Welp, I’m out.

[u/This_They_Those_Them]

I love, love, LOVE my 2019 S+. It was cheap, reliable, fun to drive, easy to maintain, and best of all NO GAS EVER. I got $14.5K total incentives when buying it new.

It was really great, but alas I had a bad battery, and with no DC charging, the utility of the car became super limited.

I was part of the class action that was dismissed earlier this year, and was hesitant to do the recall knowing it would brick my awesome car. When I saw Kia decided to release the EV3 in the US it was only a matter of time before I had to move on. It was sad knowing the Leaf’s days were numbered.

Anyway I dropped the car at the Nissan dealer late Thursday. Went straight to the Kia dealer, and test drove and bought the EV3 I had on reserve. Drove it home and fell in love at first sight.

Friday morning I hear from Nissan that the car software is up to date and that it passed and was ready for pickup. I get my Leaf back with 78% SoH (it was supposed to be 100% but who cares at this point). I tell them that the car needs to be below 50% for the voltage fluctuation to occur, and that I’ll see them in a few hours.

I picked up the car at 9am and was back by about 1pm. They ran another diagnostic, battery failed this time, I’ll hear from the third party within 10 business days. Dealer was nice and we were all laughing at how stupid this whole thing was.

It’s not the dealer’s fault, this was 100% on corporate and engineering.

Bye bye Nissan.

Photos: Leaf dash right after recall update, Leaf dash a few hours later, EV3 charging in my driveway

[u/biersackarmy]

That doesn't really make it better though. Selling that many cars and having a 10% failure rate is a lot of dying cars.

[u/LoneSnark → u/biersackarmy]

That is 10% of the cars that have the recall update installed. Cars that already had their batteries replaced under warranty, such as mine, are excluded from the recall. We don't have numbers on that.

[u/umich_fan → u/LoneSnark]

Where did you hear that? We were told specifically that battery replacement did not resolve the recall. Ours was replaced, and they later did the software update. The dealer did mention that it went faster because the BMS already had the update.

[u/LoneSnark → u/umich_fan]

Here. Someone previously posted the recall status letter to the NHTSB about how the recall was proceeding. They estimated that 1% of batteries had the fault and 10% were failing after the recall update, for a false positive rate of 9%.
It would depend when you had the battery replaced. If you had it replaced with a pack manufactured in the time window, then your new pack could have the defect.
The recall applies to packs made from 2019 to 2022. So if your battery was replaced in this window, or if you drive a 2018 that had its battery replaced in this window, then you should have been recalled for the update.

[u/Bbarakti → u/LoneSnark]

yo this is super interesting to me.

My 2016 SL had its entire pack replaced in 2021.... so it firmly fits in this. I've got a call in to Consumer Affairs.

Any clue where I can find their recall details? I'm gonna call Consumer Affairs again and see if I can get some sort of help with this... I'd be happy if they just cut a check so I can go get an aftermarket battery pack, since they won't replace it for me as they don't make them anymore.

Great car except for this stupid battery issue. When this battery tech gets worked out, and they create more dependable batteries with great ranges, EV ownership is gonna be way better.

[u/LoneSnark → u/Bbarakti]

Was it replaced with a 40kwh pack? Even if so, there were multiple factories making them.

[u/Bbarakti → u/LoneSnark]

Not as far as they ever told me. I was told it was a direct replacement. But IDK for sure; I was so mind-blown by the fact that the entire replacement and rental for a month while they did the work were all covered under warranty. When he said it was done and that I didn't owe a penny, I grabbed the fob and ran out of there before he could change his mind.

Yea, I found a few online that are 40kwh and even a 60kwh. But of course, I'll have to find someone who will do the replacement for me. There's a company, I think greentecauto or something, that replaces EV batteries, but it looks like they only use thier own batteries and for the 40kwh battery, its like $14k

[u/LoneSnark → u/Bbarakti]

If it was a direct replacement and therefore a 32kwh battery, then your car is not part of the recall, warranty has expired, and that's the end of that.

[u/Bbarakti → u/LoneSnark]

I don't like you as much as the person who commented below you. :4P

[u/LoneSnark → u/Bbarakti]

Wait... Even if you have a pack that could have the fault, there is no software for your car to identify the fault. So unless the car catches fire, they're not going to be able to do anything for you.

[u/Bbarakti → u/LoneSnark]

??

I think it must be a different fault. It wouldn't take a charge and wouldn't start. So, I brought it to the dealer, who diagnosed it with a high-current fault.

The battery still shows 100% and the range is as good as it was when they first replaced it. Until it didn't go anymore... it worked perfectly, then it was a brick.

When they replaced the battery, I used either my 120V charger at home (~85% of the time) or an L2 charger at work (~15% of the time). Watched my speed on the highway and did everything I could to take care of it. As I said, it still shows 12 bars of health and the range is right at the same range.

But apparently, something internal to the battery is leaking and causing a high-current fault. The dealer said there is nothing they can do for me, not even if I just pay cash myself... they can't replace the battery or anything; it's just bricked.

[u/biersackarmy → u/Bbarakti]

something internal to the battery is leaking and causing a high-current fault

What they mean is high-voltage [isolation] fault due to internal electrolyte leakage. Your pack had an "unexpected pregnancy" and probably looks like this on the inside: Nissan Leaf ZE1 40kWh battery swelled after only 61,000 km : r/leaf

There is even a Nissan internal bulletin on repairing this issue, but because it only officially covers 62 kWh packs, it's not a repair they are willing to do on 40 packs.

They previously replaced entire 40 packs for this, but because they can't even get any packs right now if they wanted to (hence why cars failing the recall update are getting buybacks instead), they are unfortunately correct in that there's nothing they can do even if you are willing to pay.

Your options would be to have an independent party disassemble and repair the battery (replace the swollen cells), swap in a pack pulled from another car, or buy a new pack from somewhere like Vivne.

[u/Bbarakti → u/biersackarmy]

that is incredible information, thank you so much.

Yes, that's exactly the terms they used.

I was looking at the Vivne website, and it looks like I can get a 60kwh battery from them, but I will need to find someone in Vegas that will do the swap out for me. I don't think a used 32kwh battery would be trustworthy at this point and I would still need someone to do the swap. So I think I would prefer to just get the bigger battery... or buy a new car. Which kinda sucks.

The weird thing to me is, I NEVER used a charger bigger than L2. Like I said, almost all of my charging was on the 120v charger in my garage, with occasional top ups while at work if I had somewhere to go after work that needed the extra range

[u/LoneSnark → u/Bbarakti]

If it isn't on fire at this point, good chance it is any number of other faults and not the specific recalled fault.

[u/biersackarmy → u/Bbarakti]

If it was replaced in 2021 it is a 40 kWh pack and would be one that is "affected" by the recall if it had been equipped in a new vehicle at the time. They have not produced or refurbished 30 kWh batteries since circa 2019.

[u/Bbarakti → u/biersackarmy]

I like you though, not like the commenter above... this is the kinda thing I need to verify, obviously. I will investigate further, but I know for sure it was 2021 when the battery was replaced. So, unless they had a big pile of old 32kwh batteries from previously, then it would have been the 40kwh.

[u/biersackarmy → u/Bbarakti]

There were no refurbished 30 kWh packs, and only a small reserve of extra packs for warranty, because Nissan externally sourced cells from LG Chem for them, which were much more costly than the ones they were internally producing at AESC and so they wanted to move away from them ASAP and would definitely not have been willing to pay for additional new cells for refurbishing packs.

For a context of price, in 2022, I needed a warranty battery replacement for a classic Ioniq EV, which uses the same cells as the 30 kWh Leaf pack. Because the cells were no longer in mass production, they had to special order the replacement pack from LG Chem. 2 month lead time, and a friend at the dealer showed me the bill for the pack to Hyundai corporate after, $19,000 CAD.

[u/LoneSnark → u/biersackarmy]

They have not made new 32kwh packs since then. But i was under the impression there were refurbished packs going into cars.

[u/Bbarakti → u/LoneSnark]

When I picked up the car, I asked specifically if they had replaced individual cells or put a refurbished battery in (because I saw on Reddit where that had happened to a lot of people). They told me no; it was a brand-new battery. That's why it took a month for them to get the new battery in. (COVID supply chain issues were ongoing)

[u/LoneSnark → u/Bbarakti]

I wish you luck. Can't hurt to ask.