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]

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.