Anybody with 2011 or 2012 interested in upgrade to new battery?

My Nissan Leaf Forum

Help Support My Nissan Leaf Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
drees said:
You need more than just the adapter, Nissan also accounts for whether or not the '11 has the cold weather package and builds replacement packs accordingly. On top of that, you need a special programming card and expensive Nissan Consult diagnosis software to program the battery pack to the car.

Additionally, an on-line assess to Nissan's network with an access code may be required for some ECU module coding,
e.g. the BMS, as is the case presently with most all OEMs for major re-flashes. Furthermore, the re-flash file
may not be resident on the Nissan Consult diagnostic tool and having controlled access.
 
drees said:
You need more than just the adapter, Nissan also accounts for whether or not the '11 has the cold weather package and builds replacement packs accordingly. On top of that, you need a special programming card and expensive Nissan Consult diagnosis software to program the battery pack to the car.

This is really the Achilles heel of used LEAFs with worn out batteries. If you could easily retrofit a nearly new pack from a wrecked LEAF at half the cost of Nissan's current retail cost to replace the pack ($5500-6500), the resale value of the LEAF would be a better.

You simply can not justify spending $6k to replace the battery in an old LEAF when you can buy a much newer one with a better pack for $8-9k.

And what about putting a 2012 battery with the cold weather package in a 2011 Leaf which does not have the cold weather package?

It is possible ?

Thank's
 
Bern101 said:
And what about putting a 2012 battery with the cold weather package in a 2011 Leaf which does not have the cold weather package?
I think that while it would be possible to use the battery, you can't use the Cold Weather package as the power for the heaters comes from outside. Look at the front of the battery: if it has a BIG 2-pin orange connector and a smaller to the left and the round control connector to the right, then the smaller is for the Cold Weather (heater) power. On cars without the Cold Weather package, the smaller connector is absent.
The car has a relay (contactor) to provide power to the Cold Weather package, plus the cable to the battery with the smaller orange/red connector. If your car does not have the Cold Weather package, that is absent so the battery cannot use its heaters.
Hope this clarifies,
Cor.
 
Update on the upgrade process:
I was doing other stuff for a while (putting 2 Leaf packs into my EV truck to give it a new life - love that truck now!)
but just today I picked up a 2012 which earlier this year has received a warranty battery exchange with a new battery.
That battery is going to be moved into someone else's beloved Leaf and I will find another battery for this poor guy.
So, these is still some movement of batteries, although it is increasingly hard to get my hands on a battery.
I heard a rumor that the Leaf parts and batteries are going to Eastern Europe / Russia and dismantlers here are unable to buy any decent Leaf.
Don't know if that is true and what is happening with crashed Leafs, I just see that prices have gone up and I often wonder how anyone is going to make a living when the sale price of a crashed Leaf is approaching the price of used Clean-Title Leafs on Craigslist - it makes no sense.
That is one reason why I jumped when I saw a Leaf for sale with new battery...
 
Cor said:
Bern101 said:
And what about putting a 2012 battery with the cold weather package in a 2011 Leaf which does not have the cold weather package?
I think that while it would be possible to use the battery, you can't use the Cold Weather package as the power for the heaters comes from outside. Look at the front of the battery: if it has a BIG 2-pin orange connector and a smaller to the left and the round control connector to the right, then the smaller is for the Cold Weather (heater) power. On cars without the Cold Weather package, the smaller connector is absent.
The car has a relay (contactor) to provide power to the Cold Weather package, plus the cable to the battery with the smaller orange/red connector. If your car does not have the Cold Weather package, that is absent so the battery cannot use its heaters.
Hope this clarifies,
Cor.
Thinking about this a little more - I think that it might be possible to put the non-Cold Weather package front plate on a battery with heaters (or move the heaters into a battery that did not have them) and wire a small contactor from the battery pack (similar as the pre-charge contactor)
to be closed only when the main contactor is closed *and* temperture is below a certain threshold. So, wire a thermostat contact in the 12V line that taps the coil of the main contactor, to power the extra "heater"contactor.
It can work, but it definitely is not standard and the risk that you drain your battery and brick your Leaf is your own choice.
So, use this idea just for that - to give you an idea.
Cor.
 
Yes foreign buyers will sometimes pay more for a wreck than a running example due to export laws.

Sort of sickening in a way that all our good parts go away.
 
Brand new battery available!
Due to an unexpected event, the person originally interested in a battery swap has to make other choices,
so I can now offer to this group the battery that I initially only mention to him.
I have a battery that was installed two months ago into a 2012 by a local Nissan dealer (papers available)
and since then the car has hardly been driven,
so if you want to get a brand new 24kWh battery for your trusty Leaf with degraded battery then give me a shout.
Due to the fact that this is a new battery, I am asking $4k to install it into your car.
Should still be a good deal compared to $5900 for Dealer provided battery, but that is your choice.
PM for further details.
 
Kris1 said:
Great offer Cor, I'm assuming limited to the continental USA though, sigh.
Hi Kris,
I would not have problem shipping but I suspect that shipping costs would be prohibitive...
Carry-on in a plane is also not a good option... ;-0
 
i have a brand new 30kwh battery for sale.....
but it is in vienna/austria
comlpete price is 10.800.-euro,inkl.VAt
9.000.-euro without VAT
 
I just now saw the *highest* reading of capacity that I ever saw on a 24kWh pack.
I had tried to buy a recent battery from my favorite dismantler for some time now
and finally I decided to go to a different dismantler and lo and behold, they had a Leaf pack.
Not from a recent Leaf (I had been trying to buy a pack from a low mileage 2015) but the best they had was a pack
from a 2013 Leaf that was from Washington State, so a colder area. Should still be good and probably still be a 12-bar.
I tried to negotiate price as it was quite high, but the pack was only 4 days in inventory, so no go on any reduction.
take it or leave it.
I thought about it a minute and then called back and said I would take it.
So, I picked it up yesterday and was a bit bummed that the transport of the pack had resulted in a busted connector.
After a bit of hacking, I was able to hook up 12V and CAN bus to connect the ELM327 bluetooth dongle to the pack
and power the LBC to get its readings with LeafSpy.
WHAT THE HECK! 67.36 Ah capacity!
That is impossible, how can a pack from a 2013 have higher than new capacity!
So then I finally checked the sticker on the battery and suddenly realized that what I had picked up
was a battery from a 2013 Leaf, but it was a *NEW* battery, probably warranty replacement.
Wow - I got lucky here!
I never before saw a capacity reading higher than 66 Ah on a new replacement battery, so apparently
the cells in this battery are exceptionally good!
And yes - this battery already has a new owner eager to get this swapped into his degraded Leaf, so he can again
enjoy the commute in the HOV (carpool) lane, for which he now has not enough range to make it.
Anybody else has seen capacity above 66 Ah on a 24 kWh pack?
 
Cor said:
Anybody else has seen capacity above 66 Ah on a 24 kWh pack?

I thought this one was amazingly high: http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=24132&p=497598&sid=8272fe0e2310b819eeff69aebd32e3bc#p497579

But yours takes the cake.
 
Cor said:
I never before saw a capacity reading higher than 66 Ah on a new replacement battery, so apparently
the cells in this battery are exceptionally good!
And yes - this battery already has a new owner eager to get this swapped into his degraded Leaf, so he can again
enjoy the commute in the HOV (carpool) lane, for which he now has not enough range to make it.
Anybody else has seen capacity above 66 Ah on a 24 kWh pack?

Cor;
My replacement started at (typical?) 66.14 Ahrs. There is one "section" 10 or so cells that consistently has had lowered voltages on the average of 30 mv (varies of course with SOC). The Ahr readings rapidly dropped to 63-64 range in the first few weeks. I actually believe these are lower quality cells that have been installed in my (new-lizard) battery pack - but that do meet Nissan's tolerances.

Is the readings that LeafSpy obtains on a new pack preset at 66.14 (at least an attempt to do so with firmware)? Does the actual calculated Ahrs fairly rapidly go to the actual value - that depends on the quality of all cells in the new pack? How does the variability in the cell voltages of a new battery affect the actual VA/Watt-hrs available with a fully charged pack? What is the variability in the charging systems (both the AC and DC systems) attempt to "fully" charge (likely not 100%)? I'd expect that the "variability" would have a minor affect on the available range compared to other factors, however.

Maybe an expert in Li battery technology/chemistry (I'm definitely not!) can add clarity to these type questions?
 
Oils4AsphaultOnly said:
I thought this one was amazingly high: http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=24132&p=497598&sid=8272fe0e2310b819eeff69aebd32e3bc#p497579
As Mark already suggested, the 66.14 Ah is a "magic number" that the BMS is initialized to when new or reset.
After that, every time the pack gets used or charged the BMS measures actual available capacity by checking voltage change versus energy in/out flow and estimating the capacity of the total pack. So, in the first weeks it may change quickly if the actual capacity is different than what is in the memory of the BMS (LBC).
I am going through that now after pairing a new LBC with a degraded pack to make the car happy (the pack LBC was from a non-cold-weather vehicle, while the car expected an answer on its question if the heaters were on, so I had to swap LBC to make the car happy instead of seeing the forever blinking blue charging light, indicating that the 12V battery was being charged - indefinitely - and I was losing 1 mile per hour of range while the car was parked.
 
Cor said:
I just now saw the *highest* reading of capacity that I ever saw on a 24kWh pack.

Anybody else has seen capacity above 66 Ah on a 24 kWh pack?

68.74 Ah!!!

http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=8802&p=424962#p424934
 
RNM said:
68.74 Ah!!!
http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=8802&p=424962#p424934
Pretty cool!
That pack is now sitting in someone's 2012 who can now use his favorite car again to commute...

I also found out *why* this pack was as-new and seemingly unused.
I suspect that after warranty battery replacement, this 2013 Leaf never worked right
and was taken back. Why? Well, I found an assembly error in the glued-shut battery,
so it must have been a manufacturing error: one of the bolts on the bus bars of the
front right quarter pack was loose, as in: it was rattling when I touched it.
No signs of heat on the bus bar or pack, which surprised me. Not even marks from sparks
or pitting due to high DC current. But the loose contact will certainly have had high resistance,
causing the car to hesitate or act weird.
Several other bolts were at too low torque for comfort as well, a few were excessive tight.
So, it looked like someone worked on it as inexperienced with a torque wrench or had
a wrench without torque setting, I don't know. But certainly incorrect workmanship.

Anyway, yesterday and today I picked up two more batteries that already have destinations,
there is an interesting market for Leaf batteries!
Cor.
 
Cor said:
RNM said:
68.74 Ah!!!
http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=8802&p=424962#p424934
Pretty cool!
That pack is now sitting in someone's 2012 who can now use his favorite car again to commute...

I also found out *why* this pack was as-new and seemingly unused.
I suspect that after warranty battery replacement, this 2013 Leaf never worked right
and was taken back. Why? Well, I found an assembly error in the glued-shut battery,
so it must have been a manufacturing error: one of the bolts on the bus bars of the
front right quarter pack was loose, as in: it was rattling when I touched it.
No signs of heat on the bus bar or pack, which surprised me. Not even marks from sparks
or pitting due to high DC current. But the loose contact will certainly have had high resistance,
causing the car to hesitate or act weird.
Several other bolts were at too low torque for comfort as well, a few were excessive tight.
So, it looked like someone worked on it as inexperienced with a torque wrench or had
a wrench without torque setting, I don't know. But certainly incorrect workmanship.

Anyway, yesterday and today I picked up two more batteries that already have destinations,
there is an interesting market for Leaf batteries!
Cor.
How are you doing the swaps? Are you swapping cells to the new BMS or have you been able to swap in the new BMS too without disassembling the pack?
 
VitaminJ said:
How are you doing the swaps? Are you swapping cells to the new BMS or have you been able to swap in the new BMS too without disassembling the pack?
I have done both - swapping the complete pack into someone's Leaf, then drive at 25 MPH to the downtown Nissan Dealer and they programmed the car to accept the new battery. They charged their standard minimum service charge which is $160 for this.
- and opening op both packs and swapping cells from the new into the old pack, so that the BMS stays with the car, so as soon as the swap is done, the car drives normally.
Main drawback of the second swap is that the mounting of the module stacks is obscured by the disconnect and contactor block and all wiring is installed on the module stacks, so *everything* has to be removed from the shell in order to swap modules, you cannot easily swap just the modules. In addition, typically the old pack has the 2011/2012 wiring which is electrically incompatible to the 2013+ BMS wiring, so all the wiring must be removed from the module stacks to use the new modules with the old BMS.
And the spacers in the new half pack stack have mounting bolts every 3 modules, whereas the old stacks have them every 2, so the retaining clips on the wiring even need to shift.
And the high power wiring on the new half pack stack is connected differently, the old bus bars on the new stack will hit two bolts and so it needs to be modified to avoid wearing through and causing a short circuit.
It is all easily possible and I have done this a couple times now, but you need to be a bit creative to get a good solution.
Or pay the dealer to program the new battery to your car...
(The dealer wants to have the registered owner of the car present to avoid helping install a stolen battery, which is logical as that was the whole point of registering the battery to the car)
 
Great info, thank you! You are the first person I have heard of that was able to get Nissan to reprogram the car to accept the BMS. If I read correctly, you can do the complete battery swap and the car will drive, but only 25mph. Is that correct? Also will the 2013+ complete battery module bolt into a 2011/12 car?
 
Cor said:
VitaminJ said:
How are you doing the swaps? Are you swapping cells to the new BMS or have you been able to swap in the new BMS too without disassembling the pack?
I have done both - swapping the complete pack into someone's Leaf, then drive at 25 MPH to the downtown Nissan Dealer and they programmed the car to accept the new battery. They charged their standard minimum service charge which is $160 for this.

Do you know if any 2013+ 24kWh battery can be installed in a 11/12 Leaf with a dealer reprogramming (with the necessary adapters) or only the ones that were originally fitted into 11/12 cars as warranty replacements? Which was it in your case?
 
Back
Top