53K, 7bars, 2012leaf

About a month ago, I took my leaf regarding the lower range. I think it had 8 bars. Nissan said there was only a 15% loss in capacity. But my range is getting awful. Most of the miles I have driven around 90 miles a day and charged in between (36 mile round trips to school and back, twice a day = 72 miles), plus other more local driving to pick up another child and going to their therapy appts. Now I am arriving at back in the area from a 36 round trip with very little miles and pushing it to pick up number 2 child.

I though Nissan was going to start replacing bad cells after reaching 8 bars. They told me that now they are replacing the cells after 6 bars. This is making my 30K car almost unusable for my family.

If I am correct, they have changed the rules in mid game.

I am approaching 60K and have lost 3bars. I need to lose one more bar before it reaches 60K. That's seems ridiculous, no?

Any experiences similar to mine? (I think we are the poster child for the leaf)

dhamra said:

I am approaching 60K and have lost 3bars.

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If you have lost three bars, then you have 9 left, not 7. That is why Nissan will not provide a warranty replacement yet.

Be sure not to cross 60K miles before you lose the fourth bar. Also, be sure to go ahead and get the P3227 update if that has not already been applied to your car.

Location? I would try to use the car very little until you can leave it out in the 95+ heat all day.
Otherwise you are looking at ~$6k for a new battery.

12 bars total, 10 in white 2 in red. Ignore the color change. 12 bars is 12 bars.



the picture shows a 9 bar leaf

dhamra said:

I think we are the poster child for the leaf

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dhamra: I know you are very upset over your loss of range and the prospect that the car will not be able to meet your daily commute needs -- I don't mean to minimize that concern. However, while no one ever accused me of being an "Optimist Club member," I do have to say that I think you are a "poster child" for the LEAF, but not the way you mean. I encourage you to remember during this stressful time that you have driven almost 60k gas free miles in the last three years and during a time when gas prices were generally fairly high (by US standards). You have saved a lot of money and have had an extremely reliable and maintenance free car (I assume). Seems like if you can get even a partial charge at some location in your schedule during the day, you can get maybe 100k miles out of this vehicle with an original battery. I'm confident that in a couple years there will be good options for individual cell replacements or batteries pulled from salvaged vehicles that will have repair cost well below what most people pay for regular vehicle maintenance and repairs.

Have you looked into charging capabilities (even Level I) during your obviously very busy day to see if you can find a way to help make your LEAF as cost effective as possible for another couple of years?

EDIT: Maybe you have said above you already charge mid day when you said "and charged in between" but I'm unclear what that means but it would seem odd that you are having trouble getting 36 miles on a charge?

If you have not had the P3227 software update, you may have more hidden range below low battery warning (LBW) and very low battery warning (VLBW) than you realize. I was able to make my 52 mile round trip (26 each way) mostly freeway commute with air conditioning blasting after dropping to 8 capacity bars in my 2011, but I was deep into VLBW. The car's instrumentation made it look a lot worse than it was before I got the software update (sometimes used 9 of 12 state of charge bars going downhill to work when I was really using less than half of the available charge). The instrumentation was much more accurate after the software update. Unless you live in a really cold climate and use the heat a lot, you should have no trouble making your 36 mile round trip until you lose another bar and qualify for a new battery.

Gerry

dhamra said:

About a month ago, I took my leaf regarding the lower range. I think it had 8 bars. Nissan said there was only a 15% loss in capacity. But my range is getting awful. Most of the miles I have driven around 90 miles a day and charged in between (36 mile round trips to school and back, twice a day = 72 miles), plus other more local driving to pick up another child and going to their therapy appts. Now I am arriving at back in the area from a 36 round trip with very little miles and pushing it to pick up number 2 child.

I though Nissan was going to start replacing bad cells after reaching 8 bars. They told me that now they are replacing the cells after 6 bars. This is making my 30K car almost unusable for my family.

If I am correct, they have changed the rules in mid game.

I am approaching 60K and have lost 3bars. I need to lose one more bar before it reaches 60K. That's seems ridiculous, no?

Any experiences similar to mine? (I think we are the poster child for the leaf)

Click to expand...

Very confusing post Dave in San Diego - North Park.
Either the dealer is giving you bad erroneous information, or there is some very bad miscommunication happening.

The capacity bars are the small ones on the right as was explained clearly to you in a post when you had 40,000 miles on the car.

Sounds like you have nine.
But the statements you say the dealer made saying you only have 15% capacity loss and that warranty now being at six bars are downright crazy.
Seems clear you need a better dealer.
If they made those statements they are not competent.

Is clear the LEAF was not a good choice for your needing to do 80 to 100 miles per day.
A very inconvenient challenge with only L2 charging.
And unworkable at the capacity warranty level for replacement Nissan set of four bar loss, 66.25% remaining capacity.

I agree it is an unacceptable level for what Nissan marketed. It clearly should have been pro-rated.

You are in a bad situation with the range not meeting your travel needs.
Not many good choices.
You said in another post you had saved $7,000 in gas.
You might manage to get free battery replacement before you hit 60,000 miles but it sounds difficult.
Other option is to buy new battery now for $6,000 to $6,500 depending on dealer.
Use another dealer :shock: :!:

TimLee said:

Sounds like you have nine.
But the statements you say the dealer made saying you only have 15% capacity loss and that warranty now being at six bars are downright crazy.

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I don't think the dealer told them 6 bars in our terminology. I think the OP is counting white capacity bars only and working with all their terminology at -2.

So if you have a user come into your dealership complaining that they are down to 7 bars and you look and it shows 9 and you try to explain that to them and they won't listen. You then have to tell them they need to lose another bar and in their confused count that is 7 - 1 = 6, but in our knowledgeable talk it is 9 - 1 = 8.

The dealer is just trying to tell the truth but the user is counting everything with a -2 modifier. So it makes for a very confusing conversation.

dhanson865 said:

... So it makes for a very confusing conversation.

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Agree.
Your theory makes some sense of a big piece of the confusion.

But the dealer saying capacity loss is 15% is also baffling.

If the OP has lost three capacity bars, they are closer to 27.5% capacity loss.
Capacity bars can drop a little early sometimes, but no way the OP is at only 15% capacity loss.