Help! Dropping miles fast

Humbly wanting some feedback here. My wife and I drove our new (used) 2012 Nissan Leaf SL home from the dealership last night. The car had 1 previous owner in California per carfax report, has the full 12 bars, and 16K miles. While we signed for the car, the dealer charged it to 55 miles on the display. Our ride home was 36 miles on the freeway.

Before I even drove out of the dealership, I lost 5 miles on the display, from 55 to 50. (I noticed this had happened earlier on our test drive: started the car at 42, shifted into gear and suddenly got 37). I drove the car home at speeds between 53-62 mph. No heat, no A/C. I did charge my phone using the charge port under the display screen. As I drove home on the highway, I noticed I was actually dropping/expending miles on my display faster than I was accumulating actual miles. Needless to say, anxiety gripped me as I dropped down to one bar with considerable distance still left. We did arrive home, thankfully. However, my 55-then-50 mile range from the dealership dropped down to 4 'blinking' miles on the display, making my total trip 50-4 = 46 miles. Keep in mind that the total distance from dealership to home was 36 miles.

So, as my wife and I argue whether or not to return this car, the crucial question is: is this normal? Should I expect to drop miles at a predictable rate? In this case, we lost 10 miles to our starting amount of 50, which is 20%. Can I expect to lose 20% on a full charge of around 80 to get an actual range of 60?

Thanks for your responses. My leaf hangs in the balance here! :roll:

Normal. GOM (guess o meter) is nearly useless. Use Leafspy and an OBD dongle if you want better info. Do some reading on this forum and you should get an idea what to expect from your leaf.

I would return it immediately and get the main battery tested by the dealer or somebody else ASAP. Sounds like its way below spec unless you only paid 5,000-7,000 for the car. Sounds like it will need a new battery pack and the dealer's reputation of sales tactics may have already have lost my trust for your continued success in a Leaf.

rexki said:

I would return it immediately and get the main battery tested by the dealer or somebody else ASAP. Sounds like its way below spec unless you only paid 5,000-7,000 for the car. Sounds like it will need a new battery pack and the dealer's reputation of sales tactics may have already have lost my trust for your continued success in a Leaf.

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Huh?

It doesn't sound like it was fully charged, just charged to "55 miles" per the display. If that's the case, it sounds very normal.

If the car has all 12 capacity bars (small bars at far right side of display--10 white and 2 red), it should easily go 60 miles at reasonable freeway speed on a full charge (12 SOC bars) with no climate control use. The miles remaining display (called the GOM for guess-o-meter on this forum and DTE for distance to empty by Nissan) is not very accurate and depends upon very recent driving history. If it was driven around town slowly on test drives, it is normal for the GOM to drop rapidly once you started driving on the highway. How many state of charge bars (long bars near the GOM) were showing when you left the dealer? If only 9 (or less) SOC bars were showing when you left the dealer, the battery is in good condition. The GOM starts flashing at low battery warning and changes to dashes (--) at very low battery warning so you still had some range left.

Perhaps someone near you with LEAF Spy could check the battery parameters through the OBDII port to help you decide whether to keep the car or return it.

Gerry

Saw California in the original post - if California is were you bought the car - state law requires:

Consumers who purchase a used car for less than $40,000 must be offered a two-day contract cancellation option agreement.

That is why I said get it back to the dealer ASAP - Hopefully that answers the "Huh?"

The battery pack is probably OK if it was not fully charged when they left the dealership. There is no reason to return the car if the battery is OK.

Gerry

rexki said:

Saw California in the original post - if California is were you bought the car - state law requires:

Consumers who purchase a used car for less than $40,000 must be offered a two-day contract cancellation option agreement.

That is why I said get it back to the dealer ASAP - Hopefully that answers the "Huh?"

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Sorry, the "Huh?" was in reference to returning it because it was "way below spec" and "it will need a new battery pack". It looks like it is average/normal 12 bar car, according to the OP. If he is able to return it because he doesn't like it, that sounds like a good idea, but it appears to be pretty average, not necessarily a "bad" battery or "below spec".

newleaf76 said:

The car had 1 previous owner in California per carfax report, has the full 12 bars, and 16K miles. While we signed for the car, the dealer charged it to 55 miles on the display. Our ride home was 36 miles on the freeway.

Before I even drove out of the dealership, I lost 5 miles on the display, from 55 to 50. (I noticed this had happened earlier on our test drive: started the car at 42, shifted into gear and suddenly got 37). I drove the car home at speeds between 53-62 mph. No heat, no A/C. I did charge my phone using the charge port under the display screen. As I drove home on the highway, I noticed I was actually dropping/expending miles on my display faster than I was accumulating actual miles. Needless to say, anxiety gripped me as I dropped down to one bar with considerable distance still left. We did arrive home, thankfully. However, my 55-then-50 mile range from the dealership dropped down to 4 'blinking' miles on the display, making my total trip 50-4 = 46 miles. Keep in mind that the total distance from dealership to home was 36 miles.

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The fact that it dropped 5 miles on the GOM just going out of the dealership is the most ominous warning in my opinion, since whether it was charged to 80% or 100% or even just 60%, it really shouldn't be doing that. I am speaking from a bit of experience as my LEAF has dropped 7 capacity bars (5 remaining) as it nears 60K miles.

I could, at 6 capacity bars, expect to drive 33 miles before the low battery warning, at speeds of about 50 mph. When it had 7 capacity bars, I did do a 50 mile trip, at about 50 mph. Now that it has 5 capacity bars, I'm getting the low battery warning at about 26 miles. That means that it still has some range before it gets down to the 4 as seen on the drive home. It seems very ominous if the car was charged to 100%, although apparently we don't know that definitely.

I would put the car on the charger and get it up to 100% charge as soon as possible, and go for another 36 mile drive at about 50 mph and see what happens. There has been an infamous case of a dealer resetting the capacity bars to 12 on a LEAF that had a degraded battery, I don't remember where it is discussed here on this forum but it should be able to be found.

Also, there should be someone on the forum in California close enough to you to test your battery with LeafSpy and an OBDII scanner and show definite numbers for the battery.

A similar thing happened to me when I first got my Leaf........until I learned to basically ignore the GOM
As others have said, the GOM(especially on the pre '13 Leafs) is very optimistic at first and very pessimistic shortly after. You really need to get LeafSpy(can be free for the Lite version and <$20(I'd suggest not from Amazon) for the better Deluxe version. You'll also need a OBDII adapter which are generally <$15 on Amazon.
While it may be possible the dealer reset your battery bar meter, from your description it sounds more like to me it was just the GOM at it's worst.
If you post your city there may be someone near you that could plug in their OBDII adapter to verify battery health(AFAIK this cannot be reset but what can is the simple bar dash display your seeing) as getting one from Amazon is going to probably take at least a few days and if you only have 48hrs you need to check things ASAP.
I think one of the reasons you may be seeing the immediate drop on the GOM when shifting into drive might be if your not in ECO mode. On the '11's and 12's you need to double shift every time you power down the car to get it back in ECO mode, where it shows more range on the GOM. I despise this quirk on my '12, my '13S always stays in ECO unless I double shift by mistake. With the '12 I've just gotten into the habit of always double shifting whenever I drive it, which unfortunately is opposite my '13

jjeff said:

A similar thing happened to me when I first got my Leaf........until I learned to basically ignore the GOM
As others have said, the GOM(especially on the pre '13 Leafs) is very optimistic at first and very pessimistic shortly after.

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That is one thing I also haven't understood, as I think the GOM is still fairly good, and was a pretty good attempt by Nissan. Yes, it will drop faster at first, and then as it gets closer to LBW be slower, and I have at times gone further than the GOM might indicate by driving much slower.

When I first got the car, I've seen 110 to 112 miles, and was able to go about 77 miles, 70%, before LBW, now at five capacity bars it is showing about 50 miles, and I can go to about 26 miles before LBW, so only 50% initially indicated on the GOM, but it has been true as others have said, that as the battery has degraded more and more capacity seems to have been shifted to the other side of the LBW. However, I'm now getting the LBW at 8 miles indicated, as opposed to 11 miles indicated before.

And, now further thinking about it, the LeafSpy indicates about 43% for the Hx reading, which is what I go by, and that initial 50 miles on the GOM I'm seeing now would be right at 43% of the initial 110 to 112 miles I was seeing on the GOM when it had 12 capacity bars.

newleaf76 said:

While we signed for the car, the dealer charged it to 55 miles on the display. Our ride home was 36 miles on the freeway.

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A lot of the problem here is that the GOM bases much of your range estimate on recent electric consumption. So, if all the test drives, etc that your Leaf did right before you drove off were just putting around town, 35-45 mph on city streets, it is being WAY overly optimistic. Even if we assume that no one has reset your BMS, which makes the SOC bars reset to all 12 bars, a 2012 Leaf from CA has got to be really close to losing a bar (down 15%), so take 15% off Tony's range chart:


As others asked: how many bars did the dealer charge your Leaf to before you left? Why didn't he charge it up completely? :? Did they know you were taking the freeway home? Freeway speeds will take the miles off the GOM pretty quickly.

rexki said:

Saw California in the original post - if California is were you bought the car - state law requires:

Consumers who purchase a used car for less than $40,000 must be offered a two-day contract cancellation option agreement.

That is why I said get it back to the dealer ASAP - Hopefully that answers the "Huh?"

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That assumes the OP bought it at time of purchase.

I was offered that too, when I bought my used Leaf. I declined. IIRC, it was at least a few hundred $.

newleaf76 said:

As I drove home on the highway, I noticed I was actually dropping/expending miles on my display faster than I was accumulating actual miles.

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This is perfectly normal unless the most recent miles put on the car were all on the freeway at similar or higher levels of power consumption. There is a reason why we call that crap display the guess-o-meter.

When you say it has all 12 bars, you are reading the capacity indicator correctly, right? It's the thin set of bars all the way on the right. http://www.electricvehiclewiki.com/File:Scott_3_bars_s.jpg is a car down 3 capacity bars.

Even if it reads full capacity bars, it's possible an unscrupulous service dept/person reset the BMS so that it reads 12 and will decline to its true value over the next few weeks or months. http://daveinolywa.blogspot.com/2014/11/buyers-beware-this-is-must-read.html is one of several instances of this.

The only better way to know the battery's true condition is to use Leaf Spy, and this will help w/the range anxiety.

And yes, we really do need more info. The '11 and '12 Leafs crap instrumentation can create unnecessary range anxiety.

Per Carfax, where in California did the previous driver/user reside?

Since we don't know anything about the OP's car, let's just hope he wins the battery lottery and actually has a vehicle that will be a 4 bar loser before the 5 year/60K capacity warranty expires.

Thank you all so much for your help! Just to tie up some loose ends: I realize now (today) that I was not in eco mode, and this seems to have made a difference after driving it in that mode today. I did in fact purchase the 2 day return policy (for $150), as it seemed a safe bet because we never saw the car fully charged. Sadly, we made the decision to bring the car back today. Its a little heart breaking for me, as its been a dream to be gas/oil free for a long time. The range anxiety is just too much for my wife and I as our commutes can vary significantly on a daily basis. I consider this a dream delayed and will be back in a few years time when we're looking well into the 100+ range. Through this post I've learned to appreciate the very dedicated leaf community. Thanks again for all your help!

^^^
Cool. Before anyone gets a Leaf, new or used, I always ask these:
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.

What are your daily driving needs in terms of miles? How much city vs. highway? Will you have the ability to charge at your work/destinations?

I leased a '13 Leaf SV w/both packages for 2 years before buying a used '13 SV w/premium to replace the car I returned at end of lease. My saga and price are at http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=432095#p432095. That used Leaf is now outside 3 year/36K warranty and is still my daily and primary driver. I racked up thousands of posts here on MNL before I ever had a Leaf and test drive one in Nov 2010, about a month before Leafs went on sale.

For any used Leaf, unless the previous owner is known to you and is also knowledgeable or known to be in a cool climate (e.g. city of SF, Half Moon Bay or Pacifica, CA, Seattle area, etc.), you MUST do due diligence on the vehicle itself to get a good idea of the condition of the battery via Carfax and/or Autocheck and most importantly, Leaf Spy.

newleaf76 said:

Thank you all so much for your help! Just to tie up some loose ends: I realize now (today) that I was not in eco mode, and this seems to have made a difference after driving it in that mode today. I did in fact purchase the 2 day return policy (for $150), as it seemed a safe bet because we never saw the car fully charged. Sadly, we made the decision to bring the car back today. Its a little heart breaking for me, as its been a dream to be gas/oil free for a long time. The range anxiety is just too much for my wife and I as our commutes can vary significantly on a daily basis. I consider this a dream delayed and will be back in a few years time when we're looking well into the 100+ range. Through this post I've learned to appreciate the very dedicated leaf community. Thanks again for all your help!

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Sorry to hear that the Leaf didn't work out for you. You might be better off with a PHEV like a Ford C-Max if your daily range needs vary a lot.

Chevy Bolt is set to arrive December 2016 - 4 months - 200 mile range - almost double the Leaf's range - and apparently very peppy as well.

I think range anxiety at first is very normal. Especially if you have an experience like the one you had where you felt like you weren't going to make it home. I had one of those with my wife shortly after I got my Leaf and it was nerve-wracking. Ever since then, she has been very reticent to take my car even when it is well within the mileage available. So we drive her Highlander more than I would like to, for her own comfort. Because I have now put 8K miles on my '13 Leaf and use LeafSpy and know exactly where the "breaking" points are. When she is riding with me, I change out of "status" mode on the nav screen so she can't see the mileage, otherwise she will watch it nervously.
This is because she doesn't have the full range of experience, and often thinks back to that one time when the kind woman came on over the audio and warned us that we needed to charge soon.
I totally understand why you returned the Leaf. But I think if you had stuck with it you would have been happy with it. It takes an adjustment to start deal with not being able to fill up the tank in 2 minutes. But once you make the adjustment, you will realize how much more convenient it is to charge up on your own time.
I'm assuming that since you went for a '12 that cost is a factor, and it's not likely that the Bolt is going to fit in that range for you in December. If you are still wanting to go electric, I would recommend looking for a '13+ Leaf. Not only should the battery be in better shape due to age, but it will have the faster charging capabilities which if combined with a L2 charger can get you full in just a couple of hours.

newleaf76 said:

...(used) 2012 Nissan Leaf SL .... has the full 12 bars, and 16K miles. ....Our ride home was 36 miles on the freeway. ..... I drove the car home at speeds between 53-62 mph.......However, my 55-then-50 mile range from the dealership dropped down to 4 'blinking' miles on the display, .... total distance from dealership to home was 36 miles.

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I think you made the correct decision to return this vehicle. I think the Leaf was most likely tampered with (bars reset by dealer) or had something severely wrong with the battery. Given your description above, you should have had NO PROBLEM driving those 36 miles, with plenty of reserve. The blinking miles indicates that you reached Low Battery Warning (LBW). I routinely drive 35 mi RT (1/2 at speeds up to 75 mph, 1/2 at 35 mph) with my 10-bar 2011 Leaf and DO NOT reach LBW. My guess, is that you were driving a "reset" 8- or 9-bar Leaf. The only other possibility, was that the dealer didn't fully charge the vehicle before you left.