Lost my first battery capacity bar...

[Andy Nguyen]

I lost my first battery capacity bar...
:(

--
Andy

[Willie McKemie]

On Sat, Aug 25, 2012 at 10:48 PM, Andy Nguyen <aqn...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I lost my first battery capacity bar...

I presume you do not have a gidmeter, else you would have reported
readings. Nissan is to be castigated for providing such poor
instrumentation. "BARS", indeed! A "bar" is what? No one knows.
Only that one is around 8% and the bar scale is not linear.

I finally took my Leaf to the dealer a week or so ago. His diagnostic
tools were not working and I ended up spending several hours in the
waiting room and got no satisfaction. My meter now reads about 225
(max is ~280) on a full charge, so I figure I'm down to about 80%
capacity. And the range reflects that. The car is far less useful to
me now than when it had a good battery. I can make very few trips on
a 80% charge.

I'm eager to learn what Nissan is going to do about this problem.

[Michael Chamberlain]

Sorry to hear that.  Do you have a feel for how much you range has been impacted?

Thanks,

Michael

[Andy Nguyen]

I'm the prototypical ideal LEAF owner in that I hardly ever need nor use more than half of the available range, so I don't have any idea as to what the actual range was, or what the range is now.  I can extrapolate, but I will need several more charge/discharge cycles to determine my current range.

--
Andy

--
Andy Nguyen \ aqnaqn at gmail dot com

[Peter Joseph]

Responses in-line.

On Sunday, August 26, 2012 4:04:19 AM UTC-5, mckemie wrote:

On Sat, Aug 25, 2012 at 10:48 PM, Andy Nguyen <aqn...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I lost my first battery capacity bar...

I presume you do not have a gidmeter, else you would have reported
readings.  Nissan is to be castigated for providing such poor
instrumentation.  "BARS", indeed!  A "bar" is what?  No one knows.
Only that one is around 8% and the bar scale is not linear.

There is plenty of buzz at the MNL forums about the non-linearity of the capacity bars.  First bar is 15%, iirc.   Second and third are much lower (don't remember exact percentages, and it is getting late).  

I finally took my Leaf to the dealer a week or so ago.  His diagnostic
tools were not working and I ended up spending several hours in the
waiting room and got no satisfaction.

i've had the same experience at SP Nissan on Aug 17th.   They are completely disorganized at the repair shop down there.   And then last week they had the gall to call and follow-up with a phone call on a quality survey.   i gave the girl a piece of my mind.   She was going to go down and check on the battery test.   Never heard back.    So my 1-yr battery check is not done yet.   Going to try again this coming week.

 

 My meter now reads about 225
(max is ~280) on a full charge, so I figure I'm down to about 80%
capacity.  And the range reflects that.  The car is far less useful to
me now than when it had a good battery.  I can make very few trips on
a 80% charge.

I'm eager to learn what Nissan is going to do about this problem.

There is a storm brewing over at the MNL forums, especially from owners in Phoenix.   Nothing yet from Nissan except the Corporate BS.

Best,

Peter

(15.5 K miles in 11+ months) 

[Willie McKemie]

On Sun, Sep 2, 2012 at 9:52 PM, Peter Joseph <pjos...@gmail.com> wrote:

> There is plenty of buzz at the MNL forums about the non-linearity of the
> capacity bars. First bar is 15%, iirc. Second and third are much lower
> (don't remember exact percentages, and it is getting late).

Non-linearity is supposedly explained here:
http://www.mynissanleaf.com/wiki/index.php?title=Battery
~15% for the first bar, ~6% for the rest.

> i've had the same experience at SP Nissan on Aug 17th. They are completely
> disorganized at the repair shop down there. And then last week they had
> the gall to call and follow-up with a phone call on a quality survey. i
> gave the girl a piece of my mind. She was going to go down and check on
> the battery test. Never heard back. So my 1-yr battery check is not
> done yet. Going to try again this coming week.

South Point is my dealer also. I'm guessing our visits there were
about the same time. I told them I was not interested in spending any
more time to get my battery problem properly reported.
Following advice here:
http://www.mynissanleaf.com/wiki/index.php?title=Battery_Capacity_Loss#What_To_Do
and called 877-664-2738. Talked to a guy there and was given a "case number".

I doubt further dealer visits will be productive for either of us.
Until Nissan develops and offers a battery fix. I am willing to wait
for a fix that results in a more durable battery rather than replacing
the battery with one of the same poor quality.

When I bought my Leaf, I expected to have to replace the battery. I
hoped for 10 years (normal expected life for LFP chemisty), but maybe
as few as 5 years. At battery replacement time, I expected better,
higher capacity, longer lived batteries to be available in the
secondary market at a much lower price than current. My Leaf battery
appears heading toward a life of only two years.

[Peter Joseph]

Got my 1-yr battery check done this past week at SP Nissan.   All five stars :)   Everyone was quite helpful out there.   The tech (Eli) took the time to come and tell me that everything checked out well.  

Today morning i saw 5 temperature bars after several months.   Third and fourth charging bars are disappearing rather fast now. 

For those who are considering the Leaf (likely not on this list), my suggestion is to lease it until the battery TMS issues are sorted out.

Best,

Peter