New driver with an old Leaf... driving range drops fast

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samdavis9

New member
Joined
Apr 12, 2022
Messages
2
Hi everybody -

We recently bought a 2012 Leaf for a nice low price but are trying to adjust our expectations to the reality of what it is capable of. The 'driving range' miles shown on the dash drop rapidly as we drive, so I have just gotten LeafSpy and am trying to understand what those numbers mean for us.

Right now it is showing:
AHr 49.91
SOH 78.23% but still has eleven bars
379.78V
Hx 63.05%
168 QCs
4189 L1/L2s

The battery was replaced in 2018 which is why it is still in decent shape, but still doesn't seem like we are getting as much distance out of it as the 'driving range' miles on the dash would indicate, because of how fast they drop on every trip. Do you have any advice for further analysis/diagnosis using LeafSpy? Or do we just need to expect that we can't get very far between charges in this car, until some distant future when Nissan offers affordable battery upgrades (if that will ever happen)?

Glad to have found this forum and appreciate any wisdom folks can provide -

Sam
 
Welcome. It is possible that the Battery Management System (BMS) was reset on the car to falsely read 12 bars, and that it was up for sale long enough that the BMS has re-learned enough to again drop one of the false capacity bars. If that is the case, then expect a second bar to drop soon. I don't know that this is the case, and the battery supposedly being replaced in 2018 complicates it. Two questions on that: do you have actual proof of the high voltage battery replacement (as opposed to the little 12 volt accessory battery), and do you or the car's former owner live in a hotter climate?
 
samdavis9 said:
Right now it is showing:
AHr 49.91
SOH 78.23% but still has eleven bars
379.78V
Those Ahr stats align with a battery that has 9 CB (not 11), so (unfortunately) your suspicions are valid.
If you want to post a LeafSpy screen shot of the cell voltages, we might be able to tell if the cause of rapid SoC is either:
1) weak/bad cells
2) BMS reset (like @LeftieBiker said)

It's possible the battery was replaced in 2018, but that the BMS was reset prior to sale to hide the CB loss. For example, my battery pack was replaced in 2016, but was still down 2 CB when replaced in 2021...so a 3 CB loss is possible in your case if the car was in a warm climate with that many QC's (for the record I had NO QC's).
 
samdavis9 said:
Hi everybody -

We recently bought a 2012 Leaf for a nice low price but are trying to adjust our expectations to the reality of what it is capable of. The 'driving range' miles shown on the dash drop rapidly as we drive, so I have just gotten LeafSpy and am trying to understand what those numbers mean for us.

Right now it is showing:
AHr 49.91
SOH 78.23% but still has eleven bars
379.78V
Hx 63.05%
168 QCs
4189 L1/L2s

The battery was replaced in 2018 which is why it is still in decent shape, but still doesn't seem like we are getting as much distance out of it as the 'driving range' miles on the dash would indicate, because of how fast they drop on every trip.

Unless the main battery was replaced with a used one, those are stats of a battery around the age of my 2013 before I sold it last year. If the battery was taken care of in a cooler climate, my guess would be either the battery only had 1 "module" replaced, maybe under warranty or that the battery replacement in 2018 is false. A 4 year old battery, unless extremely abused by the owner, would still have over +92% SOH at this point more than likely.
 
samdavis9 said:
Hi everybody -

We recently bought a 2012 Leaf for a nice low price but are trying to adjust our expectations to the reality of what it is capable of. The 'driving range' miles shown on the dash drop rapidly as we drive, so I have just gotten LeafSpy and am trying to understand what those numbers mean for us.

Right now it is showing:
AHr 49.91
SOH 78.23% but still has eleven bars
379.78V
Hx 63.05%
168 QCs
4189 L1/L2s

The battery was replaced in 2018 which is why it is still in decent shape, but still doesn't seem like we are getting as much distance out of it as the 'driving range' miles on the dash would indicate, because of how fast they drop on every trip. Do you have any advice for further analysis/diagnosis using LeafSpy? Or do we just need to expect that we can't get very far between charges in this car, until some distant future when Nissan offers affordable battery upgrades (if that will ever happen)?

Glad to have found this forum and appreciate any wisdom folks can provide -

Sam

You have LEAF Spy so use it. The dash lies. Nissan builds a hidden reserve so the dash will reflect what you AND Nissan used and since the hidden reserve is usable, this basically means the dash info is "less than accurate"

What you can use of the pack is based on pack balance but I would say most will allow you to go to 1 kwh remaining so use that as your real range. A bit more on the subject.

https://daveinolywa.blogspot.com/2020/06/e-plus-summer-range-test.html
 
Thanks for all the responses... I have a receipt from the previous owner from Temecula Nissan for replacement of the high voltage battery for $7820 from 10/18/2018. I am in northern California (Oakland) so not a warm climate but maybe there was some battery degradation from heat in southern Calif.? There is a warranty attached to the receipt for the Lithium Ion battery so I wonder if anyone has had any success getting Nissan to replace faulty batteries - it says it applies if the battery goes below 9 bars within 60 months, so I have another 18 months to see what happens.

Here is the battery charge screenshot from LeafSpy - would love to understand how to read it because I don't know what this means yet:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/uh1ifV3t3tLLfAGv9
 
The "histogram" shows the voltages of all..98? cells in the battery. Red lines just mean that cells are being charged to get them about the same voltage as the rest. You want to look for bad cells with low voltage (there are none), and cells that while not extremely low are much lower than the rest. That's what the "MV" figure is: the largest difference in cell voltages. You battery looks ok. It could use a full charge or two (always drive it right after a full charge - don't let the battery sit at 100%) to better equalize some cells, but the balance is good enough in your battery.

Yes, I think that the car's residing in SoCal, along with lots of Quick Charges, degraded the new battery. A member here called Cwerdna likes to post charts showing just how much variation in local temps there is in SoCal, and lots of places there are very Hot in Summer. You are lucky that the previous owner paid for the new battery, rather than it being replaced under warranty (the price may reflect a slight discount, though), because that gives the car the full battery warranty of 60K miles and 60 months. You only have a year left in that, though, so if your climate isn't that hot, don't expect it to drop to 8 bars in one year.
 
LeftieBiker said:
Yes, I think that the car's residing in SoCal, along with lots of Quick Charges, degraded the new battery. A member here called Cwerdna likes to post charts showing just how much variation in local temps there is in SoCal, and lots of places there are very Hot in Summer. You are lucky that the previous owner paid for the new battery, rather than it being replaced under warranty (the price may reflect a slight discount, though), because that gives the car the full battery warranty of 60K miles and 60 months. You only have a year left in that, though, so if your climate isn't that hot, don't expect it to drop to 8 bars in one year.
LOL! I post high summer temp variations in what we for some reason call Nor Cal (SF Bay Area) towns/cities due to our microclimates like https://mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=533224#p533224.

Unfortunately, I'm not that familiar with huge temp variations in So Cal at all other the some areas that are pretty extreme that are outside of Los Angeles or Orange County like Death Valley, Palm Springs or Indio.

Try Googling for these as a comparison:
indio ca average temperatures
palm springs ca average temperatures
santa monica ca average temperatures
los angeles ca average temperatures
ontario, ca average temperatures

Santa Monica is likely cooler due to it being next to the water whereas Ontario is way inland.
 
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