Driving range display 'changes' after NTB11038 Svc Campaign

[Gonewild]

It's been pretty well established now that number has nothing to do with the firmware update. Despite what some peoples service receipt says, our numbers did not change at all in the diagnostic screen.

I agree I thought I had version A and was told I had B and now have C if I remember correctly.

 

[DarkStar]

It's been pretty well established now that number has nothing to do with the firmware update. Despite what some peoples service receipt says, our numbers did not change at all in the diagnostic screen.

I agree I thought I had version A and was told I had B and now have C if I remember correctly.

Nope, the diagnostic screen appears to only be for the Navigation/XM/Climate Control system and has no information regarding the version of VCM you have...

 

[derkraut]

I actually read this entire thread, and I have only one thing to say:

You guys crack me up! :lol:

 

[HIOJim]

I actually read this entire thread, and I have only one thing to say:

You guys crack me up! :lol:

If we could only harness all this energy and focus for the Good of Mankind! :lol:

 

[Ready2plugin]

They just finished my update, and according to Carwings, mine dropped 3 bars (from 6 to 3). Estimated miles dropped from 48 to 31. Ouch. Currently charging at dealership so I can make my 40 mile trip home this afternoon. One side note, the service guy who took in the car had to call for permission to charge it: "Do we do courtesy charging for people who purchased their car here?". :shock: Good thing the person on the other end said yes!

 

[Lopton]

They just finished my update, and according to Carwings, mine dropped 3 bars (from 6 to 3). Estimated miles dropped from 48 to 31. Ouch. Currently charging at dealership so I can make my 40 mile trip home this afternoon. One side note, the service guy who took in the car had to call for permission to charge it: "Do we do courtesy charging for people who purchased their car here?". :shock: Good thing the person on the other end said yes!

lame... the guys at Mission Hills Nissan had it charging the entire time they were doing the update, I actually gained a bar.

 

[TomT]

What do you think of their service department? The sales department was absolutely terrible back when I was shopping for my PD in August but perhaps the Service Department is better...

lame... the guys at Mission Hills Nissan had it charging the entire time they were doing the update, I actually gained a bar.

 

[Ready2plugin]

They just finished my update, and according to Carwings, mine dropped 3 bars (from 6 to 3). Estimated miles dropped from 48 to 31. Ouch. Currently charging at dealership so I can make my 40 mile trip home this afternoon. One side note, the service guy who took in the car had to call for permission to charge it: "Do we do courtesy charging for people who purchased their car here?". :shock: Good thing the person on the other end said yes!

lame... the guys at Mission Hills Nissan had it charging the entire time they were doing the update, I actually gained a bar.

By the time I came in to pick it up they had it back to 82% charged....so I actually gained a couple as well. Just interesting that he had to ask that it was okay to plug it in....

 

[palmermd]

I'm going to agree with the others that this change was different than I was expecting. The range estimate seems to be the same as it was prior to the update, but the SOC bars seem to be going down faster than they were.

So the range estimate dropped appropriatly but the SOC dropped inappropriately in my view for this trip. I'll have to run a few more tests to be sure, but at this point, I'm in agreement that the change was strange.

Today was the first day I drove the Leaf since I drove home from the dealership on Friday (went out of town for the Easter weekend). Todays trip was short, but the SOC and range estimate are both behaving as I would expect. I drove 23 miles and lost two bars SOC and went from 100 miles estimate to 80. The second bar went away sometime around 15-16 miles...I was not paying enough attention to know for sure, but this behavior is more in line with what I was seeing prior to the change. Perhaps all the downloading of information and unusual charging and "idling" in the shop messes with the predicted range and SOC bars until it gets another charge cycle completed.

I have an 80 mile trip that I have taken twice, and I'll have to drive it again to know for sure, but todays result has brought my confidence back in the readings.

I'll probably be going to Modesto again (80 miles round trip) later this week.

 

[jason98]

My observations after the service:

SOC: 80% (timer charge)
A/C: off
headlight: off
speed: 40 mph max (city)

I got 3 bars gone after 12 miles! That's pretty much insane.
I used to have the first bar to go after at least 5+ miles. Sometimes even after 10.

Does it mean I will have just 48 miles of total range under conditions above? (Those that Nissan claims 130 miles distance for?)

Update:
After charging to 100% I drove 92 miles before I plugged the car with 0 bars left, 5 miles to go, and 4.8 miles per kwh on the dash screen.
The "low charge" warning started at 10 miles to go.
The last SOC bar disappeared at 6 miles to go. (I have not seen 0 bars before the update)
There was no "very low charge, look for charging station" warning.
Those 92 miles were driven over the course of two days, 59 on the first day, the rest on the second.
26 highway miles - with top speed 60 mph. The rest was a city drive with frequent stop lights.

Compared to my 80% charge experience earlier, this time SOC behavior was more close to what I used to have before.
Fast drops on highways (every 4 miles), slow drops while city driving (every 8-10 miles)
Strange fact that the SOC bars disappear consistently twice as fast on highways while efficiency is not exactly twice as low
(I believe the ratio is more like 4 to 5)

 

[Spies]

The "low charge" warning started at 10 miles to go.

Thanks for the report! Do you recall how many bars were showing when you got the "low charge" warning?

 

[GeekEV]

Based on my earlier test, you didn't get low enough to trigger the very low battery warming after the update... For me it occurred at 2 miles remaining.

 

[jason98]

The "low charge" warning started at 10 miles to go.

Thanks for the report! Do you recall how many bars were showing when you got the "low charge" warning?

One bar.

 

[jason98]

Based on my earlier test, you didn't get low enough to trigger the very low battery warming after the update... For me it occurred at 2 miles remaining.

How far did you go on practice after the very low warning?

 

[garygid]

In their wisdom (or haste), Nissan has not given US ANY way to determine if we are getting into a pre-update or post-update LEAF.

Since this update has created a much differently calibrated "fuel" gauge, we no longer know which gauge we are looking at when we enter an unfamiliar LEAF.

No wonder Nissan wants to update ALL our cars - little to do with the "A/C Problem", they just want to "stamp out" the too-optimistic pre-update e-fuel gauge.

I suggest that all of us who are retaining (for now) the pre-update SOC gauge add a small, easily-removable "sticker" (dot or star, or?) at the bottom right of the "fuel" instrument display.

 

[evnow]

Given this change in behaviour - they should be putting out a modified user manual. Anyone checked that ?

Ir is the change in behavour only w.r.t. when the warnings come on ... no need to modify the manual ?

 

[Ready2plugin]

Did my first commute in after the update, and every logged entry so far has been 3 bars used, with an average of 65 miles remaining....today was 4 bars used with 60 miles remaining (after driving 26.6 miles on a 100% charge). So pretty much in line with everyone else that has the update. I do hope it makes up for it on the low end.

 

[Spies]

Given this change in behaviour - they should be putting out a modified user manual. Anyone checked that ?

Ir is the change in behavour only w.r.t. when the warnings come on ... no need to modify the manual ?

I just reread the portion of the user manual in question and the wording to me is vague enough that I don't think it would to be changed. For example from page 2-9:

The gauge indicates the approximate available Li-ion battery charge to run the vehicle. Charge the Li-ion battery before the display reaches the bottom line.

Now "bottom line" I thought meant one bar illuminated but with the reported behavior with the update applied it seems to mean no bars illuminated.

Now if you are talking about the service manual perhaps that needs to be changed based on the reported new state of charge behavior however I think the "low battery" "super low battery" and "turtle" warnings are coming on with the same state of charge as before the update based on user reports.

I have not had the update done myself yet.

 

[palmermd]

It would be nice if someone would put their car on a dyno and run it with CC until it stops and log the whole thing on video. Better yet do it twice. Once before the update and once after.

 

[ttweed]

We had the update done last week. Before the update, we were charging to 80% every day and had gotten only one low battery warning in 500 miles of driving, which came on with 19 miles of estimated range on the display. Since the update, we have had estimated range down to 12 miles and have yet to receive a low charge warning again, so they definitely put more reserve at the bottom, and changed the threshold for the first warning (I assume to 8-9 miles, as people here have reported).

After the update, we made our first long trip in the Leaf on Easter Sunday, and charged to 100% for the first time in anticipation of needing the full range and possibly more. We traveled from La Jolla to our in-laws house in Alpine, which included climbing from sea level to 2000', with 90% of the driving at freeway speeds. I set CC at 65mph and slowed a few times to take advantage of drafting behind slower trucks, but generally went the speed limit the whole way, not babying the car (although we used ECO mode throughout, as we always do, and no climate control was necessary, as it was a pleasant day).

We arrived in Alpine with 42 miles on the trip meter and 30 miles estimated range remaining on the display. I knew i would get back some range from regen on the descent, but to be safe, I put the L1 charger on the car while we ate dinner and visited for 3 hours. The top bars of the SOC meter did seem to drop faster than usual, and since we had started with 103 miles of estimated range, had driven only 42 miles but used up 73 "estimated" miles, I chalked up the 31 "phantom" miles that disappeared as due to the high average speed and the elevation change.

On getting in the car for the return trip, the range display showed 41 miles estimated. As soon as I shifted to ECO mode, it displayed 47 miles, so I gained somewhere around 15 miles from the L1 charging. We set out for home and on the descent from Alpine, the range estimate got as high as 57 miles even though we traveled 10 miles during that time. I knew we would safely make it home then, and we did, arriving with 14 miles of est. range left (last 2 bars still lit) after driving 83 miles total (mostly freeway) miles. It appears we MIGHT have made it all the way there and back without any opportunity charging, but it would have been close, since the amount we gained from charging at mid-trip essentially equaled our ending charge, and we certainly would have gotten into the low battery warning stages at the end if we had not reduced speed or something.

Overall, it was acceptable and normal performance as far as the range goes, including quite a bit of climbing and without any real hypermiling--totally comparable to the range we were getting prior to the update, so I don't believe there was any "reduction" in range caused by the update, just a shift in the way the the range is estimated, weighting it towards the bottom of the scale. I don't mind this at all, and will adjust to the new "reserve" quickly, I think. I don't understand anyone's resistance to doing the update, especially if there is still a chance that the A/C problem could effect your car w/o the fix. You're likely to get it one way or another in the future, or be left behind, so just go have it done. I don't think there is anything to fear here. Future updates/revisions are bound to happen, and may introduce features/fixes that you might want to have. I'm not buying into the "conspiracy" outlook on the update, and am just going to believe that the Nissan engineers know what's better for the car than I do. If there's another one soon, I'll be getting it too.

TT