Seattle Leaf Repair (High Voltage Leak)?

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catch22

New member
Joined
Jun 17, 2016
Messages
4
I can't believe what a crummy car the 2011 is, since we've had it we have had to replace a water pump which ran us 2000$. Now we have been told by the dealer there is a "high voltage leak" which requires replacing parts all the way back to the power inverter until it's fixed, which could run upwards of 12k. So much for "little or no maintenance" The car has 45k miles on it and it's basically a brick. I'm wondering if there is anyone in the Seattle area that might be able to give us a second opinion (other than a dealership).
 
The diagnosis sounds a lot like someone saying you're low on blinker fluid. In other words, they're bulls--tting you. $12K for repairs for a car that is worth maybe $6K is absurd.

What is the issue you're experiencing with your vehicle, and maybe some of us arm chair mechanics can assist. :mrgreen:
 
aarond12 said:
The diagnosis sounds a lot like someone saying you're low on blinker fluid. In other words, they're bulls--tting you. $12K for repairs for a car that is worth maybe $6K is absurd.

What is the issue you're experiencing with your vehicle, and maybe some of us arm chair mechanics can assist. :mrgreen:

Thanks,

We are having it towed back to our house on Monday from the dealership. Ill take a video of the issue for you along with a description of what's happening. Basically you press the on button and the green car 'go' light comes on for 2 seconds (there is no 'on boot up chime'), then it turns off and the dash has a bunch of warning lights on. At that point the car will only go into neutral and park.

I thought it was the 12v battery so I replaced that, it didn't help.
 
Don't have any non-dealer suggestions. Aaron McAfee is a Leaf tech who is sometimes active on https://www.facebook.com/groups/seattlenissanleaf is well-known and seems to have a good rep. Maybe poke around to find out what dealer he's at?
 
Aaron is in Puyallup here: http://www.puyallupnissan.com/
It's worthwhile to at least talk to him about it. He's been helpful to me.
 
catch22 said:
I can't believe what a crummy car the 2011 is, since we've had it we have had to replace a water pump which ran us 2000$. Now we have been told by the dealer there is a "high voltage leak" which requires replacing parts all the way back to the power inverter until it's fixed, which could run upwards of 12k. So much for "little or no maintenance" The car has 45k miles on it and it's basically a brick. I'm wondering if there is anyone in the Seattle area that might be able to give us a second opinion (other than a dealership).

Sorry u r having issues. I would check with Aaron McAfee at Bill Korum in Puyallup. If he confirms, then dump it. Throw it away. FYI; the battery pack, even degraded is probably worth more by itself than the car. You could try parting it out. If its light Blue (or any other color no longer offered) you can get good cash for unblemished body parts.
 
catch22 said:
I can't believe what a crummy car the 2011 is, since we've had it we have had to replace a water pump which ran us 2000$. Now we have been told by the dealer there is a "high voltage leak" which requires replacing parts all the way back to the power inverter until it's fixed, which could run upwards of 12k. So much for "little or no maintenance" The car has 45k miles on it and it's basically a brick. I'm wondering if there is anyone in the Seattle area that might be able to give us a second opinion (other than a dealership).

I had virtually no issues (other than battery capacity loss) with my 2011 and would still be driving it if it had not been destroyed. You need to find a competent dealer (see suggestions from others in this thread). There are three water pumps in the 2011 (2 for EV system cooling and 1 for the cabin heater). They are little 12-volt motor-driven pumps that do not cost a lot and there is not a lot of labor to install them so that repair should not have cost $2000. I suspect your dealer does not know what is wrong with your car now and just wants to start replacing expensive EV parts and with expensive labor rates.
 
It's been a while but I thought I would post a follow up to this. We ended up selling the leaf for parts to someone and eating it's original cost. The person we sold it to was unable to fix it and sold it to another person. We then got an email a few months later from that third person that there was some type of short in the battery compartment that was causing the leak and it was a huge pain in the ass to track down. At any rate I'm really glad we got rid of it rather than trying to fix it ourselves. :roll:
 
catch22 said:
It's been a while but I thought I would post a follow up to this. We ended up selling the leaf for parts to someone and eating it's original cost. The person we sold it to was unable to fix it and sold it to another person. We then got an email a few months later from that third person that there was some type of short in the battery compartment that was causing the leak and it was a huge pain in the ass to track down. At any rate I'm really glad we got rid of it rather than trying to fix it ourselves. :roll:

Funny, all that, and it was a warrantied repair. I'm glad you got rid of it too, and I'm sorry you had the issues you did. That is atypical for a Leaf, but defective cars exist in all brands.

Thanks for the follow up.
 
All quite interesting;

Reading/trying to understand the (2012) diagnostic and repair manuals (absolutely the best I've ever seen) would lead me to believe that if a competent Leaf mechanic had followed the process/procedures explicitly, he/she would have known it was a defective battery covered by warranty. Can a qualified Leaf mechanic comment on this? - could be a great lessons-learned for us older Leaf owners. BTW, I'm up to 44,000 miles and still enjoying my Leaf in every respect - still looking for excuses to go drive somewhere.
 
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