2013 only 8 bars? for sale

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TyS

New member
Joined
Jun 4, 2016
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2
My wife and I just test drove a 2013 LEAF. She loves the car and she is currently a stay at home mom with our 9 month yr old. She will be going back to work soon but work would only be about 8 miles away. Everything is basically close as we live in the city..

Butttt we decided to test this car on a drive, test some boundaries! We left the "used dealership" and the cars range said 50 miles. Our destination was 23 miles, fwy the entire way. I wanted to push the car so we went 75mph on the fwy and we had to stop near near our destination and charge the car. We charged it at a Nissan dealership and i began to research. Then i discovered the "8-bars or less" means your battery gets replaced if under warranty. This ca has 50,000 miles.

So i went to the service department to see what i could scheme up, buy this car and boom, new battery. Not the case. He (the service department manager) told me the battery gets replaced at "2-bars". I told him i read it was under 9 bars and its replaced and he disagreed. Now i have found online that it is indeed under 9 bars is a replacement or repair back to nine bars..

I guess my question would be, what do i do? I have the VIN#, should i go to my local nissan and explain, "i am buying this LEAF the car battery is at 8 bars, i want to have the battery replaced, as it is still under warranty." I am sure this used dealer would let me take it to nissan too. They are very laid back and let us take it for a day drive, 4 hours!
 
TyS said:
My wife and I just test drove a 2013 LEAF. She loves the car and she is currently a stay at home mom with our 9 month yr old. She will be going back to work soon but work would only be about 8 miles away. Everything is basically close as we live in the city..

Butttt we decided to test this car on a drive, test some boundaries! We left the "used dealership" and the cars range said 50 miles. Our destination was 23 miles, fwy the entire way. I wanted to push the car so we went 75mph on the fwy and we had to stop near near our destination and charge the car. We charged it at a Nissan dealership and i began to research. Then i discovered the "8-bars or less" means your battery gets replaced if under warranty. This ca has 50,000 miles.

So i went to the service department to see what i could scheme up, buy this car and boom, new battery. Not the case. He (the service department manager) told me the battery gets replaced at "2-bars". I told him i read it was under 9 bars and its replaced and he disagreed. Now i have found online that it is indeed under 9 bars is a replacement or repair back to nine bars..

I guess my question would be, what do i do? I have the VIN#, should i go to my local nissan and explain, "i am buying this LEAF the car battery is at 8 bars, i want to have the battery replaced, as it is still under warranty." I am sure this used dealer would let me take it to nissan too. They are very laid back and let us take it for a day drive, 4 hours!
You are correct, 8 bars is when the battery replacement starts (provided it is under 60k miles or 5 years). Make sure it is a 2013 (not a 2011 for some odd reason) and that you are seeing 8 bars on the capacity gauge, not the charge gauge when viewing the dash. Make sure the vehicle was not opt-out of the warranty for some reason (call Nissan with the VIN to check).

If all of that checks out, what price are they selling? If it is a S model, should be able to get it super cheap and then get a brand new $6k battery to go with it. It will be like having a brand new car because nothing else except the tires and windshield wipers wear out on these vehicles. :)

As far as the dealer, don't tell them anything. Know what you are buying, then turn right around and get the new battery. If this is true, this would be the first 2013 model that I've heard of getting the replacement battery, so double check that model year.
 
http://www.electricvehiclewiki.com/Battery_Capacity_Loss#Symptoms has a pic of the 3 bar loser. Capacity bars are the thin bars all on the right.

What's the build month on the sticker on the driver's side?

knightmb said:
If this is true, this would be the first 2013 model that I've heard of getting the replacement battery, so double check that model year.
http://www.electricvehiclewiki.com/Real_World_Battery_Capacity_Loss#four_bars points to a 2013 model year 4 BL and a post at http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=14102&p=443186#p443186.
 
Cwerdna beat me to the question. ;-) I'll bet dollars to wooden nickels that it was built before April of 2013, assuming it really has only 8 bars. It's a shame there are virtually no Leafs for sale around here, or I'd be looking for a '13 SV with that early Canary pack...
 
There is no settlement and opt-out issue for 2013 and newer LEAFs because they are not part of the class action lawsuit for 2011 and 2012 models. The terms of the original capacity warranty state that the battery will be repaired to at least 9 capacity bars so Nissan could refurbish the battery (instead of installing a complete new battery) if they choose. I doubt they would have the dealer refurbish the battery unless there were just a couple bad modules so you would likely get a new battery. Annual battery tests are required to keep the battery warranties intact.

Gerry
 
So i guess i need to make sure the previous owner did indeed have the battery checked annually. I will contact Nissan and see what they can tell me with the VIN#. The car is listed for $9,700ish.

Thanks for all the responses, I will keep this thread updated
 
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