Fresh meat

Aloha everyone,

The Executive Director purchased a used 2011 Leaf 3+ years ago. I am the new maintenance supervisor and tasked with finding out how to strengthen the battery or get a [free?] warranty replacement from Nissan. So, I am not the typical driver but I need to become knowledgeable about this car to keep it in top condition.

We are located on the west coast of the Big Island of Hawaii where the ambient temperature is between 75F - 85F year round. At night the temps dip to the mid 50s. (Hmmm, suddenly I hear tiny violins !!)

The routine to charge the battery is becoming managed insofar as we charge it overnight when it gets down to ~15 miles remaining.

Regarding warranty replacement of the battery, I did visit a web page about a class action lawsuit against Nissan for the 2011 year model, but it did not pan out and I may have collected a malware from that site. That was my strongest incentive to find your forum.

Upon joining this forum I did read Tony's post about battery range, including driving a test run. Being on an outer island, we have one road that will allow travel above 45 MPH for about 30 miles from our location. There are low foothills along the route with only one mile-long mild grade in each direction to tax the battery. Thank you Tony for sharing your tips and knowledge.

I will read more posts on the battery and general topics, plus how to understand the dash panel, and how to get more information from the vehicle.

Glad to meet everyone.
Dean T.

Welcome. First, you need to see how many capacity "bars" are showing on the dash. They are the little white segments directly alongside the much larger "fuel" bars, the ones that represent how charged the pack is at any time. Unlike the fuel bars, the capacity bars don't change with state of charge, and they are your first indication of whether or not you qualify for a free battery from Nissan. There are 12 of them when the car is new, and 11 or 10 bars is fairly common in that age Leaf. If you have only 8 or 9 capacity bars showing, you may be in luck.

You also mention you want to strengthen the battery, and I assume that means you aren't happy with the range you are currently getting, but you don't say what that range is. Have you noticed a recent decline? Or have your driving needs changed? Or is it just not taking as long to get to 15miles?

You are going to hear a lot about LeafSpy. It is a (IMHO) must-have for a leaf of that age. It's an app that runs on Android or iOS, but it does require a bluetooth or wi-fi OBDII adapter, which can be ordered from Amazon. Not sure what is involved with getting things ordered from Hawaii. Surely there HAS to be some downsides to living there. It can't be all island breeze.

Actually it is a breeze. We have mail service, cable tv, internet. Many of us do not get home delivered mail. Many on the windward side (Hilo) do not have access to water so we get water from our roof and store in 10,000+ catchment tanks.
Other than that we have all of the problems that everyone else has on the mainland.
Captain Dean's vehicle must be parking mauka (or up mountain) for low temperatures to be in the 50s.

downeykp said:

Actually it is a breeze. We have mail service, cable tv, internet. Many of us do not get home delivered mail. Many on the windward side (Hilo) do not have access to water so we get water from our roof and store in 10,000+ catchment tanks.
Other than that we have all of the problems that everyone else has on the mainland.
Captain Dean's vehicle must be parking mauka (or up mountain) for low temperatures to be in the 50s.

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The cost of living must be a lot higher though, right? And job market not as diverse? Is it a mainly tourism-driven economy?

Sorry I know this is off-topic, but I'm suddenly fascinated with Hawaii living.

Thanks for all the posts, information and friendly greetings. Tuesday I'll be back at work and around the Leaf again. I will post more specific information. In the meantime, I looked at a picture of the dashboard and it has 10 short segments showing (2 red, 8 white) alongside the longer lines.

Yes the cost of living is high. Poverty level is high. Lots of meth. Gallon of milk $5. Loaf of bead $4-5. Diesel $4. Healthcare is not the best. Anything out of the ordinary medically means a trip to Oahu or the mainland. If you work for the state or the county you do pretty well.
But on he flip side, the weather now is +/- 80. The ocean, Ahi, tropical fruit, scenery and long life is awesome.

Jefe said:

downeykp said:

Actually it is a breeze. We have mail service, cable tv, internet. Many of us do not get home delivered mail. Many on the windward side (Hilo) do not have access to water so we get water from our roof and store in 10,000+ catchment tanks.
Other than that we have all of the problems that everyone else has on the mainland.
Captain Dean's vehicle must be parking mauka (or up mountain) for low temperatures to be in the 50s.

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The cost of living must be a lot higher though, right? And job market not as diverse? Is it a mainly tourism-driven economy?

Sorry I know this is off-topic, but I'm suddenly fascinated with Hawaii living.

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CaptainDean said:

Thanks for all the posts, information and friendly greetings. Tuesday I'll be back at work and around the Leaf again. I will post more specific information. In the meantime, I looked at a picture of the dashboard and it has 10 short segments showing (2 red, 8 white) alongside the longer lines.

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Assuming the battery management system hasn't been reset (which seems unlikely in this case) 10 bars means that, unless you are about to "lose" one now, and another bar follows suit before 5 years and 60k miles are up, you are unlikely to qualify for a new battery from Nissan. You can still buy a new pack and have it installed for about $6k, although that price may be higher where you are.

Ha! It just occurred to me that you were talking about a work vehicle. I swear I thought when you said "Executive Director" it was some joke about your wife. I've seen people make comments like that before "I have to check with management", etc. meaning their spouse.
Even when you said you'd check when you got back to work, I still was thinking "Hmm.. he left his wife's Leaf at work.." Then it clicked. I'm thick. :lol:

If you are missing 2 capacity bars, that means your battery is down at least 21.25% from new. The problem with Hawaii is that its just not hot enough to degrade the pack soon enough to beat the 4 bar loss/5 year/60,000 mile deadline. LeafSpy will tell you for sure, but I really doubt you will lose 2 more bars in time to qualify for a free battery. IMO, Nissan got off way too easy in the class action suit, as the majority of Leaf owners who are seeing greatly diminished capacity won't qualify for a new battery. You don't really have any options, except to either just tough it out until the vehicle no longer meets your needs, or cough up the $6000 the dealer will want to install a fresh pack.
BTW, I have good friends near Hilo, in Hawaiian Paradise Park. He has a granite business in Hilo. We visited a couple years ago for a week and loved it, hope to go back this year. But, we thought food was expensive in south Florida, until we saw your grocery store prices!

Jefe, you cracked me up, I laughed out loud. I called my first wife the "activities director". But you are correct, the Executive Director is the real ED at work. The organization provided the car for him and he wants it to be his shining star. It's not looking so good these days in his eyes. We have a lot of steep hills here in Kona.

Another reason to use Leaf Spy to check the pack is the possibility that the pack has one or more bad cells that are sapping energy. It isn't common, but it does happen. In that case the bad cells can be replaced for less money than the whole pack.

Hea HOSWIT, welcome to the house. I offend wonder how a leaf would hold up across saddle hill road, may ship mine over on the young's barge and do some experiment rides. I have an 11 leaf and it's getting the new battery next month from tony nissan in waipahu/waikele.

http://www.upgrademyleaf.com/examples-of-nissan-leaf-charger-upgrade/

intend to do this upgrade after the battery is swapped.

I guess with a new battery you could make it over the summit to say Waikoloa for a charge. But there is no way without a charge to get back to Hilo. It rises to over 6200' in elevation from sea level. Most of battery would get used to get to summit. There would be a hell of a lot of regeneration from the summit to sea level on the windward side.

grandizer52 said:

Hea HOSWIT, welcome to the house. I offend wonder how a leaf would hold up across saddle hill road, may ship mine over on the young's barge and do some experiment rides. I have an 11 leaf and it's getting the new battery next month from tony nissan in waipahu/waikele.

http://www.upgrademyleaf.com/examples-of-nissan-leaf-charger-upgrade/

intend to do this upgrade after the battery is swapped.

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downeykp said:

I guess with a new battery you could make it over the summit to say Waikoloa for a charge. But there is no way without a charge to get back to Hilo. It rises to over 6200' in elevation from sea level. Most of battery would get used to get to summit. There would be a hell of a lot of regeneration from the summit to sea level on the windward side.

grandizer52 said:

Hea HOSWIT, welcome to the house. I offend wonder how a leaf would hold up across saddle hill road, may ship mine over on the young's barge and do some experiment rides. I have an 11 leaf and it's getting the new battery next month from tony nissan in waipahu/waikele.

http://www.upgrademyleaf.com/examples-of-nissan-leaf-charger-upgrade/

intend to do this upgrade after the battery is swapped.

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challenge accepted

Let us know how you do.

Here is a picture of the dash display at the first of January 2016. The battery was charged over the weekend and I turned the car on just to see the display.

What can I learn from this display ?...

You have 10 capacity bars showing, so unless the 10th vanishes very soon, you won't likely qualify for a free battery. The only way to determine how solid that 10th bar is is to use Leaf Spy.

LeftieBiker said:

The only way to determine how solid that 10th bar is is to use Leaf Spy.

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Thanks LeftieBiker. I downloaded Leaf Spy Lite onto my personal Android phone and will connect to the Leaf on Tuesday. If there is a Windows phone Leaf Spy app then I should be able to purchase it on the company credit card.

I will also examine the Leaf's on board console display in more detail as well. There were pictures throughout the forum indicating some good information is available through the console display.

I will also examine the Leaf's on board console display in more detail as well. There were pictures throughout the forum indicating some good information is available through the console display.

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If you mean the State Of Charge (SOC) display option, that is only on 2013 and later cars. The 2011 & 2012 leaf has only the capacity and fuel bars. If I had a 2011, I'd get a cheap android phone and use it as a dedicated charge display.