I am done with Nissan (Vent Thread)

[scottysize]

Forgive me if I put this in the wrong place, but I'm done with Nissan. I took the Leaf in 3 times because the batteries wouldn't hold a charge. This last time was 3 weeks ago. The Service Manager agreed with me. The problem? Too many battery bars. My car as 10 and until it looses 2 more, they won't even discuss it. The Service Manager requested an engineer come out and see the car because it is loosing the charge too fast. On a full charge we would be lucky to get 50 miles out of the car. The Nissan Customer Service line said that driving style, temperature, etc plays a part. Duh. And I'd be happy to agree with them if it was that way for the first year and a half, but its not. About a year and a half ago, the car just started losing it's charge faster than it should. We took it in and the service tech said there was nothing wrong with it. We took it in several more times to no avail. Finally this past time, we asked the service manager to please drive it for a week. He did. That's when he said, yup, something's not right. However, he couldn't convince Nissan and we couldn't. He kept it for 2 more weeks trying to get an engineer out, but they never would send one. We finally picked up the car last Friday. It's a lease and we have 4 more months left on it, but we're turning it in this week. No sense keeping something that we can't drive, so we'll just shell out the next 4 months of payments in one chunk and move on.

Here's Nissan's Problem:
I have a 2012 Titan and was wanting to replace it with the diesel version that comes out next year. Now that we have found out that Nissan won't support their products, I am not buying another vehicle from them. While I'm just one person, I think I'll have an impact on them (at least in my mind). I've purchased 3 Titans from them over the past 10 years. My mom has purchased 2. I've pushed Nissans on everyone I know and have gotten several others to make Nissan purchases. After this last fiasco, I'm done with Nissan. Never again will I purchase one, and never again will I recommend anyone purchase one.

Good Bye Nissan.

 

[Nubo]

Sorry to hear you couldn't get satisfaction. One major concern with the battery warranty is that the SOC (bars) is itself an estimate. If the estimate is wrong, no warranty protection even if the real SOC is lower. There really should be some provision to measure true capacity when there is a concern. Maybe via a dynomometer?

 

[davewill]

I'm not sure about Texas' lemon laws, but If your car has been in enough times or been broken long enough, you could qualify. In most states that gets you a hearing, sometimes with a third party. Before I just coughed up 4 payments, I'd at least check into filing a claim...it might be possible to get Nissan to settle with you for those payments rather than deal with a hearing.

All that said, we've ALL been losing bars quickly, and the capacity warranty that was added (it used to be we didn't have one at all) basically says what Nissan said...you have to have to 4 bars gone before it kicks in. So to prevail, you'd probably have to convince an arbitrator that YOUR loss violates the regular battery warranty, which specifically excludes "gradual" losses, (whatever that means) or you'd have to demonstrate that the capacity bars are faulty, that your loss is worse that the bars are showing and that the battery is actually equivalent to 4 bars gone.

 

[tombobcat]

...you have to have to 4 bars gone before it kicks in. So to prevail, you'd probably have to convince an arbitrator that YOUR loss violates the regular battery warranty, which specifically excludes "gradual" losses, (whatever that means) or you'd have to demonstrate that the capacity bars are faulty, that your loss is worse that the bars are showing and that the battery is actually equivalent to 4 bars gone.

Nissan said "below 9 bars or about 70% capacity left" to have the warranty kicks in. My interpretation is that you don't have to have 4 bars gone before it kicks in, as soon as you loose 3 CB and few miles later you are below 9 bars and with LEAF Spy if it's showing below 70% capacity left, you're qualify for the warranty, is my interpretation correct?

 

[Reddy]

Sorry for the problems Scotty. Since I lived outside of Denton, I know the area well and a 50 mi range, given the heat-induced battery degradation and high speed travel, is not surprising. As you said, Nissan will be losing customers from this. Unfortunately, the Leaf is a great in-town car, but not a great car in hot areas and at high speeds. I hope others learn from your experience. I continue to enjoy my purchase, and plan to for another decade or more. However, my driving area is low speed, flat, and in a moderate climate. I rarely need to drive more than 20 mi and at more than 40 mph. Let's all hope that larger, heat-resistant batteries are coming soon.

 

[pkulak]

Why pay for 4 months and give it back now? Does the cost of storing it in your driveway outweigh all of the <50-mile trips you'll take in the next 4 months? I'd just put that sucker on Getaround and make some money for 4 months.

 

[scottysize]

Sorry for the problems Scotty. Since I lived outside of Denton, I know the area well and a 50 mi range, given the heat-induced battery degradation and high speed travel, is not surprising. As you said, Nissan will be losing customers from this. Unfortunately, the Leaf is a great in-town car, but not a great car in hot areas and at high speeds. I hope others learn from your experience. I continue to enjoy my purchase, and plan to for another decade or more. However, my driving area is low speed, flat, and in a moderate climate. I rarely need to drive more than 20 mi and at more than 40 mph. Let's all hope that larger, heat-resistant batteries are coming soon.

Yes. It's a perfect car if you live downtown and only commute less than 20 miles. However, wifey commutes 35 miles round trip and only had 8-10 miles left when she returned home. That's less than their 80%, which they only use the battery bars to determine the 80%. I know I'm the exception, but still, when the service manager says, come look, should Nissan come look?

 

[scottysize]

Why pay for 4 months and give it back now? Does the cost of storing it in your driveway outweigh all of the <50-mile trips you'll take in the next 4 months? I'd just put that sucker on Getaround and make some money for 4 months.

Gotta pay the 4 months no matter what, but this way I can cancel the insurance, so I get to keep more money by turning it in early.

Funny side note, the Nissan Lease guy said he'd knock off the last 4 payments if I traded it in. I just laughed at him.

 

[davewill]

Nissan said "below 9 bars or about 70% capacity left" to have the warranty kicks in. My interpretation is that you don't have to have 4 bars gone before it kicks in, as soon as you loose 3 CB and few miles later you are below 9 bars and with LEAF Spy if it's showing below 70% capacity left, you're qualify for the warranty, is my interpretation correct?

No, it isn't. The only measure Nissan uses is the capacity bars, so you aren't below 9 bars until you only have 8 bars. The only approach that might have a prayer of working before that would be some independent measurement that demonstrated that the battery was in fact more than 70% gone...and even that might not work. It would have to be some sort of controlled discharge test, I'd think. Anything the LEAF Spy app showed would be ignored out of hand, I expect.

 

[LTLFTcomposite]

If your wife is getting home with 8-10 miles left in the bank what is the problem?

 

[smkettner]

If your wife is getting home with 8-10 miles left in the bank what is the problem?

+1

I would drive it to the last day of the lease.
Your range loss is actually fairly typical and yes very dissappointing

 

[scottysize]

If your wife is getting home with 8-10 miles left in the bank what is the problem?

The problem is that is only 45-50 miles on a 100% charge. Would you be happy with that? I'm not. Especially when it went round trip 79 miles with 8-10 miles left for the first two years we owned it. It's only got 26,000 miles on it. It shouldn't have fallen off that far.

 

[Reddy]

Does she arrive home with 8 mi on the Guess-o-meter (GOM)? If so, then there are still more miles left, especially if you turn off the heat-A/C, or slow down. I'm guessing she just exits the freeway and it is only a short distance to home (has to be if you live in town). Driving at 35-45 mph instead of 70 mph dramatically increases the available miles. You should run it all the way down to low battery (LBW) or very low battery warnings (VLBW). I've driven more than 10 miles after VLBW.

 

[Reddy]

Also, you should evaluate whether the vehicle meets your needs, and not whether you believe the numbers are "fair". If you can't drive the distance you need, then park it or turn it in. If you are just mad because it doesn't give a magic number like 70, 80 or whatever, then you are cutting off your nose ......

 

[LTLFTcomposite]

My wife takes it every day on a 50 mile RT commute, about half of that is highway (65-70mph) and she gets home with about 8-10 miles left on the the GOM. We take some comfort from the notion that there should be several miles left in reserve after that.

Are we happy with it? Well it would be nice if there was a greater margin for comfort but for now it's still getting the job done, and after two bars were lost it seems to be holding steady. 8 more months/8,000 miles the lease is up anyway so unless things change drastically we're just going to ride it out. I'm thinking there's still a good chance for an early lease end that will get us out of the car three months early to keep us on the plantation.

If I'm looking for something to be unhappy about, I need look no further than the monthly lease payment that's more than twice what it would be to lease one now. That's the real source of dissatisfaction for me, even though it really shouldn't be, not the range.

 

[keydiver]

wifey commutes 35 miles round trip and only had 8-10 miles left when she returned home.

It sounds to me like the car still works for her commute, so what's the problem? Everyone knows that you still have hidden range, even after those 8-10 showing on the guess-o-meter. The real question is: how fast is she driving, and how many of those 35 miles are at high speed? How long ago did you lose the second bar?

 

[mkjayakumar]

Out of 30K miles I drove on my 2011 Leaf (which I gave it back at the end of my 24 months lease), the last 6k miles I drove with two bars down, and my commute is 35 miles - one way. I plug it in at 110V at my office, which gives me enough juice to get back.

With two bars down I typically have 25 miles in the GoM when I roll into my office parking lot. And rarely when the temps are real low and I run the heat the whole way, I have hit LBW just once or twice And my drive is almost all highway end to end.

And the one thing that helped me through this ordeal: Gid meter. It gave me the confidence and a clear indication on how much charge is still in the battery. Starting with 220 I typically arrived at around 90 gids. And I know all I need to charge to get back home comfortably is around 160 Gids.

Gid meter is a must for everyone driving the Leaf.

 

[JeremyW]

After driving my car with just a bar down (and on my way to loosing my second), I have to say the charge bars and GOM become non linear and very pessimistic. If I didn't have a GID meter I'd be as pissed off as the OP. It would have given your wife a gauge to know how much she had left. She was probably ariving with about a third to a quarter left. An aftermarket gauge oesn't solve the fundamental problem though.

 

[davewill]

After driving my car with just a bar down (and on my way to loosing my second), I have to say the charge bars and GOM become non linear and very pessimistic. If I didn't have a GID meter I'd be as pissed off as the OP. It would have given your wife a gauge to know how much she had left. She was probably ariving with about a third to a quarter left. An aftermarket gauge oesn't solve the fundamental problem though.

You can do as well using the wide bars and Tony's range chart...but you have to be willing to drive it down past LBW to VLBW, and trust the chart when it says you still have miles to go when the car is literally telling you that you don't...as you said, it doesn't really solve the problem on a general basis.

 

[derkraut]

Out of 30K miles I drove on my 2011 Leaf (which I gave it back at the end of my 24 months lease), the last 6k miles I drove with two bars down, and my commute is 35 miles - one way. I plug it in at 110V at my office, which gives me enough juice to get back.

With two bars down I typically have 25 miles in the GoM when I roll into my office parking lot. And rarely when the temps are real low and I run the heat the whole way, I have hit LBW just once or twice And my drive is almost all highway end to end.

And the one thing that helped me through this ordeal: Gid meter. It gave me the confidence and a clear indication on how much charge is still in the battery. Starting with 220 I typically arrived at around 90 gids. And I know all I need to charge to get back home comfortably is around 160 Gids.

Gid meter is a must for everyone driving the Leaf.

+1. Since I got the Gid Meter, I don't even look @ the useless GOM. My car is almost 3 yrs old; and I have no problem driving 50 miles with 80% charge, at a sensible 65 mph or less--mixed Freeway and city driving. Of course, where I live gives me the advantage of hardly ever having to use heat/defroster; and I seldom use A/C.