Went from 8 bars to 4 in 12 months

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.
D

Duey66

New member
Joined
Dec 10, 2020
Messages
2
Hey everyone. So I bought a used 2013 Nissan Leaf in October of 2019. It had just under 22000 miles on it and 8 bars. I lost 3 bars within the first 4 months. I just lost the 4th bar this week. So I’ve lost 4 bars in 12 months. Has anyone ever heard of this outside of a defective battery? I’m having it checked again tomorrow after I’ve escalated it. I’m still covered under the 8 year battery defect warranty but not for much longer. There’s no way this rapid loss is even remotely typical right? In the 13 months I’ve owned it I’ve only driven it 5000 miles and the average temperature the car sits in is roughly 75. I’ve yet to hear of any rapid degradation like this that wasn’t defective. Any info would be great. I’m fighting Nissan tooth and nail on this.
 
This sounds like a BMS (battery management system) reset to hide a badly degraded battery. You were likely scammed. Unfortunately the capacity warranty doesn't apply any longer, and the defect warranty doesn't cover it. You can check the voltage of each cell with LeafSpy Pro and a Bluetooth dongle like the one in my signatures. If no cells are very, very low compared to the rest, then legal action against the seller is your only recourse.
 
So a BMS reset can actually improve the capacity? Because it's not just the bars. I used to be able to charge once every 3 days. Now it's sometimes twice a day.
 
Duey66 said:
So a BMS reset can actually improve the capacity? Because it's not just the bars. I used to be able to charge once every 3 days. Now it's sometimes twice a day.
Click to expand...

A BMS reset has no effect on capacity. In the case of a mis-calibrated BMS, then the BMS update Nissan offers can improve the apparent range - although this is also not a genuine increase in capacity.
 
Duey66 said:
I used to be able to charge once every 3 days. Now it's sometimes twice a day.
Click to expand...

I'd strongly suggest getting LeafSpy and a dongle so you can see more details about the battery. I also thought it was a BMS reset at first but this sounds like you may actually have one or more bad cells. Knowing that in advance could be helpful when negotiating with Nissan about the battery defect warranty. A OBDII dongle is about $20 and the demo version of LeafSpy is free so it's not a big investment and it will show a lot more information about the state of the battery.
 
I agree that bad cells should be ruled out, as that warranty is still in effect. Depending on the in-service date, though, that warranty could end as early as mid or late January, so act now.
 
Duey66 said:
Hey everyone. So I bought a used 2013 Nissan Leaf in October of 2019. It had just under 22000 miles on it and 8 bars. I lost 3 bars within the first 4 months. I just lost the 4th bar this week. So I’ve lost 4 bars in 12 months. Has anyone ever heard of this outside of a defective battery? I’m having it checked again tomorrow after I’ve escalated it. I’m still covered under the 8 year battery defect warranty but not for much longer. There’s no way this rapid loss is even remotely typical right? In the 13 months I’ve owned it I’ve only driven it 5000 miles and the average temperature the car sits in is roughly 75. I’ve yet to hear of any rapid degradation like this that wasn’t defective. Any info would be great. I’m fighting Nissan tooth and nail on this.
Click to expand...

Let us know how it goes since it came with a 5 year battery warranty I think. It was the 30 kWh battery in 2016 that got upgraded to 8 years.
 
Let us know how it goes since it came with a 5 year battery warranty I think. It was the 30 kWh battery in 2016 that got upgraded to 8 years.
Click to expand...

The capacity warranty for the 2013 was 5 years/60k miles. The defect warranty was, IIRC, 8 years even then.
 
Leftie is correct--defect warranty has always been 8 years or 100,000 miles in USA (even 2011 models). Capacity warranty was 5 years or 60,000 miles for 24 kWh batteries and became 8 years or 100,000 miles for 30 kWh (and larger) batteries which were available starting in 2016. Time clock starts when car was initially placed into service.
 

Similar threads

S
Thanks for accepting my membership
Replies
2
Views
258
Steve52
S
L
downhill charging, overcharging?
Replies
11
Views
3K
Bombastinator2
B
Jnovoseljr
My EV Battery Life and Leaf observations.
Replies
10
Views
2K
GerryAZ
G
K
Sudden loss of regen.
Replies
3
Views
418
kicker22004
K
K
Turtle mode on freeway?!?!
Replies
5
Views
2K
krush40
K

Latest posts

Back
Top