Nissan Leaf Maintenance

Hello Everyone,
I am a mechanical engineering student and I am doing some research on EV maintenance. Would you please answer a few questions of mine

1-) Is it possible to bring my Nissan Leaf to an independent service center and get it maintained or serviced? If so would it be cheaper? Any real experiences on this topic?

2-) What are the most common problems in Nissan Leafs after the warranty is over, what parts you had to change most and where have you done it, in official nissan service or in an independent service center? Pros and cons of servicing in Nissan Official service or in an independent service?

3-) How long can you access the diagnostics of your Nissan Leaf with the app, what is the level of detailed information you can reach, can you monitor how good is your brake pads etc. or is it only very general information?

Thank you very much in advance for your answers,
With kind regards,
Mustafa Sarper

Sarperman said:

Hello Everyone,
I am a mechanical engineering student and I am doing some research on EV maintenance. Would you please answer a few questions of mine

1-) Is it possible to bring my Nissan Leaf to an independent service center and get it maintained or serviced? If so would it be cheaper? Any real experiences on this topic?

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What maintenance? There isn't any apart from the cabin air filter which every quick lube shop in the world will gladly overcharge you for.

Sarperman said:

2-) What are the most common problems in Nissan Leafs after the warranty is over, what parts you had to change most and where have you done it, in official nissan service or in an independent service center? Pros and cons of servicing in Nissan Official service or in an independent service?

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Most common, battery. But really you need to do research and educate yourself on this because it is very easy to spew misinformation. Nissan used a crap battery in pre-2013 Leaf models. And they used a less crappy but still crap battery in the 2013-2014. Now they have an even less crappy battery, but still not excellent in the 2015+ MYs.

So the most common (non-collision) repair now I would say is warranty work on the battery but there is now an age where it would be out of warranty. Other than that, nothing that "normally fails" like in other cars.

Sarperman said:

3-) How long can you access the diagnostics of your Nissan Leaf with the app, what is the level of detailed information you can reach, can you monitor how good is your brake pads etc. or is it only very general information?

Thank you very much in advance for your answers,
With kind regards,
Mustafa Sarper

Click to expand...

You can access it as long as your phone battery lasts... You can access any information available on the CAN bus. It won't magically be able to read your brake pad depth, but it will let you know the position of the brake pedal. There is very detailed information available, however most people don't care and look at it.


Again, other than the lack of maintenance, this is no different from a normal modern ICE vehicle.

1. Premature 12v battery failure due to incorrect charge voltage. Some people including me get around this by occasionally hooking up a battery tender to the 12v battery, preferably one with a d-sulfication feature but IMO it's a poor design and without jumping through hoops expect to replace the 12v battery 4x as often as a ICE(12v batteries generally last me ~8 years on a ICE vehicle).

2. Premature A/C hose failure. Many Leafers have had one of their A/C hoses fail due to a bad designed bracket, oftentimes this fails during the warranty period and the new bracket is supposed to stop the hose from failing but if it fails out of warranty I'd guess you may have a $600+ repair on your hands, TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE IMO to have A/C problems so soon. Hopefully with the new bracket the hose will last the normal 10+ years or so(at least thats how long my last 4 ICE vehicles have lasted before needing A/C work).

3. Premature tire wear- 10k miles and bald front tires! And don't give me crap about not rotating tires every other time you drive the car, I've had cars I put 60k miles on without EVER rotating the tires. I generally purchase 4 new tires, run the fronts to about 70% warn and then rotate them to the back and back to front, when both tires are ~5-10% warn I replace all 4. The notion of rotating tires every 5k miles :? is downright stupid IMO, poor design?? After 10k miles(a few days over 1yr old) when my front tires were bald on the outside edge I took it in and said I wanted the front end aligned(even though I've never hit a curb and avoid potholes) they said because it was days past 1 year it would be on my dime. I wasn't too happy but wasn't going to spend $475(or $300 for 2) on tires only to have them fail again in 10k miles so I paid to have them align the car and in the end they said it was off "a bit" but not a lot. Well FF 1 year and 12k miles and the new fronts are hardly worn on the edge, a little but nothing like before. I've read other such stories so I know it's not unheard of, ~$100 for alignment and hopefully will never(or at least for a long time) need to be done again.

Even with the above "issues" I still don't plan on going back to a ICE, after all most aren't particularly due to EVs, just Nissan I believe. If Toyota or even Honda made EVs I'd probably be driving one of those but they don't which is why I purchase a Nissan, not a bad brand IMO but not up to the standards of some of the other car brands.

Other than the above issues my(2 year old) Leaf has been mostly trouble free, not including both charge hatch and rear hatch needed adjusting and in the case of the rear hatch, warranty replacement of the whole latching mechanism, still like my Leaf though

In response to the first question. An EV, like the Leaf is just a regular car. What you DON'T have is any maintenance of engine/ transmission parts.

Just because it is an EV, it is not self-diagnostic, so forget about any app to tell you what is wrong with it.

You need to maintain the body, doors, interior, brakes, tires, and a/c just like any car.

Tire pressure on the Leaf should be set to at least 38psi, and preferably 40-42. At the Nissan-recommended 36psi the car wallows and the tires wear quickly, with an increased risk of early failure. Leafs equipped with Ecopias are quiet and efficient, but the handling suffers even at higher tire pressure. I only realized how bad the Ecopias were when I put snow tires on the car for Winter, and the handling improved dramatically.

LeftieBiker said:

Tire pressure on the Leaf should be set to at least 38psi, and preferably 40-42. At the Nissan-recommended 36psi the car wallows and the tires wear quickly, with an increased risk of early failure. Leafs equipped with Ecopias are quiet and efficient, but the handling suffers even at higher tire pressure. I only realized how bad the Ecopias were when I put snow tires on the car for Winter, and the handling improved dramatically.

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I was running 36-38 on my first set that wore so bad on the outside, on my replacements I'm running 44psi and between that and alignment I've already put more on the replacements than originals and no real sign of outside wear
I suppose living in MN I should think of getting snow tires but truthfully the Leaf is the best handling of my families 3 vehicles(Scion Xb and Prius) which I mainly attest to the increased weight of the Leaf, do you have 4 snow tires on different rims or do you have them remounted every year?

do you have 4 snow tires on different rims or do you have them remounted every year?

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I didn't have a second set of rims for this SV, but I will for the next one - it's too expensive to have them transferred each year.

The Prius is terrible in snow without snow tires, mainly because it's hard to turn the traction control off, so the car just sits on slippery surfaces and complains, without moving.