Leaf pack swap requires reflash?

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Mrelectric

Active member
Joined
Aug 10, 2014
Messages
27
I just bought a used 2011 leaf with 75k miles. The pack has one bar missing. I comtacted a wrecking yard. They have a 2011 with 11k miles shows full bars on the battery. They are willing to let me swap packs for a price. Will I just be wasting my time swapping because the car will need a reflash after the new battery and battery computer are connected. Both cars are 2011's. I will of course verify that all the plugs match from car to car before dropping the pack. I am trained in hybrid service and have safety gloves etc so assume safety risk, proper equipment to remove / install packs is not an issue.
 
Without using something like Leaf Spy you really have no idea where you are... The old pack could have just dropped its first bar and the second may be about to, which means that both packs are about equal, making a swap worthless...

Mrelectric said:
I just bought a used 2011 leaf with 75k miles. The pack has one bar missing. I comtacted a wrecking yard. They have a 2011 with 11k miles shows full bars on the battery. They are willing to let me swap packs for a price. Will I just be wasting my time swapping because the car will need a reflash after the new battery and battery computer are connected. Both cars are 2011's. I will of course verify that all the plugs match from car to car before dropping the pack. I am trained in hybrid service and have safety gloves etc so assume safety risk, proper equipment to remove / install packs is not an issue.
 
I guess the need for a reflash would make checking the actual capacity a mute point. I don't have access to consult 3plus.
I will order an elm blue tooth and get the app anyways, it seems like a cool product.
 
I have to imagine that the service manual will let you know how much you need to use the Consult tool to swap battery packs.

How much is the yard charging you to swap packs?

Agree with TomT that it's really hard to say if the swap is worth it, especially if both are 2011s. I think you'd be better off trying to swap out for the newest 2012 pack you can find, but of course, that may not be an option.
 
Interesting that everyone is more concerned about age than mileage. I guess I need spy leaf to really see where I stand. The yard has not determined an actual price for swapping. I will probably skip it based on opinions here on the forum.
 
I believe that exposure to high temperature is what makes those packs lose capacity the most. With almost 70K over 3 1/2 years I've only lost one bar. I wonder how many bars are left on the LEAF that passed the 100K a few weeks ago.
 
You can't swap packs without access to a consult III+. The VCM (main computer) queries the LBC (battery computer) and makes sure the serial number matches what the factory/dealer programmed.

I'm sure a dealer would probably do it for you but the car won't drive until the reprogramming is done. Also as others mentioned you should compare Ah numbers before doing anything and frankly unless you are in somewhere cold you are buying maybe a few months of time. Not worth it IMO.

Note that *eventually* leafspy or CANary could send the proper commands to do this but they haven't been captured yet.
 
not worth it for anything less than 3 bars difference between the packs, each bar past the first is only worth about $500 or so difference before labor (labor could outweigh the difference in battery value) and you don't know the exact state of the two batteries.
 
It really is too bad that a knock off consult 3 plus is not available. Several sellers have the consult 1 through consult 3 cheap on ebay. I use a "mini vci" knock off toyota scanner to do everything the dealer can do on a toyota hybrid. I realize that no engine means no need to follow the emissions related communication standard in vehicle computers but the lack of access to my leaf computers stings. I don't want to just read stuff I want to change settings, reflash etc.
the autotell looks promising but falls short in many areas. Spy leaf looks like my next purchase.
 
Just helped a friend swap batteries, both batteries11/12-pre-upgrade. First we tried just plain swap and got an errorcode from LeafSpy about invalid battery; P3102 00C0 EV/HEV Invalid Battery EVC-201. But it was actually possible to put it in drive and get the wheels spining up to 47km/h, just tested with wheels off the ground, so probably possible to do the swap at home and drive to the workshop to get vcm-lbm matching done.
Next step was to try with the new battery and the old lbm(bms) and it seems to work fine, still reads the old SOH but guess it'll get better after some recalibration while driving the car a few batterycycles.
 
For what it is worth , I have an eBay ELM 327 mini Bluetooth OBDII dongle I bought for our Chevy Sonic ICE car .

I installed the free version of Leaf Spy on my android phone . Tried this combination on the Leas . Leaf Spy said my dongle would not work on the Leaf / Leaf Spy . ( Did work on the Sonic with Torque . )

I ordered what I think is the correct dongle & awaiting delivery .

God bless
Wyr
 
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