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

[edatoakrun]

Still no confirmation for this report?

Just got off of talking to Nissan support after opening an out of warranty battery replacement assistance case for my 2011 Leaf two weeks ago.

He says the official Nissan word is that all out of warranty battery assistance has been ended since last week. Fini.

Anyone have an actual experience to report, either of continuing their own process toward a discounted pack exchange, or a refusal from Nissan to do so, since the single post above from (wednesday) morning?

It seems to me to be very odd that Nissan would do something this stupid, and it also seems odd that we haven't heard from anyone else anywhere on the forum (?) of a similar experience, given the number of positive assistance reports trickling in recently.

[SageBrush]

A few days ago another person called in and was told the same, that the assistance program has ended. You can of course call in yourself if you would like to hear the same. Call every day if you want.

[sandeen]

A few days ago another person called in and was told the same, that the assistance program has ended. You can of course call in yourself if you would like to hear the same. Call every day if you want.

Which person was that?

[peter]

Just got off of talking to Nissan support after opening an out of warranty battery replacement assistance case for my 2011 Leaf two weeks ago.

He says the official Nissan word is that all out of warranty battery assistance has been ended since last week. Fini.

Oh, man. My 2012 is on the edge, but I was counting on / hoping for some assistance if I didn't make it in time. What a bummer. You were talking to the NO GAS EV folks I assume?

Yes.

[abasile]

As an owner of a 2011 LEAF with 9/12 capacity bars, I can hope that Nissan will replace this out-of-warranty battery replacement program with something better.

Namely, an opportunity to upgrade to a larger battery, preferably 40 kWh, at an affordable price. For many of us, the original 24 kWh battery was marginal to begin with, but we believed in EVs as the future of automotive transportation, we were grateful for Nissan's efforts to pioneer this market, and we were willing to go out of our way to drive electric. More than six years later, though, after considerable improvements in battery technology, it seems silly to me to simply stick another 24 kWh battery in our car.

Perhaps Nissan's preferred option might be for us to simply replace our 2011 LEAF with a new(er) one, but from the perspective of the consumer, why? We normally prefer to hold onto our vehicles for longer than six years, and the average age of the vehicles on US roads is over eleven years. It is unacceptable for there to be such drastic degradation in the utility of an "affordable" vehicle after only six years where the "fix" involves spending $5,000 - $6,000. This largely explains the terrible depreciation in used LEAF values.

Although we've become Tesla customers, we'd like to keep our 2011 LEAF on the road, and we'd like to feel that we can consider buying another Nissan EV when the time finally comes to retire our older LEAF.

[DaveinOlyWA]

As an owner of a 2011 LEAF with 9/12 capacity bars, I can hope that Nissan will replace this out-of-warranty battery replacement program with something better.

Namely, an opportunity to upgrade to a larger battery, preferably 40 kWh, at an affordable price. For many of us, the original 24 kWh battery was marginal to begin with, but we believed in EVs as the future of automotive transportation, we were grateful for Nissan's efforts to pioneer this market, and we were willing to go out of our way to drive electric. More than six years later, though, after considerable improvements in battery technology, it seems silly to me to simply stick another 24 kWh battery in our car.

Perhaps Nissan's preferred option might be for us to simply replace our 2011 LEAF with a new(er) one, but from the perspective of the consumer, why? We normally prefer to hold onto our vehicles for longer than six years, and the average age of the vehicles on US roads is over eleven years. It is unacceptable for there to be such drastic degradation in the utility of an "affordable" vehicle after only six years where the "fix" involves spending $5,000 - $6,000. This largely explains the terrible depreciation in used LEAF values.

Although we've become Tesla customers, we'd like to keep our 2011 LEAF on the road, and we'd like to feel that we can consider buying another Nissan EV when the time finally comes to retire our older LEAF.

so the average discount ran say $3500 to $4000. What if they offered that much off a 2018 LEAF?

[sandeen]

So, I just called Nissan, and asked explicitly, and they confirmed:

• Yes, it was a temporary program
• The program is no longer active
• There will now be no consideration whatsoever for out of warranty cars

[abasile]

so the average discount ran say $3500 to $4000. What if they offered that much off a 2018 LEAF?

Ok, let's suppose a 2018 LEAF with QC is about $32K, give or take.

A $4K discount would bring that down to $28K. Then subtract $10K in federal and California incentives (for now), so $18K. Add back about 10% for tax and license, bringing it to roughly $20K net.

According to kbb.com, our LEAF might fetch roughly $5500 if sold to a private party. To be conservative, let's call it $5000 since the battery is at only 9/12 capacity bars and out of warranty (no, that's not an offer to sell for that price!).

That would bring the net cost of replacing our 2011 LEAF with a 2018 LEAF down to about $15K (as opposed to $19K without your proposed $4K "goodwill" discount).

That's certainly more attractive, and might be a tempting offer. The problem, though, is that it's $15K that we weren't planning on spending at this stage since our current LEAF is otherwise almost perfectly functional. (Isn't that supposed to be one of the selling points of EVs??)

I guess the other question is, would it be better to spend $6K for a new 40 kWh battery for our current LEAF, or $15K net (after your proposed $4K discount) to swap into a 2018 LEAF? Spending the $15K would represent a better value, I'll admit, if we felt okay with spending more. It would be ideal if Nissan were to offer both of these options to its early adopters.

Of course, there are no such offers on the table right now. Today, buying a new LEAF at full price is a very questionable proposition given the availability of the longer-range Bolt and the upcoming Model 3, not to mention Nissan's poor record on battery pack longevity.

[Reddy]

So, I just called Nissan, and asked explicitly, and they confirmed:

• Yes, it was a temporary program
• The program is no longer active
• There will now be no consideration whatsoever for out of warranty cars

As you might guess, I'm rather disappointed with this news. There is NO WAY I am spending $6500 for a new battery on a car that's worth $5000. If anyone at Nissan is reading this stuff, you're not just in danger of losing me as a customer, you're also losing ALL of the people that I influence. I have directly influenced more than ten people to purchase EVs in a Tri-City area with less than 200,000 people. I continue to advocate for EVs and have been involved in the installation of several charging stations locally (and soon regionally). At this point I cannot in good conscience recommend that anyone purchase a Nissan vehicle.

[sandeen]

Yeah, the capriciousness of this is really unfortunate. True, they don't owe anyone anything out of warranty. But with so many 2011/2012 cars having trouble, opening and then closing this program before some of the 2012s even went out of warranty seems really arbitary.
(And just a hunch, but I'm 99% sure they would not have considered early replacement for 9-bar cars still within the warranty period - though now I wish I had asked),