As you may know, if you've read the Software Update thread, I've been perceiving some issues with my car since it was updated (against my express wishes, I might add) with the P1273 VCM update. Since I wasn't getting very much traction posting to that particular thread, and since I do need your interaction and advice, I opted for a new thread. Hope that's OK with everyone? And its here in the General Forum rather than in Troubleshooting because you can't do a poll over there.
Anyhow, back to issue...
First off...why did I not want that particular update? Because after 2 years of driving my LEAF, I liked the fuel gauge just the way it came from the factory, thank you very much. And I know there are many of you still out there who feel exactly the same way.
At some point during the service work the dealership was supposed to do, the battery control unit on my pack also became inoperable and needed to be replaced. Unfortunately, before that happened, they'd just finished fully charging my pack.
In themselves, the first of those two things wouldn't be so bad - I was fully anticipating the change in fuel bar behavior with the update, and I also expected that the replaced part would function just as the old part did (I even quietly hoped it would be better). I was, however, pretty miffed about my pack sitting fully charged for what turned out to be 4 days - I would NEVER do that to my battery. In addition, I did at first fear all was not well with the new battery control unit - my car smelled very "electrical" when I first got it back (though that smell is now, for the most part, gone).
However, since getting my car back I actually do appear to have a somewhat significant loss of useable range. And I'm not talking about it being there in the now hidden fuel bars. I'm talking about it being gone. Period. And my Gidometer now reads just 225 gids after every full charge, instead of the ~250 gids I was seeing immediately before. This in itself would indicate a loss of ~8 miles, if you accept the figure of approximately 3 gids per mile.
BTW, if you call Nissan to complain of something being "wrong" with your car with respect to charging or battery capacity, be prepared that they won't entertain the gid as a valid unit of measurement in evaluating the condition of your pack, despite it being the most useful instrumentation we currently have in the car. In fact, the chap I spoke to about my issue seemed somewhat exasperated when I brought the Gidometer up in conversation, even though he admitted to knowing about gids. No, the only thing they'll accept as evidence of a possible problem is a) loss of capacity bars or b) perceived loss of range/autonomy.
So with that fully understood, I did say that I was now experiencing a loss of autonomy and was into Low Battery Warning territory every day of my commute, instead of getting home with the comfortable amount of range above it I'd experienced previously. And this was now with VERY conservative driving...anything else being a virtual impossibility.
Anyway, I opened a ticket with Nissan customer service and also wrote some of my Nissan contacts to apprise them of the situation. I expressed a desire to have my car evaluated as a first move, just to make sure it's systems were functioning properly. It'll probably be next Tuesday before I hear anything further on that.
I also decided that I needed more supporting evidence to take forward, and set out to do a range test this morning, duplicating a test I performed in late November/early December. This test would be almost all of the usual 61 mile round-trip between home and my office (I cut off the surface streets at the office end and jumped right back on the highway instead), with a further 15 miles tagged on for good measure. Total distance would be 75 miles and should have me at Mitsubishi's HQ and their DC Quick Charger somewhere into VLBW, very much in line with what Tony's range chart tells us.
For this run, however, since I now had no clue just how far my LEAF could travel, I planned jump-off points where I knew chargers were at various places during that last 15 miles.
My fuel economy seemed down some for the run, from the 4.4 Miles/kWh I'm used to seeing to 3.9 Miles/kW. I attributed much of this to the colder morning weather and the more consistent speeds that came with using cruise control the whole way. I hit LBW at 50.4 miles; VLBW at 56.5 miles; and Turtled at 63.2 miles. Tony's chart (which I tend to believe) tell us that with 250 gids I should have been able to drive 72+ miles with 3.9 Miles/kWh efficiency, minus 5% for the lower temps, or 69 miles. However, it also tells us that with around 220 gids; 3.9 Miles/kWh efficiency; and 5% off for low temps, I'd be looking at 63 miles. So there you have it...I really do appear to only have 225 gids to work with now.
BTW, this is the first time I'd been to Turtle. I liked it not!
Last week, with a warmer day and some traffic to hold speeds down on the afternoon leg of my commute, I hit LBW at 61 miles, just as I was rolling into my driveway. And I guess I would have expected Turtle at ~74 miles on that occasion, with 4.4 Miles/kWh, given what I saw today. Again, very much in line with what Tony's chart tells us. However, this is still down on what I saw in a few months ago when I successfully rolled into Mitsubishi's lot.
So the questions are...well, as outlined in the poll really. But I would also like to know specifically from those of you with gidometers who had them before P1273 and still used it after -- did you see a significant loss of gids immediately following getting the update done? Because, to me, even if Nissan doesn't want to accept it, this is what I consider the most compelling evidence that all is not well.
BTW, if you haven't gotten the P1273 software update yet, DON'T DO IT! Don't even chance it that the dealer won't do software updates if you ask them not to. Trust me that I wish I'd never agreed to any. In fact, I would avoid dealer servicing like the plague except for the annual battery check. Go someplace where they've never heard of Consult!
Anyhow, back to issue...
First off...why did I not want that particular update? Because after 2 years of driving my LEAF, I liked the fuel gauge just the way it came from the factory, thank you very much. And I know there are many of you still out there who feel exactly the same way.
At some point during the service work the dealership was supposed to do, the battery control unit on my pack also became inoperable and needed to be replaced. Unfortunately, before that happened, they'd just finished fully charging my pack.
In themselves, the first of those two things wouldn't be so bad - I was fully anticipating the change in fuel bar behavior with the update, and I also expected that the replaced part would function just as the old part did (I even quietly hoped it would be better). I was, however, pretty miffed about my pack sitting fully charged for what turned out to be 4 days - I would NEVER do that to my battery. In addition, I did at first fear all was not well with the new battery control unit - my car smelled very "electrical" when I first got it back (though that smell is now, for the most part, gone).
However, since getting my car back I actually do appear to have a somewhat significant loss of useable range. And I'm not talking about it being there in the now hidden fuel bars. I'm talking about it being gone. Period. And my Gidometer now reads just 225 gids after every full charge, instead of the ~250 gids I was seeing immediately before. This in itself would indicate a loss of ~8 miles, if you accept the figure of approximately 3 gids per mile.
BTW, if you call Nissan to complain of something being "wrong" with your car with respect to charging or battery capacity, be prepared that they won't entertain the gid as a valid unit of measurement in evaluating the condition of your pack, despite it being the most useful instrumentation we currently have in the car. In fact, the chap I spoke to about my issue seemed somewhat exasperated when I brought the Gidometer up in conversation, even though he admitted to knowing about gids. No, the only thing they'll accept as evidence of a possible problem is a) loss of capacity bars or b) perceived loss of range/autonomy.
So with that fully understood, I did say that I was now experiencing a loss of autonomy and was into Low Battery Warning territory every day of my commute, instead of getting home with the comfortable amount of range above it I'd experienced previously. And this was now with VERY conservative driving...anything else being a virtual impossibility.
Anyway, I opened a ticket with Nissan customer service and also wrote some of my Nissan contacts to apprise them of the situation. I expressed a desire to have my car evaluated as a first move, just to make sure it's systems were functioning properly. It'll probably be next Tuesday before I hear anything further on that.
I also decided that I needed more supporting evidence to take forward, and set out to do a range test this morning, duplicating a test I performed in late November/early December. This test would be almost all of the usual 61 mile round-trip between home and my office (I cut off the surface streets at the office end and jumped right back on the highway instead), with a further 15 miles tagged on for good measure. Total distance would be 75 miles and should have me at Mitsubishi's HQ and their DC Quick Charger somewhere into VLBW, very much in line with what Tony's range chart tells us.
For this run, however, since I now had no clue just how far my LEAF could travel, I planned jump-off points where I knew chargers were at various places during that last 15 miles.
My fuel economy seemed down some for the run, from the 4.4 Miles/kWh I'm used to seeing to 3.9 Miles/kW. I attributed much of this to the colder morning weather and the more consistent speeds that came with using cruise control the whole way. I hit LBW at 50.4 miles; VLBW at 56.5 miles; and Turtled at 63.2 miles. Tony's chart (which I tend to believe) tell us that with 250 gids I should have been able to drive 72+ miles with 3.9 Miles/kWh efficiency, minus 5% for the lower temps, or 69 miles. However, it also tells us that with around 220 gids; 3.9 Miles/kWh efficiency; and 5% off for low temps, I'd be looking at 63 miles. So there you have it...I really do appear to only have 225 gids to work with now.
BTW, this is the first time I'd been to Turtle. I liked it not!
Last week, with a warmer day and some traffic to hold speeds down on the afternoon leg of my commute, I hit LBW at 61 miles, just as I was rolling into my driveway. And I guess I would have expected Turtle at ~74 miles on that occasion, with 4.4 Miles/kWh, given what I saw today. Again, very much in line with what Tony's chart tells us. However, this is still down on what I saw in a few months ago when I successfully rolled into Mitsubishi's lot.
So the questions are...well, as outlined in the poll really. But I would also like to know specifically from those of you with gidometers who had them before P1273 and still used it after -- did you see a significant loss of gids immediately following getting the update done? Because, to me, even if Nissan doesn't want to accept it, this is what I consider the most compelling evidence that all is not well.
BTW, if you haven't gotten the P1273 software update yet, DON'T DO IT! Don't even chance it that the dealer won't do software updates if you ask them not to. Trust me that I wish I'd never agreed to any. In fact, I would avoid dealer servicing like the plague except for the annual battery check. Go someplace where they've never heard of Consult!
taken right after this PC1273, since I just borrowed the Gid meter yesterday; so unfortunately no Gid data since November. Note that the "Giddy Week" readings from Nov still hovered in the area of 254-262. However, apparent range loss appeared prior to this PC1273 (in the last few weeks).
