Battery Warranty Issue with Nissan

My 2011 Leaf got a new battery after just two years. Now that 2nd battery has dropped the first 4 bars three years later, but Nissan refuses to help me because the 5 year warranty was done just two months ago. I had brought the car into the dealership in January (4 months prior to the warranty end) and had them check the battery but was told it was only at 3 bars.
To add to the pain, everybody I have spoken with at Nissan Consumer Affairs (one tech and one supervisor) states that there is nothing they can do and there is nobody to speak with that can listen and try to help. They only offered a $5500 battery with a 1 year warranty. This is disgraceful.

Anybody had a similar experience and can recommend a way to get some consideration from Nissan?

sevans73 said:

My 2011 Leaf got a new battery after just two years.

Click to expand...

Which the 12 volt or the big HV battery? Why?

Where are you? Can you update your location info via your user name in the upper right > User Control Panel > Profile tab? That way, we don't need to ask in future posts/threads or do sleuthing to deduce it.

sevans73 said:

Now that 2nd battery has dropped the first 4 bars three years later, but Nissan refuses to help me because the 5 year warranty was done just two months ago. I had brought the car into the dealership in January (4 months prior to the warranty end) and had them check the battery but was told it was only at 3 bars.
To add to the pain, everybody I have spoken with at Nissan Consumer Affairs (one tech and one supervisor) states that there is nothing they can do and there is nobody to speak with that can listen and try to help. They only offered a $5500 battery with a 1 year warranty. This is disgraceful.

Anybody had a similar experience and can recommend a way to get some consideration from Nissan?

Click to expand...

Your 5 year/60K capacity warranty has expired. And yes, they won't do anything for you 3 bars down. You should've gotten Leaf Spy to monitor stats and made sure you got your battery down 4 bars BEFORE the warranty expired.

Some folks have succeeded via BBB and arbitration. I haven't followed the details.

Examples:
http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=458489#p458489
http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=456612#p456596
http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?t=19880

The guy at http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=21962 was careless and 4 days late and they told him to pound sand. I wouldn't bother reading that guy's rambling, long-winded posts...

So your warranty expired and you want a new battery?
I feel your pain. The warranty on my Volvo 850 expired and they would not give me a new engine either. Car manufacturers are the worst. :roll: :roll:

Others have had Nissan deny a battery claim that was just days or miles over the limit so I think you are simply out of luck. Customer Goodwill is simply not something that is in Nissan's vocabulary...

Reading the original post, it is the replacement battery that has dropped bars. What s Nissan's policy regarding the replacement battery I think is the question here. Do they extent the original warranty for the new battery or is the replacement a one time thing within the window of the original warranty? Sounds like that is the case. There must be documentation somewhere regarding this

Once upon a time, Nissan was either going to give a "lizard voucher" to early battery replacements or "restart" the warranty clock for the same. The trick is finding that in writing or finding someone at Nissan that will acknowledge as much.
It was definitely talked about for the Arizona folks.

sevans73 said:

My 2011 Leaf got a new battery after just two years. Now that 2nd battery has dropped the first 4 bars three years later, but Nissan refuses to help me because the 5 year warranty was done just two months ago.
...
This is disgraceful.

Anybody had a similar experience and can recommend a way to get some consideration from Nissan?

Click to expand...

I'm not a lawyer, and this is definitely NOT legal advice, but I keep hoping that somebody, somewhere, in just this situation, a month or two over the time limit, a hundred or so miles over the mileage limit, will file a case against Nissan, with the focus being the P3227 software update and how it has changed the calculation of capacity bars, or just the 4th capacity bar loss threshold (which I suspect).

Unfortunately, I suspect too that people in this situation have not immediately gone to the dealership and spent the $50 - $150(?) to have it documented, which is necessary to prove when it happened. I have taken a photo of the capacity bar losses, but I don't think even that would stand up in court.

The other alternative, which people also have not attempted, is to follow Leafer77's BBB complaint and file the claim based on a "defective" battery. The details are in his commentary of his successful BBB case, which was initially denied but he appealed and ultimately prevailed,
http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=19880&start=90

There is a debate about what is "defective," where I am of the opinion that all the batteries in every 2011 LEAF are defective, because they weren't adequate for what a reasonable person would expect, and but for the local weather conditions every one of them would have lost the fourth capacity bar by the five-year, or 60K mile Klee settlement. It is similar, but not as serious, as using a Grade 5 bolt in the wing of an airplane, which flies fine until it hits a major turbulence, that a Grade 8 bolt as specified would withstand.

Didn't the amended settlement require Nissan to provide the heat resistant 'Lizard' battery? Presumably the OP's battery, if replaced in 2013, is not the Lizard. This could be an avenue to pursue.

Failing this, I think the warranty terms were very clear and there's nothing you can do. Buyer beware.

Aussie said:

Didn't the amended settlement require Nissan to provide the heat resistant 'Lizard' battery? Presumably the OP's battery, if replaced in 2013, is not the Lizard. This could be an avenue to pursue.

Click to expand...

The amended settlement says that the replacement battery should be replaced with a 2015 battery or a 24 kWh of the current technology at the time. I guess the question is whether that means 2015 or later, or is an earlier battery considered current technology. Given that the amended settlement was written in 2015, I would take it to imply 2015 or later.

The question is - how do you convince Nissan of that.

I re-read the settlement agreement judgement and wow - I disagree with so many of the judges arguments. So many of the arguments depend on an owner / lessee knowing the future. How is your typical owner supposed to know to opt in/out based on unknowns?

Stanton said:

Once upon a time, Nissan was either going to give a "lizard voucher" to early battery replacements or "restart" the warranty clock for the same. The trick is finding that in writing or finding someone at Nissan that will acknowledge as much.
It was definitely talked about for the Arizona folks.

Click to expand...

Re: the voucher or coupon, both links at http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?t=14095 mention it.

I know someone on the LAB group is well aware of it...

cwerdna said:

Stanton said:

Once upon a time, Nissan was either going to give a "lizard voucher" to early battery replacements or "restart" the warranty clock for the same. The trick is finding that in writing or finding someone at Nissan that will acknowledge as much.
It was definitely talked about for the Arizona folks.

Click to expand...

Re: the voucher or coupon, both links at http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?t=14095 mention it.

I know someone on the LAB group is well aware of it...

Click to expand...

I never received a voucher or information from Nissan regarding an updated battery for the replacement battery in my 2011 (original chemistry shipped from Japan and installed 10/4/2013). If I had not been forced to replace the 2011, I would be in the same situation as the OP and would be pursuing the issue with Nissan.

If you buy a replacement battery, the capacity warranty is 5 years or 60,000 miles from date of installation (defect warranty is 8 years or 100,000 miles from installation). If battery is replaced under warranty, it is covered for 1 year or remainder of factory warranty (which ever is longer).

Gerry

TomT said:

Others have had Nissan deny a battery claim that was just days or miles over the limit so I think you are simply out of luck. Customer Goodwill is simply not something that is in Nissan's vocabulary...

Click to expand...

you can put any manufacturer's name in your statement. the only out of warranty claim I have ever seen was done at the dealer level and as you might guess, it was for a pretty important customer although the dealership I worked for covered 75% of a major out of warranty repair for a young couple who quite frankly did not have the money cause the guy was in Afghanistan and she had 3 kids without a car.

Yep, I very definitely remember that conversation from our Arizona meeting... It's even on tape somewhere.

Stanton said:

Once upon a time, Nissan was either going to give a "lizard voucher" to early battery replacements or "restart" the warranty clock for the same. The trick is finding that in writing or finding someone at Nissan that will acknowledge as much.
It was definitely talked about for the Arizona folks.

Click to expand...

Well, we had Acura agree to replace the transmission in our MDX at 70K with no cost to us. It was showing torque converter issues... They agreed that, regardless of warranty status, a transmission should not fail at that mileage and stood behind it. Sometime earlier, BMW did the same on an engine problem on our 328i... So, yes, it does happen and we are not important in any way... However, I don't think you would ever get treatment like this from Nissan.

DaveinOlyWA said:

TomT said:

Others have had Nissan deny a battery claim that was just days or miles over the limit so I think you are simply out of luck. Customer Goodwill is simply not something that is in Nissan's vocabulary...

Click to expand...

you can put any manufacturer's name in your statement. the only out of warranty claim I have ever seen was done at the dealer level and as you might guess, it was for a pretty important customer although the dealership I worked for covered 75% of a major out of warranty repair for a young couple who quite frankly did not have the money cause the guy was in Afghanistan and she had 3 kids without a car.

Click to expand...

TomT said:

Well, we had Acura agree to replace the transmission in our MDX at 70K with no cost to us. It was showing torque converter issues... They agreed that, regardless of warranty status, a transmission should not fail at that mileage and stood behind it. Sometime earlier, BMW did the same on an engine problem on our 328i... So, yes, it does happen and we are not important in any way... However, I don't think you would ever get treatment like this from Nissan.

Click to expand...

To counter the Nissan bashing, they replaced the (out of warranty) transmission in our Maxima way back in the 90's. No one likes to see failures, but Nissan is not all evil...just sayin'

Starting to see a lot of people barely missing a claim due to mileage but also a few who have gotten significant discounts on replacements. Keep in mind as your tires wear out, your true distance traveled is reduced so if you miss the 60,000 line by a few hundred miles, you do have a leg to stand on!

There are also people gaming the system by deliberately wrecking their batteries so that they can get a new one. They come to this board and ask for ideas on what to do. They then go out and do it. When they succeed they are praised, and when they miss the target, they come here and complain. Then all the "Volt lovers" pile on by saying how Nissan sucks.

I was lurking for 3 years before I bought, and now this board is becoming more of a whining site.

Jedlacks said:

There are also people gaming the system by deliberately wrecking their batteries so that they can get a new one. They come to this board and ask for ideas on what to do. They then go out and do it. When they succeed they are praised, and when they miss the target, they come here and complain. Then all the "Volt lovers" pile on by saying how Nissan sucks.

I was lurking for 3 years before I bought, and now this board is becoming more of a whining site.

Click to expand...

No one has a hope of getting a new pack unless they've lost 3 capacity bars (or close to it) in less than 5 years. This is not in line with Nissan's statements about battery capacity loss when the Leaf came out, so in the vast majority of cases I don't feel that these people are cheating. I have yet to see an example of someone who bought a new Leaf with the intention of burning up the pack's capacity. People do buy used Leafs with 8 or 9 bars with the intentions of "winning" a new pack, but Nissan screwed the previous owners of those cars, so again, I don't feel for them.

Jedlacks said:

There are also people gaming the system by deliberately wrecking their batteries so that they can get a new one. They come to this board and ask for ideas on what to do. They then go out and do it. When they succeed they are praised, and when they miss the target, they come here and complain. Then all the "Volt lovers" pile on by saying how Nissan sucks.

I was lurking for 3 years before I bought, and now this board is becoming more of a whining site.

Click to expand...

It's just the result of buying a used Leaf where the vehicle is only a few years old but has some type of major capacity loss due to it's location. So, imagine if you bought a used car and it was only a few years old but somehow loss 1/3 of it's gas mileage due to nothing more than the temperature of where it was driven previously. If you game the system and get a new battery, it is like getting a new vehicle. It's no different than driving an ICE and somehow getting a brand new engine at 60k miles by some luck of a recall on the entire engine that allow someone to game it the same way.

Nissan also brings it upon itself in some ways by offering no manufacture supported way to upgrade or fix the batteries via 3rd party. As such, the vehicle feels like a software trap where you buy one version and you must use that one forever with no way to upgrade to a better version in the future. It's the one thing that really contradicts the Nissan resources used to bring the vehicle to market by limiting the ability of it's customers to expand the vehicle beyond it's stock production where it really counts, the battery.

@OP
Read here and good luck!

https://www.reddit.com/r/electricvehicles/comments/338nfj/open_letter_to_nissan_re_2011_leaf/