The Battery Replacement Thread

[GregH]

My replacement went quickly:

I lost bar on Wed 6/11
scheduled battery check for Friday 6/13 Waited two hours for battery check to be completed.
battery ordered
battery delivered Tues 6/17
scheduled install Thurs 6/19
dropped off car evening of 6/18
picked up car 6/19 1 pm

Sounds painless enough...
When you got the car back, what paperwork came with it?
Specifically, did they note the part numbers of all items replaced?
Is it an entire new pack (shell and all) or 48 new modules? (sorry if this is discussed earlier)
If there is a part number for the module it would be interesting to note if that changes in the coming weeks/months when they switch over to lizard batteries (which they may have already done for all we know)

 

[myleaf]

My replacement went quickly:

I lost bar on Wed 6/11
scheduled battery check for Friday 6/13 Waited two hours for battery check to be completed.
battery ordered
battery delivered Tues 6/17
scheduled install Thurs 6/19
dropped off car evening of 6/18
picked up car 6/19 1 pm

Sounds painless enough...
When you got the car back, what paperwork came with it?
Specifically, did they note the part numbers of all items replaced?
Is it an entire new pack (shell and all) or 48 new modules? (sorry if this is discussed earlier)
If there is a part number for the module it would be interesting to note if that changes in the coming weeks/months when they switch over to lizard batteries (which they may have already done for all we know)

the line items were:

R&I OR RPL LI-ION PACK ASSY
295B03NA7A LEAF BATTERY
CHECK LI-ION BATTERY CAPACITY
MISC SERVICE RENTAL

PARTS $0
LABOR $0
OTHER $0

NOTES: PERFORMED BATTERY USAGE REPORT AND FOUND HV BATTERY AT 8 BARS OF CAPACITY, CALLED TECH LINE TO OPEN REPORT. RECEIVED NEW HV BATTERY, DISABLED HV SYSTEM AND REMOVED OLD BATTERY AND TOOK PICTURES OF OLD AND NEW BATTERIES TO SEND TO TECH LINE. INSTALLED NEW BATTERY AND PROGRAMMED TO CAR. CHARGED NEW BATTERY AND CONFIRMED 12 BARS OF CAPACITY. SENT PICTURES OF OLD AND NEW BATTERIES TO TECH LINE TO CLOSE REPORT.

 

[Pipcecil]

Is this Don Davis? If so you might want to open a case with 1-800-NOGASEV. My service rep was very, very polite but didn't get up to speed until after I made that call.

Yea...about that, 1-800-NOGASEV was pointless. I called them first thing Monday morning before I dropped my car off in the afternoon. I spent more times going through the menus and on hold than talking to the rep. His response, "Sorry you lost your 4th capacity bar. We don't do anything regarding the battery replacement under warrant. Take it to a dealership and they will initiate the process with Nissan. I will make a note in your file that you lost the 4th bar (didn't take any other info such as mileage or date), but that's all I can do." After that, no other concerns, phone call over.

Soooo point in the future - nissan hotline no help on battery replacement.

I am starting to get this sickening feeling of a repeat of what happened when my OBC went bad. Nissan hotline was no help (blamed me) and the dealership was slow and then told to stop helping by Nissan (again blaming me). It took weeks to get it straight . Its almost been two total business day hours and I still don't have a response if my battery is qualified for the warranty....and looking at myleaf's replacement speed, I am really concerned now that something is up. Maybe they pulled a TickTock and reset my bars.

But I just need to be patient, they could be busy, or somewhat unsure of what to do, or Nissan might have changed their policy on using the warranty with the "opt out fisaco - or OOF(tm)" that is occurring, but I am not an opt-outer. Who knows, maybe its taking longer because of a heat resistant battery! (I like that thinking) or they want to buy the car back because of the other major problem it had with the OBC (I like that thinking too). Or maybe its all going as planned and the rep just doesn't know what to relay back to me.

 

[myleaf]

Is this Don Davis? If so you might want to open a case with 1-800-NOGASEV. My service rep was very, very polite but didn't get up to speed until after I made that call.

Yea...about that, 1-800-NOGASEV was pointless. I called them first thing Monday morning before I dropped my car off in the afternoon. I spent more times going through the menus and on hold than talking to the rep. His response, "Sorry you lost your 4th capacity bar. We don't do anything regarding the battery replacement under warrant. Take it to a dealership and they will initiate the process with Nissan. I will make a note in your file that you lost the 4th bar (didn't take any other info such as mileage or date), but that's all I can do." After that, no other concerns, phone call over.

Soooo point in the future - nissan hotline no help on battery replacement.

I am starting to get this sickening feeling of a repeat of what happened when my OBC went bad. Nissan hotline was no help (blamed me) and the dealership was slow and then told to stop helping by Nissan (again blaming me). It took weeks to get it straight . Its almost been two total business day hours and I still don't have a response if my battery is qualified for the warranty....and looking at myleaf's replacement speed, I am really concerned now that something is up. Maybe they pulled a TickTock and reset my bars.


But I just need to be patient, they could be busy, or somewhat unsure of what to do, or Nissan might have changed their policy on using the warranty with the "opt out fisaco - or OOF(tm)" that is occurring, but I am not an opt-outer. Who knows, maybe its taking longer because of a heat resistant battery! (I like that thinking) or they want to buy the car back because of the other major problem it had with the OBC (I like that thinking too). Or maybe its all going as planned and the rep just doesn't know what to relay back to me.

I am sure things will work out for you. I spoke to three customer service reps at nogasev and everyone seemed concerned.

They also told me that my replacement battery will be the same as the "original"

It maybe as you mentioned; that your battery replacement "maybe on hold" until they announce the "hot battery" and you maybe the first one to get a replacement hot battery.

 

[GetOffYourGas]

They kept the car overnight saying they need to charge to 100% and then run the battery capacity check. I thought this was odd since the battery test for everything else is done on a low SoC.

FWIW, the onboard electronics are really just making a best-guess in terms of capacity and state of charge of the battery (and we've all seen how well Nissan's sensors/software make guesses about anything :roll: ). The only way to know for sure how much energy it can store is to charge it to 100%, discharge it to 0%, and measure how much energy came out of the pack. My guess is this is what they did.

I hope it all works out for you in the end. I really feel for those of you in a hot climate suffering through wilted batteries. This whole issue has been a huge drag on an otherwise wonderful car.

 

[Pipcecil]

Well yesterday evening was a somewhat surprise - the dealership never contacted me yesterday, but the nissan hotline did. So it looks like contacting the nissan hotline before you turn your car in doesn't do much, but afterwards, they track the battery and handle the warranty claim. It looks like my dealership has been going through the process, they just haven't been communicative. My car was approved for the warranty replacement and the rep said he checked with them that day (wednesday) to see if if the new battery arrived (it had not). He said most likely it would be in on thursday or friday and installed and would call back Friday with me and the dealership to see how things went.

Its definitely good to know good to know that all is going according to schedule. I can't wait to get my car back. On an interesting side note, my 12v was reconnected again and I was able to refresh the car. They had drained the battery down to 3 bars, which is standard to run the battery testing. Seeing how others didn't have their car fully charged and drained to get a kWh used, my guess is they charged it to full to see (easily) that it had lost 4 bars (they could have counted though....) and then discharged it to run the Consult to get the battery data. Interesting, the car had reported less AHr and less SoH when I took it in the previous week for my yearly battery check. I wonder want the engineers at Nissan will think of when the car reports more AHr and more SoH than a week ago yet it has one less capacity bar.

I know we have discussed before that the car is probably taking an average to arrive at the loss of bars. From my extensive tracking of AHr on my car, if the car is using 66.25 AHr as the max, the average before the loss 4th bar was 2 months prior, if 66 AHr is used, it was ~6 weeks prior average.

 

[jhm614]

Its definitely good to know good to know that all is going according to schedule. I can't wait to get my car back. On an interesting side note, my 12v was reconnected again and I was able to refresh the car.

Glad to hear things are on track. It was a little disturbing that you weren't getting any feedback. And the next time you can't refresh you know they will be installing the new battery! I get a strange thrill from tracking the car when it is in the dealer's hands...

 

[myleaf]

I can't wait to get my car back.

The new battery will make you remember the early days of your Leaf ownership.

 

[myleaf]

He said most likely it would be in on thursday or friday and installed and would call back Friday with me and the dealership to see how things went.

I hope you get the new 2015 replacement battery.

 

[keydiver]

He said most likely it would be in on thursday or friday and installed and would call back Friday with me and the dealership to see how things went.

I hope you get the new 2015 replacement battery.

It will be easy to tell, if they will tell him if they also had to install adapter harnesses.

 

[TickTock]

I finally dropped my fourth bar today on my drive home. Current SOH @ 63%. I hit 66% SOH for good on March 26th so that's a 3 month lag to the bar drop.

I, however, plan to drive this battery as long as possible since I still have 20K miles and 2 years left on the warranty and it still does everything I need it to. So I won't be replacing immediately.

 

[RegGuheert]

I, however, plan to drive this battery as long as possible since I still have 20K miles and 2 years left on the warranty and it still does everything I need it to. So I won't be replacing immediately.

That sounds like the best plan to get the most out of the vehicle. Plus it ensures that you get the best battery technology possible.

Please let us know if/when you lose your fifth bar. We don't have much data beyond four so far...

 

[dgpcolorado]

^^ I'm also curious to know whether the battery capacity continues to decline at about the same rate below 66%. Also, does the degraded battery change the performance of the car? Reduced power?

 

[vegastar]

Since the ESR continues to be around 100mR, I think there is no limit in Power delivery until or very near Turtle. The margin is much lower in charge (4,1V/cell max voltage), so regen and quick charge are affected for small changes in ESR.

 

[Pipcecil]

Well some happy news on my car - it appears I will be getting the car today, YEA! While the dealership was never responsive, the Nissan Hotline stayed on top of things. Battery was delivered yesterday and installed that evening and set to charge overnight. I did inquire about what type of battery I got, especially considering Nissan's official battery replacement announcement. The rep told me that all warranty replacements are still the 2011/2012 batteries (I assume you would get a 2013/2014 battery if your car was that year) and are NOT the hot weather batteries, which currently only being used in the 2015's and as purchase replacements.

So that is the current standing - if you get a warranty replacement you will not get a hot weather battery. But this may change in the future. No information on if we would get vouchers or anything as had been mentioned previously by Nissan (although, it wasn't an official statement).

Even without a better chemistry battery I am so so so very excited about my full battery. I checked it last night after it charged and Carwings reported 110 mile range. I was speechless. Before my car would pop up around 58 miles on carwings (with a 53 mile real range to almost turtle). I can't remember the last time I saw over 100 (even though I know its not the true real world range, it still makes me giddy!). I have even calculate some trips we make into town that would have required 2 QCs with my previous battery we can make without even QCing once! Oh man, I am so excited - so very excited.

 

[TomT]

Isn't it interesting that we get giddy over something that should have never been an issue in the first place... Everyone else must think we are crazy!

Oh man, I am so excited - so very excited.

 

[TomT]

Reports are that the new lizard battery is only being used in new cars and for purchased replacements. Capacity warranty claims get the old battery.

It will be easy to tell, if they will tell him if they also had to install adapter harnesses.

 

[myleaf]

Even without a better chemistry battery I am so so so very excited about my full battery. I checked it last night after it charged and Carwings reported 110 mile range. I was speechless. Before my car would pop up around 58 miles on carwings (with a 53 mile real range to almost turtle). I can't remember the last time I saw over 100 (even though I know its not the true real world range, it still makes me giddy!). I have even calculate some trips we make into town that would have required 2 QCs with my previous battery we can make without even QCing once! Oh man, I am so excited - so very excited.

I feel the same way as you having the new battery now for a couple of weeks. One thing I noticed is that my efficiency has increased. I think it is due to now charging only to 80% and having regen available for all of my driving. Before I was charging to 100% M-F and multiple times on weekends. I notice in general Regen seems to be "stronger"

 

[myleaf]

The rep told me that all warranty replacements are still the 2011/2012 batteries (I assume you would get a 2013/2014 battery if your car was that year) and are NOT the hot weather batteries, which currently only being used in the 2015's and as purchase replacements.
.

I also got the "old" battery. But this policy does not seem to make sense if they plan to provide vouchers for a later "lizard" battery replacement. Why not just replace these batteries with the lizard batteries. Are they trying to get rid of old inventory or could the "lizard" batteries be more expensive to manufacturer ?, unknown performance for the lizard battery?

 

[LTLFTcomposite]

I also got the "old" battery. But this policy does not seem to make sense if they plan to provide vouchers for a later "lizard" battery replacement. Why not just replace these batteries with the lizard batteries. Are they trying to get rid of old inventory or could the "lizard" batteries be more expensive to manufacturer ?, unknown performance for the lizard battery?

If they really are going to give you a second replacement down the road that deal will have worked in your favor, getting the new heat resistant battery at the 70k mile mark. Even if you have to exercise it by the 5 yr/60k mile mark, you should be set to cruise well past the 100k mile mark without spending anything.