Capacity Loss on 2011-2012 LEAFs

[jspearman]

So, just got off the phone with Adrian, the arbitration specialist in TN. She said there is nothing they can do at this time, that the car is performing to specification. Nice.

I was livid and I let her know what a crock of #$%& this is. She insinuated that my car was high-mileage (16K miles in 1 year/2 months). I told her that 7,500 miles a year was not acceptable for any car, and she essentially said it was a niche car, to which I responded NO, it's not, it's a car that was/is sold as being capable of everyday driving, which means average mileage of 12-15K miles. It's not a NEV or a golf cart.

I had planned to have them buy the car back and lease a 2012, but no longer. I will never, ever own another Nissan if this is the way I can expect them to stand behind their cars. Unbelievable.

I'm a little confused. Is Adrian a Nissan employee, or an independent arbitrator? Sure sounds like a Nissan employee to me.

Nissan employee.

She took a week to call me back and tell me the information she must have already known. The only concession they would give was an offer to LOOK INTO installing a charger at her work, that way we could put double the number of charge cycles on the car each day. Great.

I hope Spooka has better luck. I wish I would have been more vocal before now, like Azdre and Scott, but I naively supposed that Nissan would stand behind their cars. Silly me.

 

[spooka]

So, just got off the phone with Adrian, the arbitration specialist in TN. She said there is nothing they can do at this time, that the car is performing to specification. Nice.

I was livid and I let her know what a crock of #$%& this is. She insinuated that my car was high-mileage (16K miles in 1 year/2 months). I told her that 7,500 miles a year was not acceptable for any car, and she essentially said it was a niche car, to which I responded NO, it's not, it's a car that was/is sold as being capable of everyday driving, which means average mileage of 12-15K miles. It's not a NEV or a golf cart.

I had planned to have them buy the car back and lease a 2012, but no longer. I will never, ever own another Nissan if this is the way I can expect them to stand behind their cars. Unbelievable.

Just wondering if you opened a case with BBB. If not, do so ASAP. They will be your pathway to arbitration.

Did they tell you what was tested on the car and the results or do they just give you a general "all is OK"? How did they back up their claim?

Don't give up yet. There is still a lot that can be done to make you whole again. We all need to get rejected to get to the next step in the process. I'm picking up Sonic this afternoon from Nissan. At this point Nissan has the ball. I see a change of possession coming real soon.

 

[jspearman]

So, just got off the phone with Adrian, the arbitration specialist in TN. She said there is nothing they can do at this time, that the car is performing to specification. Nice.

I was livid and I let her know what a crock of #$%& this is. She insinuated that my car was high-mileage (16K miles in 1 year/2 months). I told her that 7,500 miles a year was not acceptable for any car, and she essentially said it was a niche car, to which I responded NO, it's not, it's a car that was/is sold as being capable of everyday driving, which means average mileage of 12-15K miles. It's not a NEV or a golf cart.

I had planned to have them buy the car back and lease a 2012, but no longer. I will never, ever own another Nissan if this is the way I can expect them to stand behind their cars. Unbelievable.

Just wondering if you opened a case with BBB. If not, do so ASAP. They will be your pathway to arbitration.

Did they tell you what was tested on the car and the results or do they just give you a general "all is OK"? How did they back up their claim?

Don't give up yet. There is still a lot that can be done to make you whole again. We all need to get rejected to get to the next step in the process. I'm picking up Sonic this afternoon from Nissan. At this point Nissan has the ball. I see a change of possession coming real soon.

No, I hadn't opened a case, but will tonight after my wife brings the car home from work.

I didn't get any reports after they tested the car, but the arbitrator said everything looked normal and was within spec. I grilled her and found that they are basing "normal" on 7,500 miles/year. So in Phoenix Nissan Leaf years the car is over two years old and should have well over two bars of loss. I'm glad I don't have a job where I have to lie to people and pretend it's the truth.

 

[wiltingleaf]

So, just got off the phone with Adrian, the arbitration specialist in TN. She said there is nothing they can do at this time, that the car is performing to specification. Nice.

I was livid and I let her know what a crock of #$%& this is. She insinuated that my car was high-mileage (16K miles in 1 year/2 months). I told her that 7,500 miles a year was not acceptable for any car, and she essentially said it was a niche car, to which I responded NO, it's not, it's a car that was/is sold as being capable of everyday driving, which means average mileage of 12-15K miles. It's not a NEV or a golf cart.

I had planned to have them buy the car back and lease a 2012, but no longer. I will never, ever own another Nissan if this is the way I can expect them to stand behind their cars. Unbelievable.

Have you filed a complaint with the BBB Auto Line yet? If not, that should be your next step and then require them to go to arbitration since they are refusing to do anything. I'm pretty sure they will suddenly have a buy back offer for you.

 

[jhm614]

She took a week to call me back and tell me the information she must have already known. The only concession they would give was an offer to LOOK INTO installing a charger at her work, that way we could put double the number of charge cycles on the car each day. Great.

I actually like this idea -- no-cost or very low-cost workplace charging would remove quite a bit of my battery concerns.

 

[jspearman]

She took a week to call me back and tell me the information she must have already known. The only concession they would give was an offer to LOOK INTO installing a charger at her work, that way we could put double the number of charge cycles on the car each day. Great.

I actually like this idea -- no-cost or very low-cost workplace charging would remove quite a bit of my battery concerns.

The "look into" part is the catch. They keep putting us off in a myriad of ways, trying to keep us from taking significant action and hoping we just resign ourselves to a broken car.

Two other problems with that scenario.

First, it means you are doubling your charging cycles each day, meaning more damage to the battery. Unless the charger is in a garage or in a covered parking space, it also means charging on some terribly hot pavement in the summer.

Second, my wife's employer does not own the parking lot, so I'm guessing it would be months before they would get it through the right channels, and then she would have to pay for charging.

Mostly, though, I just see it as a delaying tactic by Nissan, not an olive branch.

 

[spooka]

Picked up Sonic tonight. I was told the results were faxed to Nissan and that I would hear from Nissan over the next week. I was asked via a phone call from the dealer earlier today the same 3 questions jspearman was asked. Guess they forgot to do this when I dropped the car off.

There was no noticeable difference with the car. No mileage put on it. The dealer charged the car after I dropped it off to 100%. I did receive a full charge alert on my phone last night and noticed it only took 2 miles for me to lose my first SOC bar after I got the car back (started with 12 bars at pickup). At this point in my battery pack's life (or is it death?)cycle, I usually get 4 miles out of the first bar (used to be about 7 when new) so whatever they did, it took a few miles of charge power to do it.

 

[nosuchthing]

You are supposed to get 5.5 freeway miles from the first bar and about 6.5 freeway miles from each subsequent bar and about 10 miles each from the last two bars for a total of 73 freeway miles. (I didn't do the math - I hope it somehow ads up.)

That is if you live in temperate climate and charge 100% at night - every night.
If you charge consistenly to 80% as Nissan keeps suggesting, you will eventually end up with 80% capacity (think of it as battery memory even thhough that should not be happening - it apparently is to many people in hot and temperate climate.)

 

[LEAFfan]

Bewildered is one word I would use...

I had commented to the specialist that I was only able to drive about 45 miles to LBW on an 80% charge and how after 15 months of ownership this well, really sucks. I was then told to charge to 100% going forward since it didn't matter to the battery. He seemed confused that I would ever want to charge to 80% and said there is a lot of mis-information "out there" about this. I discussed Nissan's recommendation about 100% charging and battery degradation. The specialist stated it was more important for me to get more range since Nissan warrantied the battery to be at 80% in 5 years. If it wasn't, the dealer would request Nissan replace the battery under warranty. He was clear about this and reinforced his point by citing examples of how Nissan has helped past customers with various major car issues. My response was skeptical. I asked him if he had seen the recent Sexton/Palmer interview. He said he had. He was familiar with the 5 year/76% capacity statement but was not aware of the 7,500 mile yearly limit to get the battery pack there. I suggested he watch it again.

WTF is wrong with Nissan? I'm really sick of these games. They need to assign one specialist to Phoenix and one for the other cases outside of Phoenix, and they both need to get their stories straight. No more BS. No more sending a guy from Casa Grande who says there are only 11 cars that are having this issue and treating us like uninformed idiots. I want one point person to talk to: not someone in Smyrna, another in Casa Grande, and the dealer, all of whom are telling me different things. This is beyond frustrating.

Hey, don't throw the baby out with the bathwater! There are those of us who live outside of Phoenix and are having the same issues and agree with you but, they need to have 1 person handle the hot weather areas. It wouldn't be hard for Nissan to look at a map and say that a Leaf owner lives in a area that experiences high temps (looking at Joeviocoe's map work would indeed show that my area had 68 days above 100 and phoenix only had 67).

Then his chart is way off. We broke a record this year with 117 days of 100F or higher.

 

[mwalsh]

You are supposed to get 5.5 freeway miles from the first bar and about 6.5 freeway miles from each subsequent bar and about 10 miles each from the last two bars for a total of 73 freeway miles. (I didn't do the math - I hope it somehow ads up.

I've always been lucky to get 3.5 miles from the first bar. I can get 4-5 miles by really cajoling the pack, but that takes a bit of work and the fates need to be in my favor.

 

[LEAFfan]

You are supposed to get 5.5 freeway miles from the first bar and about 6.5 freeway miles from each subsequent bar and about 10 miles each from the last two bars for a total of 73 freeway miles. (I didn't do the math - I hope it somehow ads up.)

At what speed should you get 73 miles? At 65mph you should get at least 75 miles. At 65 (actual) the other day, I got 12 miles on the first two bars.

 

[Weatherman]

Hey, don't throw the baby out with the bathwater! There are those of us who live outside of Phoenix and are having the same issues and agree with you but, they need to have 1 person handle the hot weather areas. It wouldn't be hard for Nissan to look at a map and say that a Leaf owner lives in a area that experiences high temps (looking at Joeviocoe's map work would indeed show that my area had 68 days above 100 and phoenix only had 67).

Then his chart is way off. We broke a record this year with 117 days of 100F or higher.

The 2012 map beginning date is June 1st and end date is August 13th. That's why it vastly under-reported the number of days Phoenix got above 100F.

The 2011 map isn't much better. It begins on June 1st and ends on August 31st.

If you are going to count days above 100, you really need to go from mid April to mid October.

 

[TonyWilliams]

You are supposed to get 5.5 freeway miles from the first bar

I don't live on a freeway, but I do live on top of a hill. It varies significantly whether I charge to 80% (hence regen going downhill) or 100% (no regen).

 

[Joeviocoe]

Hey, don't throw the baby out with the bathwater! There are those of us who live outside of Phoenix and are having the same issues and agree with you but, they need to have 1 person handle the hot weather areas. It wouldn't be hard for Nissan to look at a map and say that a Leaf owner lives in a area that experiences high temps (looking at Joeviocoe's map work would indeed show that my area had 68 days above 100 and phoenix only had 67).

Then his chart is way off. We broke a record this year with 117 days of 100F or higher.

The 2012 map beginning date is June 1st and end date is August 13th. That's why it vastly under-reported the number of days Phoenix got above 100F.

The 2011 map isn't much better. It begins on June 1st and ends on August 31st.

If you are going to count days above 100, you really need to go from mid April to mid October.

Yeah, those were the best maps I could find at the time, just to show the relationships between the affected regions and the rest of the U.S.... not really meant to show the whole season. I am sure there is data out there with more comprehensive figures.

 

[Fabio]

As the only (reported) bay area LEAF driver down to 11 bars, I wanted to post an update.
I'm very surprised that the range of my leaf has not really changed.
Before losing the 12th bar, my 50 mile daily roundtrip averaged 7.5 bars, and the same is true after losing it.

 

[TonyWilliams]

As the only (reported) bay area LEAF driver down to 11 bars, I wanted to post an update.
I'm very surprised that the range of my leaf has not really changed.
Before losing the 12th bar, my 50 mile daily roundtrip averaged 7.5 bars, and the same is true after losing it.

Quite an elite club. How many miles on your car? Have you gotten a Gidmeter reading on your car at 100% charge?

 

[ALLWATZ]

It wouldn't be hard for Nissan to look at a map and say that a Leaf owner lives in a area that experiences high temps (looking at Joeviocoe's map work would indeed show that my area had 68 days above 100 and phoenix only had 67).

Then his chart is way off. We broke a record this year with 117 days of 100F or higher.

You're right, went back and looked at the stats and Palm Springs has had 128 days of 100F or higher this year so far. Hard to top our temps. Porobably why I lost 2 bars so soon and at such a low mileage compared to AZ.

 

[Fabio]

As the only (reported) bay area LEAF driver down to 11 bars, I wanted to post an update.
I'm very surprised that the range of my leaf has not really changed.
Before losing the 12th bar, my 50 mile daily roundtrip averaged 7.5 bars, and the same is true after losing it.

Quite an elite club. How many miles on your car? Have you gotten a Gidmeter reading on your car at 100% charge?

I lost it at approx. 20,300 -- no GID-meter reading.

 

[edatoakrun]

As the only (reported) bay area LEAF driver down to 11 bars, I wanted to post an update.
I'm very surprised that the range of my leaf has not really changed.
Before losing the 12th bar, my 50 mile daily roundtrip averaged 7.5 bars, and the same is true after losing it.

Quite an elite club. How many miles on your car? Have you gotten a Gidmeter reading on your car at 100% charge?

Sure Fabio, get a gid count.

Then you will have two sources of inaccurate data on your battery capacity...

His LEAF is # 93

http://mynissanleaf.com/wiki/index.php?title=Real_World_Battery_Capacity_Loss#four_bars" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Note that the rate of capacity bar loss seems to have slowed dramatically in the last few weeks, further indicating, IMO, that the LEAF "gauge problem" causing inaccurate Wh/gid and capacity bar loss are both strongly correlated to exposure to high ambient temperatures.

 

[mwalsh]

At 65mph you should get at least 75 miles. At 65 (actual) the other day, I got 12 miles on the first two bars.

That's typically how I judge my day is likely to go. I get 11.5 miles from the first two bars on a normal day.