Bought a 2013 Leaf With Low Capacity

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QC + LED package adds quick charge (CHAdeMO) inlet, fog lights and auto on/off LED headlights instead of the crap halogens (w/o auto).

Just to confuse things, my 2013 SV had no QC/LED package, but did have Auto headlights. I never used them. Now I use that feature all the time. So were the auto headlights standard, part of Premium Package, or...what?
 
danix said:
I'm in the SF Bay Area.
Then you should not expect 1-2% a month. I would expect 5-6% a year maximum battery loss with the 1st Gen (defective) battery.

danix said:
I still don't understand the bars, will have to read up on it (I get the concept, it's just not intuitive. What I thought were the bars including the red shows 8 bars, but it's the same now as when I left).

The 8 small bars indicate battery health. They will not change on a trip.
The large bars indicate battery charge and go down as you drive. When the large bars are empty, the car is "out of gas".

danix said:
I'm hoping Nissan will do something for me but who knows, I doubt it.
Good luck, but don't get your hopes up.

danix said:
Yeah, I regret this purchase.

Don't blame you. You have a few options:
1) sell the car
2) pay Nissan $8k for a new battery. It will NOT degrade like the one you have and it will come with a brand new 5yr 60kmi /8yr defects warranty. You will get approximately 75 miles range.
3) Find a wrecked Leaf with a good 24kWh battery pack and either swap the cells or the battery pack. If truly interested in this approach, send me a personal message. It is not for the faint of heart.
4) Sign up with Fenix Systems. It is a startup hoping to sell aftermarket Leaf batteries. They are taking deposits and may be great or may go bankrupt.
https://fenix.systems/
5) Drive the car for local trips only
 
Lothsahn said:
danix said:
I'm in the SF Bay Area.
Then you should not expect 1-2% a month. I would expect 5-6% a year maximum battery loss with the 1st Gen (defective) battery.
Depends on where. We have "microclimates" in the Bay Area and there's can be a HUGE variance in high temps depending on the city. See http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=533224#p533224 (e.g. on a summer day, it can be only 62 F in SF but 111 F in Dublin, on another days it was 55 F in Pacifica while 100 F in Antioch which is a 58 mile drive away).
 
LeftieBiker said:
QC + LED package adds quick charge (CHAdeMO) inlet, fog lights and auto on/off LED headlights instead of the crap halogens (w/o auto).

Just to confuse things, my 2013 SV had no QC/LED package, but did have Auto headlights. I never used them. Now I use that feature all the time. So were the auto headlights standard, part of Premium Package, or...what?
That is really bizarre.

My '13 SV w/both packages (QC + LED and premium) definitely had LED headlights and an auto position on the left stalk. My '13 SV w/premium only definitely has crap halogens and no auto headlight position.
 
We've seen other production glitches, like an SV that came from the factory with a leather rear seat. Maybe they started to put the LED/QC package in mine, reread the order, and stopped with the headlight stalk and control box. I never thought twice about it until now.
 
The car has automatic headlights (auto setting on stalk) but does not have LED headlights.
Wish the original monroney was with the car but it's not, and nothing else in the car refers to the model besides the extended warranty paperwork, which calls it an S. So, sounds like the conclusion is it's an S with Premium.

I'll probably take it to the Nissan dealer on Monday for an inspection and see what they say and recommend.

I could simply flip it to someone, even at the same price, but that's considered "curbstoning" and technically illegal in CA, though it happens all the time. If I register it, pay CA the almost 10% in taxes,the next buyer will have to do the same, pay tax again, and will not be eligible for the transfer of the two warranties.

Yes, I'm in the east bay near Walnut Creek where we get extremes of 30 degrees in winter and 110 in summer.
 
cwerdna said:
it can be only 62 F in SF but 111 F in Dublin, on another days it was 55 F in Pacifica while 100 F in Antioch which is a 58 mile drive away).

Holy cow!!!! I thought the whole bay area had "nice weather". That's what us outsiders hear, at least.
 
danix said:
I'll probably take it to the Nissan dealer on Monday for an inspection and see what they say and recommend.
Nothing wasted other than your time.

I'm sure you have had enough bad news but when you consider car range in the pitch to your children remember to include a safety reserve at the bottom of the battery. I use 10 - 15 miles, so about 4 kWh. A kWh is equal to about 3 Ahr in the LEAF and the car reserves about 5 Ahr of the nominal battery capacity to prevent battery damage. The accounting then works out like this:

40 Ahr nominal (from LS)
(5) Ahr reserved by the battery
(12) Ahr voluntary reserve to avoid calls that the car is stuck on the side of the road
-----
Net 23 Ahr usable, or about 8 kWh
A lead foot would use that up in about 25 miles, or less if A/C is on.
 
The car has automatic headlights (auto setting on stalk) but does not have LED headlights.
Wish the original monroney was with the car but it's not, and nothing else in the car refers to the model besides the extended warranty paperwork, which calls it an S. So, sounds like the conclusion is it's an S with Premium.

The S has fewer options available. You have an SV with Premium Package and the Charge Package, which includes LED low beams only. The highbeams are still halogen. Inflating your tires to 40-42psi will help increase range, as will turning the heat on only as needed. At least you have the heat pump "hybrid" heating system. The A/C only costs about 2 miles of range if not blasted.
 
LeftieBiker said:
The car has automatic headlights (auto setting on stalk) but does not have LED headlights.
Wish the original monroney was with the car but it's not, and nothing else in the car refers to the model besides the extended warranty paperwork, which calls it an S. So, sounds like the conclusion is it's an S with Premium.

The S has fewer options available. You have an SV with Premium Package and the Charge Package, which includes LED high beams only. The low beams are still halogen. .
To be clear, on the '13 SV, the possible packages are these (from bottom of specs tab of https://nissannews.com/en-US/nissan/usa/presskits/us-2013-nissan-leaf-press-kit):
"Premium Package: Around View® Monitor, Bose® 7-speaker audio system" and
"LED Headlights + Quick Charge Port: LED headlights, auto on/off headlights, fog lights, quick charge port" - On this, the low beams are LED. IIRC, the high beams are still halogen.

The only possible package on the S is:
"Charge Package: 6.6 kW onboard charger (6 kW output), quick charge port, RearView Monitor" -- S retains the halogen headlights, regardless.

Unfortunately, since the OP is in a hotter part of the SF Bay Area (Walnut Creek and Concord get quite hot in the summer), that's not good news given the degradation already there and the crappy chemistry the car has. :( Unless the OP's range needs are limited, OP would be better served getting a minimally degraded '15 (with more heat resistant "lizard" pack) or an earlier car with lizard pack installed or a car w/battery thermal management.
 
cwerdna said:
LeftieBiker said:
The car has automatic headlights (auto setting on stalk) but does not have LED headlights.
Wish the original monroney was with the car but it's not, and nothing else in the car refers to the model besides the extended warranty paperwork, which calls it an S. So, sounds like the conclusion is it's an S with Premium.

The S has fewer options available. You have an SV with Premium Package and the Charge Package, which includes LED high beams only. The low beams are still halogen. .
To be clear, on the '13 SV, the possible packages are these (from bottom of specs tab of https://nissannews.com/en-US/nissan/usa/presskits/us-2013-nissan-leaf-press-kit):
"Premium Package: Around View® Monitor, Bose® 7-speaker audio system" and
"LED Headlights + Quick Charge Port: LED headlights, auto on/off headlights, fog lights, quick charge port" - On this, the low beams are LED. IIRC, the high beams are still halogen.

The only possible package on the S is:
"Charge Package: 6.6 kW onboard charger (6 kW output), quick charge port, RearView Monitor" -- S retains the halogen headlights, regardless.

Unfortunately, since the OP is in a hotter part of the SF Bay Area (Walnut Creek and Concord get quite hot in the summer), that's not good news given the degradation already there and the crappy chemistry the car has. :( Unless the OP's range needs are limited, OP would be better served getting a minimally degraded '15 (with more heat resistant "lizard" pack) or an earlier car with lizard pack installed or a car w/battery thermal management.

I fixed my headlight goof. I knew the answer but typed it wrong anyway.
 
Called Nissan today. As suspected, none of the warranties cover the battery.
Capacity warranty is long over, and the 8yr/100k battery warranty covers only "defects". I asked if the battery has to fail completely before it would be covered, and she said it's possible that there could be a defect that is covered without a complete failure.
So, I think the best thing to do is have the dealer do a battery test, and I'll also price out the telematics upgrade (she said there's typically a copay fee of $199 or $299 to cover labor).

In the meantime, if anyone is interested in buying this car from me, let me know.
 
danix said:
Called Nissan today. As suspected, none of the warranties cover the battery.
Capacity warranty is long over, and the 8yr/100k battery warranty covers only "defects". I asked if the battery has to fail completely before it would be covered, and she said it's possible that there could be a defect that is covered without a complete failure.
So, I think the best thing to do is have the dealer do a battery test, and I'll also price out the telematics upgrade (she said there's typically a copay fee of $199 or $299 to cover labor).

In the meantime, if anyone is interested in buying this car from me, let me know.

If your car has a 2G TCU, I personally would just disconnect it. Can be done with 15mins of your time or a free dealer visit. You can confirm it's done because you should have a leafspy DTC code showing the TCU comm error. Because it is a security related TSB, there is no charge for the disconnect.

If you have a 3G TCU upgrade already, you should be able to find a friendly dealer that will charge way less than $199 to upgrade the firmware to fix the battery drain issue. Many dealers do it for free--it takes like 5 minutes and honestly, it should be covered by Nissan anyway. If you must pay, I would push Nissan to fix that under their warranty--they sold a defective device and now want people to pay labor to fix the defect.

The only reason you should pay $199-299 is if you really want the EV connect app and you don't have the upgraded TCU. In that case, you're paying someone for the new TCU box and labor to install it. If you're considering selling the car, I wouldn't go this route...

The VLCI test will likely succeed. I can give you steps to determine if you have any out of balance cells, but again, you probably won't. I'm not aware of anyone having that test fail, even for a few people here with obvious cell failures. Having your battery fail outright would actually be the best scenario of all, but again, it's super unlikely. The 24kWh batteries are not known to randomly fail.
 
The copay for the telematics upgrade should be $199 for parts and labor. There is no reason to even bother disconnecting the old 2G modem. If it has an early 3G modem upgrade, it could lock up once in a while and discharge the 12-volt battery. If you pay for the upgrade now, you should get a new modem with updated firmware that will not cause the lockup issue.
 
GerryAZ said:
The copay for the telematics upgrade should be $199 for parts and labor. There is no reason to even bother disconnecting the old 2G modem. If it has an early 3G modem upgrade, it could lock up once in a while and discharge the 12-volt battery. If you pay for the upgrade now, you should get a new modem with updated firmware that will not cause the lockup issue.

Gerry:

The old 2G modem had known security issues. You could hack a Leaf over the internet. I would personally not leave it connected, although now that the AT&T 2G network is disconnected, the risk is MUCH less.

There's also less of a 12V power drain with the TCU off.
 
danix said:
So, I think the best thing to do is have the dealer do a battery test,

Waste of money; LeafSpy would have identified a weak cell.
You are throwing good money after bad ...
 
There's a car dealer in the SF area called Shift. They said they'd pay $7600 for the car, but need title and registration to be in my name.
I went ahead and registered it, so it's now a 3 owner car. No idea if it will still be worth the same offer a month from now when I get the title, but we'll see.

Does anyone know for sure if the CPO and extended warranties can only be transfered between the named contact and the next purchaser, or any future purchaser? In other words, if I don't send in the paperwork, the warranties are still in the former owners name and I could have the next owner take them over. It's unlikely I think as they also ask for a recent carfax.

My range has gone up slightly to 57 miles (I know, it's a guess-o-meter). I'm still holding out hope that daily use may bring the battery back to life but yeah, also unlikely.

The Leaf is a decent car, it's just crippled with poor range. Enough for some purposes but not others.
 
danix said:
There's a car dealer in the SF area called Shift. They said they'd pay $7600 for the car, but need title and registration to be in my name.
Lucky. In Feb 2019, they'd only offer me exactly $5K for my 11 bar 5/2013 built '13 Leaf SV w/premium. I think I was at 63K miles back then.

SOH back then was at around 82.xx to 83.xx then. It's still at around 82.xx% and was up to 82.7% last night. And, I'm still at 11 bars.

If you can unload it for $7600 w/no hassle, go for it.
 
My range has gone up slightly to 57 miles (I know, it's a guess-o-meter). I'm still holding out hope that daily use may bring the battery back to life but yeah, also unlikely.

The higher estimate just reflects your driving habits in the last few minutes before parking the car and shutting it off. Nothing more. It will NOT pick up more than a couple of additional miles of range, and that only from a full charge to equalize the cells (drive it right after charging ends). If you can get $7k for the car, run, don't walk, to accept the offer.
 
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