Bought a 2011 Leaf on 03/15/2015 with a "new pack", but...

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kuri

Well-known member
Joined
May 7, 2015
Messages
57
So, I'm starting to think I might be a victim of a dealership doing the BCM reset trick to make the life meter show 12 bars and then selling me a 2011 that they insisted had a "brand new battery pack" in it. My range has been around 45-55 miles per charge pretty consistently before hitting LBW. Most of my driving is half town, half highway. The car has 48,000 miles on it right now.

I've driven the car approximately 2400 miles since I bought it, and the life meter is already down one bar. I've obtained a service history of the car and there's nothing in it about replacing the pack, only the inverter and intelligent charging system back in Feb of 2014. I've called Nissan EV support, confirmed that the car is battery warranty eligible, and that no pack replacement has been done by any Nissan dealer or authorized service center.

I then bought a bluetooth OBD reader and leaf spy pro, and got these readings off the car after a full night's L2 charge:

http://i.imgur.com/DejwtTq.png" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://i.imgur.com/5BUiJmj.png" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I took the car to the dealer this morning, and paid the $40 battery test fee, and was told "nope, no problems, you're all good", but I suspect that just reads whatever values the BCM tells it (same as the bars on the dash meter), so it's still thinking everything's peachy. I did get a full printout of the service history while I was there.

So, anyone have any advice here? What are my options? Do I try to get the dealer to admit in some provable fashion that they told me it had a new battery at the time of the sale (yes, shame on me for not getting it in writing... my stupidity...) and then start a media shitstorm about it and start talking to a lawyer or what?
 
Judging by your readings. I'm guessing they reset the computer and lied to you. If you really have 89% SOC and only 190 GIDS, there is no way that's a new pack. If that car truly had a new pack in it, it would be a new lizard pack and your readings would be much much higher. My advice would be, once you prove that they lied to you, get all of the documentation from your dealer that shows the car never had a new pack put in and sue the dealer that sold it to you. Take them to small claims court and argue that they need to pay you either the difference in value of a 2011 with a new vs. old pack, or the $6500 required (with installation) to put in a new pack at a dealership. Even if the used car dealer that sold it to you was duped by the person they got it from, its still their problem. With any luck, you'll win your lawsuit, get some money out of it, and then also get a free battery replacement under warranty.

Good luck.
 
One time back in 1998, a car dealership sold us a total lemon and refused to take care of us, so for three weekends straight, we parked the car in front of the dealer (on a public street) and plastered the inside of the windows with pictures of lemons as well as print outs discussing why nobody should buy from that dealer. My guess is that we cost them a hell of a lot of business over the course of a few weekends.

Also, you should take a reading with your OBD while the car is charged to 100%. That will tell you for sure what your total capacity is. If its a new lizard battery, you should be at anywhere between 280-292 Gids. If you have a 2011 with an original battery and 45K miles, you'll be somewhere between 180-220 Gids (possibly more depending on what climate the car is from). Knowing this capacity is important because it could indicate whether you'll get a warranty replacement battery by 60K miles. Best case scenario you are close to the 67% capacity/<9 bars limit and you can maybe both win the case and get a new battery, but if you think you're on the limit and may not drop low enough by 60K miles, I'd sue for the total battery replacement cost just in case.
 
48,000 miles, can't you just go to the dealer and get a free pack? It'll take a few weeks but all you have to do is not cross the months/miles mark while waiting for the bars to drop.

Of course if you paid more than $10,000 you might argue you paid too much (assuming you get a free battery).

I bought my 2012 last week for $8995 and it has a better battery than the one you are dealing with.
 
Hmm...didn't Nissan's lawyers say they had a statement under oath from Nissan that this could never happen? ;) :lol:

OP...all inside joking with the regulars here aside, it does look like you've been sold a bill of goods. That car should be a 3-bar looser at 45.25AHr and I've no doubt that it soon will be. It's time to take action with that unscrupulous dealer immediately!
 
As I said in my post, I took it to the local Nissan dealer this morning, and there's "nothing wrong with my battery" and therefore I'm not eligible for a pack replacement. I suspect it's reading the values from the BCM (which I think was reset and is reporting invalid values).

Those LeafSpy readings were with a completely fresh 100% charge while sitting in my garage.

The SOH value on LeafSpy says 68%, so I am assuming it's very much eligible for replacement, it's just that the BCM was screwed with so it's reporting bad values and therefore I can't get a dealer to read the "right" values from it to get it replaced.

I should also point out that this was bought from a rather large (and from what I was told by many people, reputable) Nissan dealer...

EDIT: My biggest worry here is that I don't get the capacity bars to drop back down to where they should be before I reach the 5 year / 60k mile limit and lose out on the warranty. I'd really rather not deal with the BS of a lawsuit, even if it's small claims. I can't really afford to take that much time off work to screw with it, and I'm pretty sure that getting them to admit in any provable way that they told me multiple times that it had a new pack in it when I bought it is going to be almost impossible. Without that, I don't have a case, and I know that.
 
kuri said:
As I said in my post, I took it to the local Nissan dealer this morning, and there's "nothing wrong with my battery" and therefore I'm not eligible for a pack replacement. I suspect it's reading the values from the BCM (which I think was reset and is reporting invalid values).

Those LeafSpy readings were with a completely fresh 100% charge while sitting in my garage.

The SOH value on LeafSpy says 68%, so I am assuming it's very much eligible for replacement, it's just that the BCM was screwed with so it's reporting bad values and therefore I can't get a dealer to read the "right" values from it to get it replaced.

I should also point out that this was bought from a rather large (and from what I was told by many people, reputable) Nissan dealer...

I'm not sure where dhanson865 was going with his post. Of course you're not eligible for a new battery pack under the capacity warranty. Aside from the bars not reading right, you're 3-4Ahrs away from loosing the 9th bar and becoming eligible.
 
kuri said:
EDIT: My biggest worry here is that I don't get the capacity bars to drop back down to where they should be before I reach the 5 year / 60k mile limit and lose out on the warranty.

Oh, they'll drop to where they should be, and fast. No problem with that. But as I said in my previous post, that still won't put you into warranty qualification territory.
 
mwalsh said:
I'm not sure where dhanson865 was going with his post. Of course you're not eligible for a new battery pack under the capacity warranty. Aside from the bars not reading right, you're 3-4Ahrs away from loosing the 9th bar and becoming eligible.

You don't think it will degrade far enough before he hits the miles/months limit?

and either way I think it's fair for the OP to know how cheap a 2011/2012 goes for to compare vs whatever they paid.
 
mwalsh said:
Aside from the bars not reading right, you're 3-4Ahrs away from loosing the 9th bar and becoming eligible.

Thank you, that's good info.
 
Here's my big issue. We were initially looking at a new or slightly used (2013 with 15k miles) model, and we were steered towards this car due to it having a brand new pack in it. I (stupidly) thought, hey... new pack, I don't care if it's older, it will have basically new range, right?

Now we're in a bit of a pickle, as this is our only vehicle, and after I drive to work each day (43 miles round trip), I get home with barely 1 bar left every day, which doesn't leave anything for us to do anything else and it's severely cramping our lifestyle.

Some might say, "well don't get an electric car as your only vehicle stupid!", and they might be right... I'd counter that with "well I should be able to drive to work every day and still have enough of a charge to go up to 10 miles round trip to a couple stores if we need to in the evening". Especially if it has a "brand new pack", right?
 
kuri said:
mwalsh said:
Aside from the bars not reading right, you're 3-4Ahrs away from loosing the 9th bar and becoming eligible.

Thank you, that's good info.

Can you fill in your profile to let us know where you are, and also if you can provide the "in service" date of your car (it may be on the service history paperwork you got)? That will give us a better shot at guessing if you'll qualify for the warranty or not.

Using my car as an example: I live in Orange County, CA; have 52,250 miles on the clock; and have about 8 months until my car is 5 years old. I'm showing 54.32AHr right now, so I need to loose 2-3AHrs to become eligible for a new pack. During SoCal spring and summer months, I should be able to loose about 0.5AHr monthly. So, in theory, it should take between 4 and 6 months for me.

The problem right now, of course - persistent cool weather is not helping me any.
 
mwalsh said:
Can you fill in your profile to let us know where you are, and also if you can provide the "in service" date of your car (it may be on the service history paperwork you got)? That will give us a better shot at guessing if you'll qualify for the warranty or not.


I'd rather not say exactly where, as it would give away which dealer it is (they're huge here), and I'm not sure I want to give that away just yet in case I do end up dragging them into court. I don't want to give them any ammunition to try to screw with me, ya know?

I'll just say "NorCal" and leave it at that.

In service date according to Nissan Corporate was 7/28/2011
 
kuri said:
As I said in my post, I took it to the local Nissan dealer this morning, and there's "nothing wrong with my battery" and therefore I'm not eligible for a pack replacement. I suspect it's reading the values from the BCM (which I think was reset and is reporting invalid values).

Those LeafSpy readings were with a completely fresh 100% charge while sitting in my garage.

The SOH value on LeafSpy says 68%, so I am assuming it's very much eligible for replacement, it's just that the BCM was screwed with so it's reporting bad values and therefore I can't get a dealer to read the "right" values from it to get it replaced.

I should also point out that this was bought from a rather large (and from what I was told by many people, reputable) Nissan dealer...

EDIT: My biggest worry here is that I don't get the capacity bars to drop back down to where they should be before I reach the 5 year / 60k mile limit and lose out on the warranty. I'd really rather not deal with the BS of a lawsuit, even if it's small claims. I can't really afford to take that much time off work to screw with it, and I'm pretty sure that getting them to admit in any provable way that they told me multiple times that it had a new pack in it when I bought it is going to be almost impossible. Without that, I don't have a case, and I know that.

If it is a very large reputable Nissan dealer, they should know better. I'd threaten them pretty severely and get them to throw something into the deal if you indeed don't want to sue. Free 100K warranty, etc...
 
I think Dave reported something like that, lady bought Leaf with reset CB and got new pack installed after talking to HQ. What is the good reason for resetting CB buy dealer?
edit
DaveinOlyWA
 
The point is it is fraud if they claimed the car had a new traction battery and it didn't. Request proof that it was done.

You can bypass the dealer by going directly to Nissan Corporate.
 
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