Bought a 2012 SV. Range doesn't seem right.

Sort on an impulse, I bought a 2012 SV with 22,800 miles for $6500, out the door. I'm in NC, but the car seems to have spent most of its time in New Jersey so I figured the battery has not been exposed to excessive heat. It showed 11 bars when I test drove it, so I figured it would get about 80% of its range when new. My usual commute is about 30 miles round trip, but there are days when I'll need 40+ miles. I figured 80% of 84 miles would easily handle that. I didn't have leaf spy when I bought it.

I've had the car for just about a week now. After two days of ownership it has dropped from 11 to 10 bars. I got leaf spy and it seems like the capacity is falling way faster than it should. Over the past few days of ownership it gone from 50.820Ahr at 22944 miles to 50.066Ahr at 23010 miles. When it's fully charged it says 65 miles of range or so, but after driving 10 miles, the expected range shows 45 miles. Is all of this normal? What should I do to really find out what's going on?

Besides the potential range and battery health issue, I LOVE the car. It's so smooth, quiet and torquey and is just way better than any ICE car I've owned.

Anyways, thanks in advance for the help! Happy to own the leaf and I'm so glad there's an active community around it.

A new LEAF from 2012/13 has about 64 Ahr and is rated for 84 miles based on 3.9 miles/kWh
Your 50 Ahr battery then would display 84*50/65 = 65 miles when full, which is what you report.
Don't fret the Ahr change -- it jumps around and is affected by SoC

Reset the trip meter and see what your miles/kWh are after a week.
You probably drive aggressively and/or use a lot of AC

The other possibility is that the Battery Management System (BMS) was reset to falsely show 12 bars, it had already re-lost one when you looked at it, and it is still relearning the battery's actual state and will likely lose more displayed capacity. This might not be entirely bad: if it loses four bars before the "in service date" plus 5 years passes, you likely get a new pack. Still, if it drops another bar, you have been scammed and should consider that in your decisions.

fzx101 said:

It showed 11 bars when I test drove it, so I figured it would get about 80% of its range when new. My usual commute is about 30 miles round trip, but there are days when I'll need 40+ miles. I figured 80% of 84 miles would easily handle that. I didn't have leaf spy when I bought it.
...
When it's fully charged it says 65 miles of range or so, but after driving 10 miles, the expected range shows 45 miles.

Click to expand...

EPA range rating of the '12 Leaf is 73 miles on a full charge. For '13 thru '15, it's 84 miles on full charge.

http://insideevs.com/2013-nissan-leaf-rated-at-75-miles-but-84-miles-using-the-old-system/
http://insideevs.com/2014-nissan-leaf-mostly-unchanged-as-range-technically-moves-up-to-84-miles/
http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/Find.do?action=sbs&id=32154&id=33558&id=34699

A car that's down 1 capacity bar has lost ~15% or more per http://www.electricvehiclewiki.com/Battery#Battery_Capacity_Behavior. 2 bars down is ~21.25% or a bit more.

I agree it's possible the BMS has been reset. If another bar goes away in the next few weeks or months, it's almost certainly a reset victim.

AHr, SOH and Hx readings will definitely fluctuate. Sometimes, charging to 100% and discharging to nearly empty/emptier (vs. charges to only 80% and shallow discharges) will cause a bump up in AHr, SOH and Hx. This may just be an instrumentation quirk and not an indication of increased available capacity.

The guess-o-meter (whatever you're reading the "miles of range" from) is crap. Don't bother with it.

Thanks for the replies. I've got some updates.

Over the weekend I did a range test-drove to low battery warning and to "---" miles left and got 55 miles. On monday, I pumped up my tires from 34 to 44PSI and this seems to have significantly increased efficiency. I went from 3.8 miles/kWh last week to 4.5 miles/kWh for the last few commutes. So that's a significant improvement.

However, the capacity continues to drop:

Date ODO Capacity SOH
5/18/2017 22944.1 50.82 77%
5/19/2017 23004.4 50.151 76%
5/20/2017 23026.1 49.882 76%
5/21/2017 23048.5 49.889 76%
5/22/2017 23061.6 49.889 76%
5/23/2017 23105.7 49.764 75%
5/24/2017 23119.3 49.784 75%

I suspect that the car sat on the lot for a long time degrading while sitting still and there haven't been a lot of miles for the BMS to catch up. The good news is that the first owner registered the car in September of 2012, so I have a few months left on the capacity warranty.

What's it showing now? Ten bars? You have to decide very soon if you want to push it hard, baby it, or try to establish a case for returning it.

10 bars today. Who knows what it will be tomorrow. I'll keep watching to see if it stabilizes. If not, there's a hot summer ahead to help things along. There is little chance of returning it, so I'll have to live with it one way or another.

For $6500 why worry? Great deal. Just enjoy.