I just did the 48 month annual battery health check on my 2011 Leaf at the local Nissan Dealership. My car has been telling me that I've lost one of 12 bars of capacity for just over a year. After paying $50 for this "diagnostic service", all the dealer can tell me about the state of my battery is that I'm down to 11 of 12 black rectangles on an otherwise useless one page report called "Battery Information Sheet".
My experience is that my range has dropped between 20 and 25% since the car was new, as has the KWHs that I use to recharge it as measured at my charger. The dealer tells me that isn't true because my battery is only down 1/12th of it's capacity. I asked for details in KWH, or percent of new capacity, or anything more detailed than 11 black boxes in a rectangle with space for 12 boxes. He suggested I call 1-800-Nissan1.
The friendly and useless people (Carlo and Chris) who I talked to there explained the following:
1) Battery warranty has nothing to do with the actual capacity of the battery. It is based on having 8 or fewer capacity bars sometime before 5 years / 60,000 miles, whichever comes first. (There is apparently no language in the warranty about KWH, percent charge or any other numerical measurement other than bars on the dash.)
2) There is no information available to them or to me about what percent of original capacity 8 bars represent. But Chris was sure that all the bars represented equal amounts of capacity -- he just didn't know how much each represented.
3) There is no one at the dealership or at Nissan who can test my battery to see what its actual capacity currently is.
4) There is no information about whether losing capacity bars relates to capacity loss relative to the published battery capacity (24KWH) or the "usable" capacity that doesn't include what ever ranges are reserved at the top and bottom of the normal charge/discharge cycle.
5) There is no way to objectively evaluate whether my battery pack is a candidate for warranty replacement or not.
So here is my question. Is there any value to me in continuing to do these annual battery health checks? As far as I can tell no action will be taken on any type of warranty replacement evaluation until I've lost at least 4 bars of capacity on the dashboard of the car. The "Advice for your Usage" section doesn't impact me because I use it the way it works best for me, and I've been at "18 stars" out of 20 all four times I've had the battery checked.
I'm told that Nissan collects the detailed, numerical data from each battery check for their own purposes, but there is literally no one in all of Nissan that can find that data and forward it to me. If Nissan wants the data, why should I pay for them to collect it?
My experience with the dealer and with the folks at Nissan's customer satisfaction call center today left me feeling strongly like the whole battery check and battery warranty process is smoke and mirrors and definitely not worth my money or time ever again.
Am I missing something?
My experience is that my range has dropped between 20 and 25% since the car was new, as has the KWHs that I use to recharge it as measured at my charger. The dealer tells me that isn't true because my battery is only down 1/12th of it's capacity. I asked for details in KWH, or percent of new capacity, or anything more detailed than 11 black boxes in a rectangle with space for 12 boxes. He suggested I call 1-800-Nissan1.
The friendly and useless people (Carlo and Chris) who I talked to there explained the following:
1) Battery warranty has nothing to do with the actual capacity of the battery. It is based on having 8 or fewer capacity bars sometime before 5 years / 60,000 miles, whichever comes first. (There is apparently no language in the warranty about KWH, percent charge or any other numerical measurement other than bars on the dash.)
2) There is no information available to them or to me about what percent of original capacity 8 bars represent. But Chris was sure that all the bars represented equal amounts of capacity -- he just didn't know how much each represented.
3) There is no one at the dealership or at Nissan who can test my battery to see what its actual capacity currently is.
4) There is no information about whether losing capacity bars relates to capacity loss relative to the published battery capacity (24KWH) or the "usable" capacity that doesn't include what ever ranges are reserved at the top and bottom of the normal charge/discharge cycle.
5) There is no way to objectively evaluate whether my battery pack is a candidate for warranty replacement or not.
So here is my question. Is there any value to me in continuing to do these annual battery health checks? As far as I can tell no action will be taken on any type of warranty replacement evaluation until I've lost at least 4 bars of capacity on the dashboard of the car. The "Advice for your Usage" section doesn't impact me because I use it the way it works best for me, and I've been at "18 stars" out of 20 all four times I've had the battery checked.
I'm told that Nissan collects the detailed, numerical data from each battery check for their own purposes, but there is literally no one in all of Nissan that can find that data and forward it to me. If Nissan wants the data, why should I pay for them to collect it?
My experience with the dealer and with the folks at Nissan's customer satisfaction call center today left me feeling strongly like the whole battery check and battery warranty process is smoke and mirrors and definitely not worth my money or time ever again.
Am I missing something?
