Capacity Loss on 2011-2012 LEAFs

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LeftieBiker said:
atikovi said:
arnis said:
If you drop to 8 bars before 5 years and 60 000 miles
you will get replacement.

Yes but isn't the warranty 8 years or 100,000 miles? What happens at say 80,000 miles if your range is down to just 10 miles? They won't replace the battery?

The longer warranty is for battery manufacturing defects only, not gradual capacity loss. 5 years/60k miles is the limit for capacity loss in 24kwh Leafs. The 30kwh Leaf batteries are warranted for 8 years/100k miles.

Where do they draw the line? If the car can only go 10 miles, isn't there a defect in the battery?
 
atikovi said:
arnis said:
If you drop to 8 bars before 5 years and 60 000 miles
you will get replacement.

Yes but isn't the warranty 8 years or 100,000 miles? What happens at say 80,000 miles if your range is down to just 10 miles? They won't replace the battery?

Yes, and no. If your range is down to 10 miles, it could be caused by just one or two bad cells, not a general degradation of the whole battery capacity. If that is the case, they have the option to just replace the defective cells.
 
Correct. That longer warranty does apply if error code is triggered.
This will happen pretty fast if one or more cells fails completely.

That error code is the line they draw. Aka "check engine light".
 
Said goodbye to Leaf # 257 today. Donated to the Salvation Army in Ridgecrest, CA. Final stats were 38.24 Ahr, 58% SOH, 36.82% Hx. Full charge was about 155 GIDs; around 12 kWh. 47,455 miles. About two months less than six years. I would still be driving it to work, since it still hasn't gotten cold here, but the original 12V battery died last week. Car won't boot w/o a charger connected to the 12V battery. Stranded me at work once. I was still able to do my 36 mile commute, hitting LBW about 3 miles from home. Couldn't use heater, of course. And as soon as it starts freezing here, I would have been short on range. But the dead battery was the end. Not worth $100 for another week or two of use.

All those horrible things people have reported about brake problems when 12V battery is weak are true! The car booted once but failed ABS checks. Braking effort was high and the brakes made a loud growling noise when I used them. They only seemed to have two conditions... insufficient and too much.

So I'm back to driving Prius or diesel pickup. No more EV.

-Karl
 
kolmstead said:
So I'm back to driving Prius or diesel pickup. No more EV.
Bummer, Karl. Any plans on getting back to a plug-in after retirement? I wonder what the salvation army will do with it - I suspect just auction it off.

The fact is that a '11 Prius with the same mileage would be worth about double what your LEAF was worth on the used market at this point. And the Prius would probably have another 5 years and 50k miles left on it before any major work required, too. Really need that battery to last 10 years 100k miles or the financial benefits of an EV are lost.

Unfortunately the "lizard" batteries while improved, don't appear to hit that target in the desert. At least the 30 kWh LEAFs will still provide usable range after they lose 30% capacity, and they have a better warranty so they better be more durable for Nissan's sake.

My LEAF only does 30 miles on a 80% charge to LBW these days and in the low 40s to LBW unless I really baby it. I can squeeze about 55 miles out of a charge taking it down past VLBW. I hit LBW 14 times in the last month and that's with charging to 100% 6 days a week. That's probably about the same number of times I hit LBW the first 3 years of ownership.
 
kolmstead said:
Said goodbye to Leaf # 257 today. Donated to the Salvation Army in Ridgecrest, CA.
I was still able to do my 36 mile commute, hitting LBW about 3 miles from home. But the dead battery was the end. Not worth $100 for another week or two of use.

You didn't want to spend $100 on a battery but you are willing to lose thousands when you give it away? I don't get it. Would have brought $4000 or $5000 on Ebay or even Craigslist. Heck, post it here and give a forum member a chance at it for a thou or two.
 
Can someone help me understand these measurements. This is a 2012 purchased used. It's my understanding that the battery should be covered until August of 2017 based on the purchase date. This was after a 100% charge this am.

183 GIDs 65.1%
SOC 90.8 %
14.2 kWh
1094Wh
48.3 miles to 5%

AHr=45.07
SOH=68%
393.16V
HX-47.82
45,054 miles

After a 3.6 mile drive to work:

169 GIDs 60.1%
SOC 83.6%
13.1kWh
512 Wh
44.0 Miles to 5%

I failed to capture the battery stats on arrival to work. Thoughts? The dash reports 65 miles while Leafspy reports 48.3 to 5% which seams like a vast gulf between the two. I did not have anything other than the car on, no heater, heated seats, radio etc.

Thanks for any insight.
 
atikovi said:
kolmstead said:
Said goodbye to Leaf # 257 today. Donated to the Salvation Army in Ridgecrest, CA.
I was still able to do my 36 mile commute, hitting LBW about 3 miles from home. But the dead battery was the end. Not worth $100 for another week or two of use.

You didn't want to spend $100 on a battery but you are willing to lose thousands when you give it away? I don't get it. Would have brought $4000 or $5000 on Ebay or even Craigslist. Heck, post it here and give a forum member a chance at it for a thou or two.

$4-5k for a car with a shot battery is a bit on the wishful thinking end of things, but I too was wondering about the decision path taken in this case. IRS has made it more difficult to write off the full (or inflated if you will) fair market value, so chances are you can only write off the actual selling price of the vehicle on the auction, and you'd be lucky to get 1/3 of it back on your taxes. Sounds like $2-3k down the drain to me, but I suppose it is not too unreasonable if one is in a rush to put the frustration with the car behind and doesn't want to deal with a car sale.
 
fbnella said:
I should also note that I dropped to nine bars recently, within the last month.
Charge to 100%, discharge to LBW, VLBW, and turtle, accelerate and decelerate to the max, climb hills, quick charge, and generally enjoy driving as much as possible (but don't exceed 60,000 mi). You should lose that 4th bar next spring/summer and win the battery warranty lottery. Good luck.
 
Thanks for the tips. When I spoke to a dealer here in town, they told me that the car would need to show a record of a yearly battery check for it to qualify for warranty coverage. Is this true? It was purchased used and I've no idea if that was done, or needed. The carfax shows it being serviced but isn't specific.

Thanks again, for any insight.



Reddy said:
fbnella said:
I should also note that I dropped to nine bars recently, within the last month.
Charge to 100%, discharge to LBW, VLBW, and turtle, accelerate and decelerate to the max, climb hills, quick charge, and generally enjoy driving as much as possible (but don't exceed 60,000 mi). You should lose that 4th bar next spring/summer and win the battery warranty lottery. Good luck.
 
atikovi said:
Valdemar said:
$4-5k for a car with a shot battery is a bit on a wishful thinking end of things

Battery has an 8 year 100,000 mile warranty. If battery was "shot" wouldn't Nissan fix it under warranty?

Not in this case, capacity loss warranty, which is what this case falls under, is for 5y/60000 miles only. The 8y/100k mile warranty covers manufacturing defects, for example if can't drive your car to due to a fault in the battery, or experience sudden range loss over a short time which could be due to a singly faulty module. In 99% of cases modules wear out evenly which is known as "gradual capacity loss" that is not covered by the manufacturing defects warranty.
 
fbnella said:
Thanks for the tips. When I spoke to a dealer here in town, they told me that the car would need to show a record of a yearly battery check for it to qualify for warranty coverage. Is this true?
Not necessarily. There have been a few on this site who have had the battery replaced under warranty without all yearly checks. YMMV.
 
Purchased an off lease 2012 SL in Aug 16 with 10 bars and 32K miles. I had the battery check and 3227 update applied in September. Just lost 10th bar at 37K miles and LeafSpy reports at 47.53 Ahr. Build date is Jan 12. I believe the in service date was 11/2012 and sold and used in CT. Vehicle is currently in MA. Love the car. I went through 2 LeLink II devices. They both stopped working under 30 days of use. I know have a Viecar 4.0 OBII and it works great.
 
Amped said:
Purchased an off lease 2012 SL in Aug 16 with 10 bars and 32K miles. I had the battery check and 3227 update applied in September. Just lost 10th bar at 37K miles and LeafSpy reports at 47.53 Ahr. Build date is Jan 12. I believe the in service date was 11/2012 and sold and used in CT. Vehicle is currently in MA. Love the car. I went through 2 LeLink II devices. They both stopped working under 30 days of use. I know have a Viecar 4.0 OBII and it works great.

Chances are you will miss out on the new battery bingo unless you start "work" on your pack soon. It took me 8 months and 11k miles to lose the 9th bar in SoCal that included the hottest months here, it'll likely take you longer in MA so you'll be cutting it close to 11/2017 when your capacity warranty expires.
 
Valdemar said:
Amped said:
Purchased an off lease 2012 SL in Aug 16 with 10 bars and 32K miles. I had the battery check and 3227 update applied in September. Just lost 10th bar at 37K miles and LeafSpy reports at 47.53 Ahr. Build date is Jan 12. I believe the in service date was 11/2012 and sold and used in CT. Vehicle is currently in MA. Love the car. I went through 2 LeLink II devices. They both stopped working under 30 days of use. I know have a Viecar 4.0 OBII and it works great.

Chances are you will miss out on the new battery bingo unless you start "work" on your pack soon. It took me 8 months and 11k miles to lose the 9th bar in SoCal that included the hottest months here, it'll likely take you longer in MA so you'll be cutting it close to 11/2017 when your capacity warranty expires.


If it happens, it would be a welcome bonus. I bought a 4 year old nice car for cheap and the range I'm getting is more than enough for my 30 mile round trip commute. I also have charging options near work. So, no worries if it doesn't happen.
 
Amped said:
Valdemar said:
Amped said:
Purchased an off lease 2012 SL in Aug 16 with 10 bars and 32K miles. I had the battery check and 3227 update applied in September. Just lost 10th bar at 37K miles and LeafSpy reports at 47.53 Ahr. Build date is Jan 12. I believe the in service date was 11/2012 and sold and used in CT. Vehicle is currently in MA. Love the car. I went through 2 LeLink II devices. They both stopped working under 30 days of use. I know have a Viecar 4.0 OBII and it works great.

Chances are you will miss out on the new battery bingo unless you start "work" on your pack soon. It took me 8 months and 11k miles to lose the 9th bar in SoCal that included the hottest months here, it'll likely take you longer in MA so you'll be cutting it close to 11/2017 when your capacity warranty expires.


If it happens, it would be a welcome bonus. I bought a 4 year old nice car for cheap and the range I'm getting is more than enough for my 30 mile round trip commute. I also have charging options near work. So, no worries if it doesn't happen.

Don't take it lightly, it will be difficult to make that 30 miles in 2 years in the car during winter, if you plan to keep it that long. It is $6k for a new pack from Nissan and it doesn't really increase resale value all that much.
 
Amped said:
Valdemar said:
Amped said:
Purchased an off lease 2012 SL in Aug 16 with 10 bars and 32K miles. I had the battery check and 3227 update applied in September. Just lost 10th bar at 37K miles and LeafSpy reports at 47.53 Ahr. Build date is Jan 12. I believe the in service date was 11/2012 and sold and used in CT. Vehicle is currently in MA. Love the car. I went through 2 LeLink II devices. They both stopped working under 30 days of use. I know have a Viecar 4.0 OBII and it works great.

Chances are you will miss out on the new battery bingo unless you start "work" on your pack soon. It took me 8 months and 11k miles to lose the 9th bar in SoCal that included the hottest months here, it'll likely take you longer in MA so you'll be cutting it close to 11/2017 when your capacity warranty expires.


If it happens, it would be a welcome bonus. I bought a 4 year old nice car for cheap and the range I'm getting is more than enough for my 30 mile round trip commute. I also have charging options near work. So, no worries if it doesn't happen.

My 11-bar 2012 Leaf has a hard time driving 30 miles in the dead of winter with the heat blasting. Living in MA, I assume your winters are similar to Syracuse. I have to run the heat because I have kids in car seats (i.e. heated seats are useless to them). If you don't need heat and/or can preheat the car while plugged in, your commute will be much easier. How "near work" are those charging options? Can you walk to your work and leave the car plugged in?
 
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