Buyback info

[kolmstead]

I initiated a buyback request for my LEAF a couple of weeks ago. In a nutshell, my LEAF has lost 20% battery capacity in two years. I was the first person in California to report loss of a capacity bar. My car lives in the Mojave Desert; 115 degree daytime temps are common, and I work at a government facility with no covered parking. The nearest tree is a mile and half away, so I see a month of 7-bar battery temps each summer. 36 mile commute, 9K miles per year.

Nissan Customer Support was very helpful. I missed some voice mail messages but finally got in touch with Brenda at Nissan CS today. She asked a lot of questions. I should find out Friday whether or not Nissan will buy back the car. I thought it might be helpful to let others who are contemplating buyback know the questions that Nissan asks:

1. What is your commute, in miles per day?
2. How many city versus highway miles?
3. How much do you use climate control, either heating or a/c?
4. How do you charge; L1 or L2?
5. What brand of EVSE are you using?
6. How often do you use L3 charging?
7. What is your average energy economy (miles per kWh)?
8. Is the car financed or leased? (Funny... no mention of cash!)
9. What is your monthly payment?
10. How many capacity bars has your car lost?
11. Have I had my dealer test the battery?

An interesting set of questions, although I question how relevant some of them are to capacity loss. I don't hold out a lot of hope that Nissan will buy my LEAF back, but it is certainly worth a try. No mention was made of the new 8-bar warranty.

-Karl

 

[Caracalover]

I will be interested to hear a follow up on this.

How many capacity bars have you lost?

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

Question #8 is an obvious one and required since either means that Nissan must deal with the lending/leasing party.

 

[kubel]

I think #8 was a question looking for affirmation/negation, not multiple choice.

Glad to hear they got the ball rolling for you.

 

[Herm]

He says 20% so probably 2 bars.. What is the recommended time to wait before initiating a BBB complaint?.. is a lemon law return allowed in California?.. when should that process be initiated?

 

[kolmstead]

Exactly 20% capacity loss, based on GIDs, so I'm very close to second bar loss. I'll lose the second bar in May or June, third in August. Brought it home exactly two years ago today. Probably won't lose fourth bar, the one that would trigger new battery warranty, until early summer of 2014, and by then, the car won't do my 36 mile commute comfortably. I started charging to 100% about a month ago when it got cold, because I was hitting LBW a couple of times a week. Don't like doing that when it's cold and dark!

Stoaty has an entry for Ridgecrest, CA in his battery capacity loss predictor, but my car is a little ahead of his predictions. I've tried to protect the battery; 80% charging and gentle driving. But the car sits in the sun 10 hours most weekdays. I love it, but wrong car for this climate.

-Karl

 

[Stoaty]

Stoaty has an entry for Ridgecrest, CA in his battery capacity loss predictor, but my car is a little ahead of his predictions. I've tried to protect the battery; 80% charging and gentle driving. But the car sits in the sun 10 hours most weekdays. I love it, but wrong car for this climate.

Is your car ahead of the model predictions using the spreadsheet with the solar loading factor, or just from the general predictions on the Wiki page? Solar loading could be a significant contributing factor in your case.

 

[Herm]

Its going to be a tough fight with only one bar showing after 2 years..

 

[Volusiano]

I initiated my buyback request in early December. They asked me the same set of questions. Then they said somebody will contact me within 7 to 10 days. Somebody from Nissan Tennessee did after about a week. It was not an independent arbitrator, but sounds like a Nissan employee who said he's in a special task force assigned to handle things like this. He asked me to confirm that my MNL name is Volusiano (apparently he did some homework). He then asked if I could hold off and wait until a new announcement from Nissan in January or not, before deciding how to proceed. I said OK. He gave me his direct work phone number and name.

Well, the 9 bar warranty announcement came on MNL on 12/28, then I also waited for the Phoenix town hall last week to see how it panned out. Last Monday afternoon I called this Nissan person and left him a message to let him know that I've decided that the 9 bar warranty is not acceptable to me and I'd like to proceed with my buyback request. It's been more than 24 hours and he has not returned my phone call yet. I'll probably try to call him back again tomorrow.

 

[Volusiano]

Its going to be a tough fight with only one bar showing after 2 years..

Since the first bar is 15% and subsequent bars are 6.25% according to Nissan literature, if the OP has other ways to prove a 20% loss (like a Gid meter or even a simple driving range test), that may be good enough. The important thing is that he lives in a hot climate, even though it's CA.

 

[kolmstead]

Brenda at Nissan Customer Support got back to me today. My request for buyback was denied. The 1-bar battery capacity loss is considered normal, and it appears that the car is not causing me undue problems yet. That's pretty much what I expected, since the capacity loss my car has suffered is significantly less than many Phoenix LEAF owners, and the car should work for my commute at least until next winter.

Brenda did mention the capacity warranty coming out sometime this spring, and said that she had no details yet.

-Karl

 

[Herm]

Since the first bar is 15% and subsequent bars are 6.25% according to Nissan literature, if the OP has other ways to prove a 20% loss (like a Gid meter or even a simple driving range test), that may be good enough. The important thing is that he lives in a hot climate, even though it's CA.

They are going to ignore those two tests, but perhaps a court wont.

 

[Volusiano]

Nissan called me back last Friday and told me they would accept my buyback request. I sent them the pertinent paperwork, and today I received the buyback offer letter from them. I lost two bars since last July already, only 1 month after my 1st bar loss in June. I don't know exactly what criteria they use to accept a buyback. They never told me and I never asked because I'm just thankful to get a buyback offer.

 

[NSXTASY]

Nissan called me back last Friday and told me they would accept my buyback request. I sent them the pertinent paperwork, and today I received the buyback offer letter from them. I lost two bars since last July already, only 1 month after my 1st bar loss in June. I don't know exactly what criteria they use to accept a buyback. They never told me and I never asked because I'm just thankful to get a buyback offer.

what is going to happen to your car and other like it? anyone knows?

 

[phxsmiley]

Nissan called me back last Friday and told me they would accept my buyback request. I sent them the pertinent paperwork, and today I received the buyback offer letter from them. I lost two bars since last July already, only 1 month after my 1st bar loss in June. I don't know exactly what criteria they use to accept a buyback. They never told me and I never asked because I'm just thankful to get a buyback offer.

Are you down a total of 3 bars, then? And what is your mileage? I'm still trying to figure out what I should do. We can adjust only so far to accomodate the reduced range...

 

[Volusiano]

Nissan called me back last Friday and told me they would accept my buyback request. I sent them the pertinent paperwork, and today I received the buyback offer letter from them. I lost two bars since last July already, only 1 month after my 1st bar loss in June. I don't know exactly what criteria they use to accept a buyback. They never told me and I never asked because I'm just thankful to get a buyback offer.

Are you down a total of 3 bars, then? And what is your mileage? I'm still trying to figure out what I should do. We can adjust only so far to accomodate the reduced range...

Sorry for the confusion, I lost 1 bar in June and another in July, totally 2 bar loss only to date. I'm at 25K miles.

 

[EdmondLeaf]

what is going to happen to your car and other like it? anyone knows?

auction, 3 bar looser is in CO

 

[Volusiano]

Nissan called me back last Friday and told me they would accept my buyback request. I sent them the pertinent paperwork, and today I received the buyback offer letter from them. I lost two bars since last July already, only 1 month after my 1st bar loss in June. I don't know exactly what criteria they use to accept a buyback. They never told me and I never asked because I'm just thankful to get a buyback offer.

what is going to happen to your car and other like it? anyone knows?

To clarify, these are not lemon cars officially. Nissan is not buying them back under the lemon law. They only structure their buyback calculation based on the lemon law model to make it easy.

I'd guess that Nissan can resell them as used cars like anything else if they want.

 

[kolmstead]

I asked Brenda at Nissan Customer Support about a 'generous' trade-in on my 2011 with 20% capacity loss on a 2012 LEAF. I asked my dealer the same question a month ago, and he never got back to me. He mumbled something about "not a lot of demand for used LEAF".

Brenda said that Nissan corporate does not, and cannot legally get involved in trade-in and lease discussions with Nissan dealers. Now, we know from at least one MLN posting that corporate did step in and convince the dealer to offer more on the trade-in, but evidently that's the exception to the rule. Obviously I haven't been a squeaky enough wheel to qualify.

-Karl

 

[surfingslovak]

Nissan called me back last Friday and told me they would accept my buyback request. I sent them the pertinent paperwork, and today I received the buyback offer letter from them. I lost two bars since last July already, only 1 month after my 1st bar loss in June. I don't know exactly what criteria they use to accept a buyback. They never told me and I never asked because I'm just thankful to get a buyback offer.

Congratulations. Very happy for you, what a long and rocky road. I remember these discussions stretching all the way to last summer.