took weeks to arrange for all the logistics and I doubt that this has any benefit over simply replacing a pack by Nissan. Leaf Spy can easily detect these failures and diagnose them from the displayed cell voltages - let alone from the DTC error reports.
NOTE that early (2011-2012 packs were bolted shut with a solid rubber gasket clamped between the two halves of the shell, so you can easily open and re-close it.
Since 2013 the shell is glued shut. I have serious doubt that anyone from Nissan will try to open such a shell, it is a major headache and leads always to damage to the shell. I have only glued one pack back shut and I will have to see how it holds up over time, it is on my private vehicle.
Was interesting to read the thread about the module replacement and the issues encountered.

I have started to put 2 full Leaf packs (96 modules total) into my EV truck together with 2 Leaf BMS units.
That will be an interesting experiment and I hope to get close to 100 miles range.
I want to modify a "CANary" to display the info from 2 BMS units on the 2 displays as well as give the over/under charge protections.
We'll see if we can figure out the interface to the truck for the BMS. The packs themselves are not a problem,
though I need to re-configure them so it is a lot of cutting of metal and slicing of orange bus bar and sense wiring protection plastic.
What I did learn was that I need to keep all cells from a pack together to allow the BMS to keep them together, so I will make two
independent strings of 48 modules (maintain the two original packs) which only get paralleled when charging and driving.

Cor said:

BTW, in the near future I will have to buy another battery pack

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That will probably be in December or Jan, as I am working on my EV truck now and also traveling later this month.
Anybody interested in regaining range, let me know.
I will probably try to get a 2015 battery so the battery swap will probably be about $3k, depending on the capacity of the new pack.

Cor said:

Cor said:

BTW, in the near future I will have to buy another battery pack

Click to expand...

That will probably be in December or Jan, as I am working on my EV truck now and also traveling later this month.
Anybody interested in regaining range, let me know.
I will probably try to get a 2015 battery so the battery swap will probably be about $3k, depending on the capacity of the new pack.

Click to expand...

PM sent

co2112 said:

Cor said:

That will probably be in December or Jan, as I am working on my EV truck now and also traveling later this month.

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PM sent

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Cool, I have put down a deposit on a 2015 battery that should be available end this month.
I don't know who are all buying those, but prices for these young batteries have gone up like crazy,
Apparently even nation-wide the cheapest you find a 2015 battery is $3k before tax.
Luckily I am quite good at haggling so I got a better offer than the nationwide lowest price,
but I was not expecting that the cost of the used battery would already be about $3k. Wow.
Apparently my offer of installing modules in your car for $3k is quite a good deal. ;-)
BTW, this battery should have done about 14k miles and I can tell you the actual capacity when it arrives (LeafSpy).

Ended up trading in the Leaf for the Rav4 EV. Thanks for offering your help but seeing 44 on the GOM and getting LBW by the time I made it home made it nearly impossible to commute. With the degradation on the RAV 4 being minimal I opted to stay electric without having to sacrifice the range. Your deal is a good one and would have been much cheaper than the RAV4 but now I know the battery will last much longer than the Leaf and give me the distance I need. 115 miles on Rav4 GOM from 44 on Leaf.

co2112 said:

Ended up trading in the Leaf for the Rav4 EV.

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OK, Enjoy the RAV4 EV!
Thanks for letting me know,
this means that in December I will have a low mileage 2015 battery available
to install in someone else's Leaf with deteriorated cells.

Cor said:

this means that in December I will have a low mileage 2015 battery available
to install in someone else's Leaf with deteriorated cells.

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OK, it looks like the low mileage 2015 battery that I will get next week will be installed in a Leaf in Los Angeles and the take-out modules will also stay there, so I only need to load my Prius with tools and battery modules on the way down from Silicon Valley to LA, I will come back up empty. Good. I may try to get another low mileage battery soon as there still is a local Leaf owner who wants to sell his 2011 SL for cheap as it has lost 3 bars and if I find someone interested, I can help them to regain the original range (the current owner changed job, so he does not need the Leaf any more)