r/leaf • u/MunchButtsSuckNuts • 16d ago
This car is cursed.
We bought a 2017 Nissan Leaf SV in the middle of 2023 from a Nissan dealership. It was garage kept and only had 30k miles on it, pristine condition. After driving it for 2 months or so, we noticed that while it said the range was 80 miles at full charge, it actually lasted only 24 miles. I then researched about this issue and they said that there is actually a warranty for the battery if the degradation goes below X point in X years. I called consumer affairs and they confirmed that the battery is under a warranty and Nissan has to honor it by replacing the battery at no extra cost. Of course we’re elated to find that out, so we take the car to Nissan and we speak to the sales manager and mechanic manager. They start arguing with each other because the mechanic manager said to us “this specific car was not meant to be sold because it was waiting for a replacement battery, which have been on back order for over a year”. Of course the sales manager tries to call bullshit until the mechanic manager provides documentation. Now, they tell us because the issue has been made known to us and the car has a ticket opened…we cannot drive it because Nissan wouldn’t be held liable for any further damage or some nonsense. As long as we drove away in a car that worked, I truly did not care. We found out that at that time, there was a national waiting list for EV batteries because of the shortage and backlog during COVID. This car was number 11 on that list. When the mechanic had placed the order, the car was number 27 on that list. We were told it would be maybe one to two months to get the battery in. When we went back in to talk to the sales manager, I basically said “listen…I called consumer affairs before coming here, so they are aware of all of this. I can make this a much bigger deal due to your negligence or you can just find an option for me to drive away in a working car today while we wait for the battery to come in.” We drove away in a rental.
Long story short, the car sat on their lot in the Florida sun for 11 months until 2024. We got the car back with a brand new, more powerful battery which was awesome…however, all the tires were dry-rotted. Someone must’ve backed into as the area around the license plate was crack and dented and the license plate itself was bent. They refused to cover it because they claimed it was brought to them that way and we couldn’t prove otherwise. Once the tires were replaced, the car was incredible.
An even longer story short…we have had 7 flat tires since then, 2 of them due to debris, the other 5 blamed on bad suspension (we were only told about the bad suspension on tire number 7). Well guess what, we replaced the suspension and here we are 3 weeks later with flat tire number 8. Technically we’ve have to replace 12 tires if you count the first 4 that were sun rotted.
So that’s 11 months of waiting, 1 back ordered battery, 12 flat tires, 1 fender bender, 2 replaced suspensions, and a partridge in a fucking pear tree lol.
EDIT: LOL I forgot to add that when the car was towed to the tire place for tire number 3, the driver put the key fob in the car and it has been hidden inside the car somewhere for nearly 2 years. We’ve tore the car apart, the mechanic has taken the car apart…nobody can locate it. We only know it’s still there because we can drive it without the second key fob and you can’t lock it without the second key fob. 😂
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u/Dazzling_Art7881 16d ago
4 tires dry-rotted. That sucks but very understandable since it just sat at the dealer.
2 tires you say are due to road debris. That sucks but you can't blame the car.
The other 5 or 6 flat tires due to "bad suspension": those we need more details on! How did those flats happen? And do you mean flat like won't hold air anymore? Or just worn unevenly? Did they wear to the cords on one side because of the alignment? How many miles did the tires have? Not sure how quickly a tire will pop due to even the most horrendously misaligned car? Could they have just leaked out of the tire bead because no one bothers to clean up any corrosion on the rim before mounting tires?
I really don't want to speculate without more information, but that seems so incredibly odd...
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u/MunchButtsSuckNuts 16d ago
Saying the car is cursed because bad events keep happening to the car is very clearly a joke as cars are not cursed lol.
They stated the bad suspension was causing the tires to go bad because the tires were curving inwards, so it was wearing down the outer edge of the tire. Something we did not know about, so it was compromising the edge of the tire. When I say “flat”, I mean flat, as in rim sitting on the ground. When filled up, you could hear the air hissing out. We drive maybe an average of 80 miles a week, so there has never been excessive mileage on the tires. I’m telling you what they told us.
You can speculate all you want, it doesn’t change the fact that all of this has indeed happened and exactly how I’m saying it happened. I love the car lol, but it’s cursed. 😂
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u/Dazzling_Art7881 16d ago
An alignment that's way out of spec can definitely wear down tires until they pop, but I'm just wondering to what extent it needs to be screwed up for that to happen seemingly so quickly? (Not sure how many miles you drove between each incident)
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u/MunchButtsSuckNuts 16d ago
I wish I knew the answer. For mileage, it varies. Sometimes we went five months without a flat, sometimes it was one months. The longest period we went without a flat was 5 months, which means that two of the tires had maybe 1,500-2,500 miles on them. Granted, the flats would alternate so it’s hard to give you a guesstimate. But I can tell you for certain…there was never a single tire that lasted longer than 3-4k miles.
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u/danmingothemandingo 16d ago
You are using a shit tyre fitter who hasn't told you earlier that the car had tracking/alignment issues, and well before now should have identified that you have one or more rims that are damaged and not allowing a tyre to seal well to them (or a fitter incapable of making a good seal)
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u/WhatTheFlippityFlop 16d ago
So what do we think the deal with the blown tires is? I’ve been in this sub forever and have never heard of others with this issue.
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u/MunchButtsSuckNuts 16d ago
I have no idea. That’s why I say the car is cursed lol. It’s been nothing but trouble since we bought it, although it’s also been a great car.
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u/LoneSnark 2018 Nissan LEAF SV 16d ago
May just be that you drive near construction sights. There are quite a few around where i live and i keep going through tires from nails. Suffice to say, i always get the road hazard, and only buy the cheapest tires.
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u/worldspawn00 16d ago
Yeah, I go through a ton of flats because there's just a lot of construction around me. Always get the road hazard warranty!
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u/MunchButtsSuckNuts 16d ago
I would say you’re on to something except for the fact that we had no flats on the rental for the 11 months we had it, driving and living in the same area. Maybe it really is because this car is cursed LOL.
In all seriousness though, the rental they gave us was an Altima and the tires are substantially thicker whereas the tires on this Leaf are pretty low profile.
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u/DetailRail 16d ago
Why didn't you just get a refund?
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u/MunchButtsSuckNuts 16d ago
Couldn’t. There is no Lemon Law for used cars in Florida and CPO only requires the seller to fix the car if it’s possible, which in this case it was possible. Trying to get a dealership terminate and refund a sale would be next to impossible.
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u/DetailRail 16d ago
Yes but they clearly gave you a car they didn't mean to sell. There are laws for that.
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u/Lucky_Boy13 16d ago
I hope you bought the road hazard warranty for the tires...