NISSAN LEAF ODOMETER @60002 and Battery @ EIGHT BAR

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zhang000

New member
Joined
Oct 11, 2015
Messages
3
Folks, I need help here. My Leaf was at 59996 miles and I noticed 8 bar. Drove it to local Nissan dealer 6 miles away. I guess that was a big mistake according to Nissan. I should have park the car on highway, call AAA and tow it to dealer. Anyway, after charging me $160 for battery diagnose, they printed me a report confirming 8 bar and needing a new battery pack. That was it for $160, plus looking at brake pad and tire pressure. Warranty request was denied per warrant hotline. I even bought extended warranty and that was not applicable. Someone help me. I am in San Jose, CA.

mod edit for clarity: bolding line below which was added 12/2/15
Just an update. After getting denied and writing to Corp. execs, I was offered a new battery. It was installed today. Very happy.
 
If you bought the car new, do you have documentation of the odometer reading at the time of purchase? I have read here that car warranties are referenced relative to that odometer reading. So if it was more than 2 miles, then the 60,000 mile warranty should still apply. Just passing along what I read, I haven't researched the matter myself.

Cheers, Wayne
 
zhang000 said:
Folks, I need help here. My Leaf was at 59996 miles and I noticed 8 bar. Drove it to local Nissan dealer 6 miles away. I guess that was a big mistake according to Nissan. I should have park the car on highway, call AAA and tow it to dealer.
...
Warranty request was denied per warrant hotline. I even bought extended warranty and that was not applicable.
When you said "according to Nissan", is that Nissan corporate telling you that or a Nissan dealer? There's a huge difference. Most/almost every (?) state has franchise laws prohibiting automakers from owning dealers.

Yes, you should have it towed. TomT was in a similar situation. He stopped his car and had it towed.

I concur with wwhitney. You should have some odometer disclosure form when you got the car new. Hopefully it had more than 2 miles on the odo when you got it. Maybe try another dealer (don't drive it there!) to see if they're willing to get Nissan to do a goodwill replacement given how close you were. Otherwise, I'd call Nissan corporate and if that doesn't help, start writing letters to Nissan corporate.

If I were in your shoes, until you get a final no answer where you've exhausted all avenues or a yes, I would stop putting any more miles on the Leaf.
 
I had a similar thing happen to me. I lost my 9th bar at 59,983 miles. I had it towed to the dealer so that there could not be an issue...

However, as others have pointed out, the car likely had some miles on it when you got it (mine was 10) and that gets added to your expiration mileage. Also, the Leaf odometer is known to be a little fast (much more than 2 miles in 60,000) and you could use that as an argument as well.

Good luck!
 
zhang000 said:
Folks, I need help here. My Leaf was at 59996 miles and I noticed 8 bar. Drove it to local Nissan dealer 6 miles away. I guess that was a big mistake according to Nissan. I should have park the car on highway, call AAA and tow it to dealer. Anyway, after charging me $160 for battery diagnose, they printed me a report confirming 8 bar and needing a new battery pack. That was it for $160, plus looking at brake pad and tire pressure. Warranty request was denied per warrant hotline. I even bought extended warranty and that was not applicable. Someone help me. I am in San Jose, CA.

Don't give up. Call Nissan hotline, talk to a regional manager, whoever you have to and get them to replace the battery. Stay calm, firm, and polite. You are in the right and will win eventually.

While you are here can we get some more information for our stats?

What is the manufacturing date from the driver door jamb label?

|- style="background:#ffffff;" valign=top
| #??
| Oct 11, 2015
| zhang000
| San Jose, CA
| 59,996
| 12 months
| unk manufacturing date
| 2011 model year
| 001963
|
|
| http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=20725

We'll put it up on the wiki showing all the cars we know of that lost 4 bars. Hopefully it'll help you to know you aren't alone. Plenty of people here that will help you figure out how to get your battery replaced at no more cost to you.
 
TomT said:
I had a similar thing happen to me. I lost my 9th bar at 59,983 miles. I had it towed to the dealer so that there could not be an issue...

However, as others have pointed out, the car likely had some miles on it when you got it (mine was 10) and that gets added to your expiration mileage. Also, the Leaf odometer is known to be a little fast (much more than 2 miles in 60,000) and you could use that as an argument as well.

Good luck!

If you're on 16 in wheels I think it's about 2.5% over which is about 1500 miles extra the car shows that you probably didn't travel. The 16s are much smaller than the 17s it's almost like Nissan designed and calibrated everything on 17s then cheaped out at the last second. Interesting that 205 60 16 would have been a better fit.
 
I don't suppose you thought to take a picture of the instrument cluster before driving it to the dealer? Anyway, I agree with everyone else. Escalate and keep escalating until someone says, "Yes". You WERE within the warranty and there is no way this can be let stand. Don't give up.
 
So, they doubly ripped you off! The battery report should not have been more than 50 bucks and should be free if you qualify for the warranty. Make them refund the $160 when you eventually do qualify, which you definitely will!

By the way, this kind of behavior from Nissan Corporate is what has left such a bad taste in my and many other people's mouths!

zhang000 said:
Anyway, after charging me $160 for battery diagnose, they printed me a report confirming 8 bar and needing a new battery pack. That was it for $160
 
1) They overcharged you for the battery check.
2) Contact Nissan (not the dealer) and escalate the issue until someone approves the battery swap.
 
LeftieBiker said:
The odometer reads at least 1% high on these cars (and the speedo about 5% high, with the 16" wheels). That means you haven't hit 60k actual miles yet.
I can't speak to these exact numbers but odometer accuracy has come up a bunch of times before. Google for site:mynissanleaf.com odometer calibration.
 
Just an update. After contacting Nissan hotline last Tuesday, I received a call back. The guy named Jason wanted to record the conversation. I said fine. I told him I did not think about tow because I wanted to save $150 tow truck fee. He commented that that $150 could cost me $5000. But he said he will call Premier Nissan in San Jose (that's where that car is sitting) to discuss with them what can be done. I will keep you guys posted.
 
minispeed said:
If you're on 16 in wheels I think it's about 2.5% over which is about 1500 miles extra the car shows that you probably didn't travel. The 16s are much smaller than the 17s it's almost like Nissan designed and calibrated everything on 17s then cheaped out at the last second. Interesting that 205 60 16 would have been a better fit.
I was told by the Nissan Leaf department at Corporate that the odometer mileage will NOT be off even though the speedometer is off.

My speedo is fast by 4-5% depending on the speed and I was told there is nothing anybody can do and to not worry because the speedometer is not related to the odometer. I sure hope this is true, it would really suck to put 4-5% extra miles on the odometer.
 
Partially true... The odometer HAS been proven to be fast, though not as fast as the speedometer. On the 2011 and 2012 at least, you can go in to the diagnostic menu and correct the speedometer error. This will not affect the odometer, however...

LeafMuranoDriver said:
My speedo is fast by 4-5% depending on the speed and I was told there is nothing anybody can do and to not worry because the speedometer is not related to the odometer. I sure hope this is true, it would really suck to put 4-5% extra miles on the odometer.
 
mwalsh said:
This is like the "worst case scenario" I think we've all been dreading hearing about.

But, seriously, why the hell did you drive it to the dealership???
You've got to remember that unlike most of us here in the forum with our add-on tools like LeafSpy obsessing over capacity on a daily basis, most car buyers are like zhang000, blissfully unaware of what's going on with the pack and just driving around - using the car like a - well - car. :lol: And these are the people that Nissan's counting on screwing over to make the cost of their battery degradation debacle a little less painful.
 
^ I'm not completely unsympathetic, but when my Ford Focus was having transmission problems I knew to get it in before I went over the warranty on mileage. It doesn't have anything to do with being obsessive, it's just common sense.
 
TomT said:
Partially true... The odometer HAS been proven to be fast, though not as fast as the speedometer. On the 2011 and 2012 at least, you can go in to the diagnostic menu and correct the speedometer error. This will not affect the odometer, however...

LeafMuranoDriver said:
My speedo is fast by 4-5% depending on the speed and I was told there is nothing anybody can do and to not worry because the speedometer is not related to the odometer. I sure hope this is true, it would really suck to put 4-5% extra miles on the odometer.

2013 OEM tires have two choices
SL 17" 215/50/17 at 25.5" diameter and 815 revs per mile (RPM)
S/SV 16" 205/55/16 at 24.9" diameter and 837 revs per mile (RPM)

If the 2011/2012 tire sizes are the same this applies to all the cars. Taking the example tire sizes above the speedometer will be off by 2.7% due to size difference between the tire meaning one size will be off by x% and the other will be off by x+2.7%. To get the speedometer correct you can take 2.5% back out in the hidden menus in the center screen and then be off by x+0.2% but the odometer will still be off in both cases by y%.

I'd be willing to bet that all the cars with 16" rims are over reporting mileage by 2.7% more than the ones with 17" rims.


If you wish to be proactive about it and switch to different size tires other than the OEM choices, that will create a new correction of z% leaving your speedometer off by x-z% and your odometer off by y-z%.

Someone needs to do the work to figure out the ideal RPM for a 2011/2012 and a 2013 just to see if they differ and to figure out what the size of x% and y% are. I suppose it wouldn't hurt to confirm on a 2015 or 2016 but I'd guess that 2011 to 2015 all have the same target RPM.

I'm going to guess that 815 RPM is closer to 0 discrepancy than 837 in both cases and it likely is below 815 RPM.

It'll take a flat route and a very accurate speed/distance measurement. It may be that someone can do the math from Tony Williams range tests or maybe a comment Tony has made about his prior measurements already has the factor we need.

Whatever the correct RPM is if you had that tire size or as close as possible to it your odometer would be reasonably accurate and the speedometer could be adjusted to have less of an offset with the hidden menu.

Menu mentioned in http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=8026
 
LeafMuranoDriver said:
I was told by the Nissan Leaf department at Corporate that the odometer mileage will NOT be off even though the speedometer is off.

My speedo is fast by 4-5% depending on the speed and I was told there is nothing anybody can do and to not worry because the speedometer is not related to the odometer. I sure hope this is true, it would really suck to put 4-5% extra miles on the odometer.
Yes, speedometer and odometer are not necessarily the same.

From http://www.caranddriver.com/features/speedometer-scandal from 2002, there's a PDF on the right side (was a table in the printed version) at http://media.caranddriver.com/files/speedometer-scandal.pdf. On 15 Nissans, the average speedo error was 2.29% while the average odo error was only 0.10%.
 
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