Leap of faith...Taking delivery of our LEAF SL next week!

Hello All,

I'm new to MNL and am very happy to have found this group as it has been an abundance of information so far.

I am proud to announce that we are anxiously looking forward to taking delivery of our new LEAF SL early next week and are extremely excited (and nervous) about this new addition to our family.

I feel we're taking a great leap of faith with our LEAF, but not for the common "range anxiety" reasons...

Our big concern is that we live in a state where LEAFs are not available yet, and we live hundreds of miles from the nearest certified LEAF service center. My local Nissan dealer said they have already allocated space for their chargers, and [expect] to be installing them plus certifying their service center by the end of the year, but were hesitant about giving exact dates. So basically we'll be on our own in the meantime.

As I mentioned, I'm not too concerned about range or the lack of charging infrastructure in our city because a) We have a second vehicle. b) We're close to most places we frequent. For reference: We drive the car we'll be replacing (an old Prius) about 20 miles a day [total]. At that rate, I suspect even trickle charging our LEAF nightly would be overkill for us.

However, since we're months from having a local LEAF certified service center, my question is this:

Have any LEAF owners here had problems that you needed to bring you car into the service center for?

Thanks in advance for any information, help and/or advice,
Julio

ps. Despite our concerns I feel [interestingly] more excited about owning/driving our new LEAF than any other car we've ever purchased.

julio said:

Have any LEAF owners here had problems that you needed to bring you car into the service center for?

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Welcome Julio.

Currently, I'm not aware of an ongoing LEAF issue that will leave you stranded. My car has been in the shop for a CarWings problem (that is easy to fix yourself by disconnecting the 12 volt battery under the hood to reset a "black box"). I just had the steering wheel centered so that it is indexed correctly when driving straight.

Also, I had one flat, but I have a spare tire. The car does not come with one, but the Nissan road side service seems good here in California. What state are you in?

Make sure you charge to just 80% everyday, since you won't have a reason for 100% at 20 miles/day. But, at least once per month, charge up to 100%, and let the car sit at least an hour with the charger plugged in to balance the battery cells. Don't store the car at 100%.

For 20 miles a day, the 120 volt charger can take care of that overnight. You don't need to install anything. Just plug in.

Enjoy and congratulations.

TonyWilliams said:

But, at least once per month, charge up to 100%, and let the car sit at least an hour with the charger plugged in to balance the battery cells. Don't store the car at 100%.

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I am curious to know where this information comes from. Seems like speculation to me, since we don't know whether balancing is done after an 80% charge. References?

Welcome and Congratulations on the pending delivery.

You will be fine! After 7mos, the LEAF is far less maintenance than any ICE car. It has been trouble free and never failed us. So far a voluntary software update and tire rotation is all that's been done to #202. You will sleep well with it in the garage.

Stoaty said:

TonyWilliams said:

But, at least once per month, charge up to 100%, and let the car sit at least an hour with the charger plugged in to balance the battery cells. Don't store the car at 100%.

Click to expand...

I am curious to know where this information comes from. Seems like speculation to me, since we don't know whether balancing is done after an 80% charge. References?

Click to expand...

I would have to speculate that balancing is done at 80%, but it is done at 100%, for the quoted 50 minutes after the charge is complete.

Naturally, I can't find that in the Service Manual now.

i took mine to dealer for software update and Carwings thing. as it was, the software updated issues that i did not have and Carwings could only be fixed by Carwings (they originally registered my VIN incorrectly so Nissan could not fix it)

but the software fix is installed in your car, so i would say...dont worry about it. even if Carwings did not work for, its not a huge loss.

it does located charging stations (of which you have none, so nothing to find)

and it does track your stats (or at least it tracks "something" and if you find out what that something is, please tell us!! we are all dying to know)

Stoaty said:

TonyWilliams said:

But, at least once per month, charge up to 100%, and let the car sit at least an hour with the charger plugged in to balance the battery cells. Don't store the car at 100%.

Click to expand...

I am curious to know where this information comes from. Seems like speculation to me, since we don't know whether balancing is done after an 80% charge. References?

Click to expand...

I won't claim that this proves anything, but a month ago (Aug 8) I turned on the charging emails, which I have saved. Every one of them until last night showed "charging stopped" because I have been charging to 80%. There were never two of them on the same night. I had a long drive planned for this morning, so last night I overrode the timer from the owners portal, starting charging at about 9:30 and, of course, charging to 100%. I got two "Charging Complete" emails, the first at 12:10 am, the second at 3:30 AM.

Ray

The only problem we had in 4 months so far was a flat in each tire on the same side of the Leaf at the same instant. My wife hit a pothole . Roadside assistance came and towed the Leaf to the Nissan dealer (no charge to us) and the dealer replaced both tires (Bridgestone Ecopias), $500. Probably any tire shop or Nissan dealer could have done that. Otherwise we have never needed any service specific to a Leaf.

julio said:

Our big concern is that we live in a state where LEAFs are not available yet, and we live hundreds of miles from the nearest certified LEAF service center. My local Nissan dealer said they have already allocated space for their chargers, and [expect] to be installing them plus certifying their service center by the end of the year, but were hesitant about giving exact dates. So basically we'll be on our own in the meantime.

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Whoa...! Not available yet, but you're taking delivery next week? What state are you in? Are you purchasing an "orphan" LEAF and shipping it to your home? From where?

I've had my Leaf for a little over 3 months now and have had no problem with it. Well, except for a very minor Carwings issue (it stops sending driving history info to my online account after a while) that doesn't affect the drivability of the Leaf at all. I chose to take it into the dealership for a minor software update to fix that bug, but I could have kept on driven it just fine if I don't care to have Carwings driving history updated to my account.

Since you're not in a Tier'ed state, I assume that you have to figure out your own charging station option. If you haven't already figured it out, I'd suggest you look into the http://www.evseupgrade.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; website for the most affordable option to turn your 120V supplied charger into a dual voltage 120/240V charger if you want to cut your charging time in half.

TonyWilliams said:

Stoaty said:

TonyWilliams said:

But, at least once per month, charge up to 100%, and let the car sit at least an hour with the charger plugged in to balance the battery cells. Don't store the car at 100%.

Click to expand...

I am curious to know where this information comes from. Seems like speculation to me, since we don't know whether balancing is done after an 80% charge. References?

Click to expand...

I would have to speculate that balancing is done at 80%, but it is done at 100%, for the quoted 50 minutes after the charge is complete.

Naturally, I can't find that in the Service Manual now.

Click to expand...

Tony, did you perhaps mean to say that you speculate that balancing is NOT done at 80%? I suspect it is not, as it would seem a bit pointless to balance at anything less than full charge.

Bill

"LEAF" of faith.... go for it. We had ours for 3 months, ~3000 miles, and not a inkling of any problem...smiling through every mile, every day, and every gas station we pass by. This forum is great and will help you along.

TonyWilliams said:

I would have to speculate that balancing is not done at 80%, but it is done at 100%, for the quoted 50 minutes after the charge is complete.

Naturally, I can't find that in the Service Manual now.

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If you remember seeing it in the Service Manual, that is a good enough reference for me. However, why doesn't Nissan say to charge to 100% periodically if this needs to be done occasionally?

ebill3 said:

Tony, did you perhaps mean to say that you speculate that balancing is NOT done at 80%?

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Yes.

Stoaty said:

TonyWilliams said:

I would have to speculate that balancing is not done at 80%, but it is done at 100%, for the quoted 50 minutes after the charge is complete.

Naturally, I can't find that in the Service Manual now.

Click to expand...

If you remember seeing it in the Service Manual, that is a good enough reference for me. However, why doesn't Nissan say to charge to 100% periodically if this needs to be done occasionally?

Click to expand...

I honestly don't recall if I physically saw that in the manual, or read it here.

Well, I hope there is balancing at the 100% charge. As I understand it, balancing is to prevent any cell (actually parallel pair of cells) from exceeding 4.2 volts, or whatever limit the designer chose.

Bill

(Sorry that we hijacked the OP's thread - but it happens) :?
.

ebill3 said:

Well, I hope there is balancing at the 100% charge. As I understand it, balancing is to prevent any cell (actually parallel pair of cells) from exceeding 4.2 volts, or whatever limit the designer chose.

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My understanding is that the charger in the Leaf prevents this by by stopping charging when any one cell/pair gets to the max voltage. Balancing is to allow them to all reach that limit about the same time, so that maximum available capacity is achieved. For those more knowledgeable, correct if wrong.

Stoaty said:

ebill3 said:

Well, I hope there is balancing at the 100% charge. As I understand it, balancing is to prevent any cell (actually parallel pair of cells) from exceeding 4.2 volts, or whatever limit the designer chose.

Click to expand...

My understanding is that the charger in the Leaf prevents this by by stopping charging when any one cell/pair gets to the max voltage. Balancing is to allow them to all reach that limit about the same time, so that maximum available capacity is achieved. For those more knowledgeable, correct if wrong.

Click to expand...

Yes, my wording was not quite complete. I should have added stopping the charge to those high cells and bringing the others up to design voltage. Or, perhaps continuing the charge to the whole battery, but bleeding off excess voltage from the high cells. I don't think we know how they do it.

In any event, the goal, as you say, is a fully charged battery with equal cell voltage.

Bill

A big thank you to all those who replied about not having service issues with their LEAF. I'll assume that those who wrote in specifically with thoughts about charging the car haven't had any major problems either (or they would have surely said something right?! :? )

ebill3 said:

Sorry that we hijacked the OP's thread - but it happens) :?

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Being new to EVs, the "sidetrack" about how best to charge the vehicle was actually quite informative. I have heard about the 80% charge being nicer on the batteries and I'm sure it's a great suggestion considering our level of driving, however...

And please forgive me if this has been discussed here before, I couldn't find the answer with some simple searches:

For the health of the batteries, is it generally better to top them off every night... or let them get low before charging? I'm thinking that with my 20mi/day driving I could probably charge every other day (or longer) rather than nightly.

julio said:

For the health of the batteries, is it generally better to top them off every night... or let them get low before charging? I'm thinking that with my 20mi/day driving I could probably charge every other day (or longer) rather than nightly.

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Charge the batteries every night to 80%. Your dealer should set that up for you if you ask. Don't "top them off" unless you need 100% of the battery the next day.

Yes, you could charge every other day also. I doubt there's much difference to the battery.

Nissan does not want you to do frequent Quick Charges (multiple times per day) or store the car at 100% charge.