[graaaaaaavy]

Unfortunately the car doesn't meet requirements of warranty yet, but almost.
I believe degradation has to be down to less than 16kWh to go down to 8 bars, I think you're almost there.

Keep in mind that SOH has to be maintained for certain amount of time to drop each bar, I noticed that if car is inactive, bars don't drop as fast.
On 24kWh model 8 bars is 14kWh.

I have 2015 30kWh and 11 bars with now about 79% SOH and about 22kwh useable.

In addition to the standard three-year/60,000-mile Nissan warranty, roadside assistance and 12-year corrosion warranty, the Nissan LEAF is covered by the Lithium-ion battery warranty for five-year/60,000-mile for Nissan LEAF 24kWh and eight years/100,000-mile for Nissan LEAF 30kWh . Also covered, capacity loss when the battery health goes below 9 bars of the available 12 on the vehicle’s battery capacity gauge

LITHIUM-ION BATTERY STATE OF HEALTH GUARANTEE ** - 30kWh, 40kWh & 62kWh Battery

8 years warranty or until 100,000 miles

** The Nissan LEAF & eNV200 lithium-ion battery state of health guarantee protects against battery capacity loss (less than 9 bars out of 12) as shown on the in vehicle capacity gauge for a period of 8 years / 100,000 miles* for 40 kWh vehicles and 8 years / 100,000 miles* for 30 kWh vehicles and 5 years / 60,000 miles* for 24kWh vehicles. For LEAF flex customers, the battery state of health guarantee applies for the duration of the battery lease.

Car Warranty | Car Warranty Cover | Nissan

Discover Nissan car warranty coverage and ownership benefits. From roadside assistance to maintenance plans, explore the perks of owning a Nissan vehicle.

www.nissan.co.uk

I'm also not big fan of bars system, smells like trickery, why not just say XX% SOH?

% State of health would be much clearer - or at least if the bars were linear like every other gauge on the dash!

"Unfortunately" my state of health is very good (83%) - having generally looked after the car. The problem with a failed cell is I cannot access the last 25-30% of energy in the remaining good cells as the failed cell is the limiting factor 🤷‍♂️

 

[graaaaaaavy]

First thing you can realise, if you want, is that Nissan makes it possible to see individual module failures, something you can't notice with other car makers without proprietary software that only they have access. I don't think it's good idea to use this tool to get back at the manufacturer, you are punishing Nissan for transparency and Nissan can easily take it away on next models.
How can you know if Tesla has a bad cell? Take out battery pack and measure modules one by one.... not joking.

Tesla Shopper Gets $15,000 Model S Due To One Faulty Battery Cell

Tesla Roadster repair center Gruber Motors has a new Tesla repair to isolate and replace bad cells. This can save people a ton of money.

insideevs.com

I think that you can try to force Nissan to repair one module but we need more info to understand the extent of degradation, car mileage, number of quick charges.
Nissan can reject based on terms and conditions of the warranty.

Battery cells just fail, statistical reality.
Manufacturing defects? Depends, if the car did 60.000 miles and that one cell was fine for 60.000 miles, can you still call it manufacturing defect? To prove it, you would need to analyse cause of failure and it could be as simple as impurity in raw materials. Making perfect cells each time is possible but too expensive, so need to work with tolerance. Most battery warranties covers battery pack, not each cells and this calculation includes statistical bad cells.

I think that the true scam here is they're trying to charge you 2.4K for a repair that is worth 0.5K. I think you would be less angry if the repair cost was reasonable, 2.4k isn't reasonable and for that I'm with you.

If I were you I would replace module myself or discuss your issue with Cleevely, they have experience doing such repairs, will certainly charge you much less than 2.4K.

Thanks for your reply

I haven't used leafspy in my arguments here. I have approached this as a layperson - a consumer, which I am.

For me it's simple - I was sold the car with the reassure that it had an 8 year battery warranty - Drastic loss of range - Nissan have diagnosed and accepted the fault - also accepted the battery has been well cared for (low QCs, average mileage, no abuse) - Nissan have refused to even contribute to the repair.

I will call Clevely today, or perhaps I'll get my spanners & rubber gloves out! But I really shouldn't be having to resort to this as my car is still within warranty!

Dave..

 

[graaaaaaavy]

I'm not sure that sentence is true. The failed cell does indeed limit the charge which can be stored in the whole battery, but except that it may run hotter than the others and affect the cells right next to it, the others are given an easier time, not a tougher one.

As far as I know, the LEAF and e-NV200 batteries use 96 192 cells, as 48 "modules" in series, each module of 2 cells 4 cells, two pairs in series, each pair being two cells in parallel. If one cell fails completely so that it neither charges nor discharges, the capacity of the battery is halved, because all 48 modules 96 cell pairs carry the same current. The other 47 modules are only being run at half current, so less stressed. [edited to correct my initial mis-reading of the diagrams]

(The cell packs which use many small cells in parallel for each module, rather than two large ones, are less disastrously affected by any single cell failure. But that's not a LEAF.)

I hope you get Nissan to repair your battery either under warranty or under instruction from the Ombudsman. Firstly, it's only fair to you; and secondly, it will set a valuable precedent. Good luck!

This is interesting - it is not what I have generally been led to believe. I understood that the remaining cells would constantly be trying to balance the weak cell and would therefore be under constant stress. They still attempt to charge fully but as the battery uses charge and approaches 0% shown, charge remains in the good cells but the weak cell is dominating the available charge.

The trouble is we shouldn't even be guessing at this.

I'm a consumer who was sold a shiny new car with an 8 year battery warranty - now my battery doesn't work properly due to a fault and the warranty doesn't warrant it!

Dave..

 

[Snaxmuppet]

So if you run out of miles at 65% of the original stated mileage you would have a claim? You wouldn't know whether one cell is the issue, the battery has failed the 70% test as far as you are concerned. It is only cos we know how to look inside the battery that we know

I fail to see how Nissan can argue that you don't have battery degradation.

What is a battery? It is formed by a group (battery) of cells.

If a cell degrades then by definition the battery has degraded, because a battery is the sum of its cells. I would have no issues arguing that in the County Court! Do you have legal insurance with you household policy?

From what I have read I didn't think Nissan were saying the OP didn't have battery degradation... just that it didn't meet the threshold for a warranty claim.

It isn't as simple as you say. Degradation is quite normal for any battery. The issue as far as a warranty claim goes is this: is it below 70%? That is the only metric that is mentioned in the warranty AFAIK and so that will be the only metric that matters IMO.

 

[badmanwimmaculatelips]

Thanks for your reply

I haven't used leafspy in my arguments here. I have approached this as a layperson - a consumer, which I am.

For me it's simple - I was sold the car with the reassure that it had an 8 year battery warranty - Drastic loss of range - Nissan have diagnosed and accepted the fault - also accepted the battery has been well cared for (low QCs, average mileage, no abuse) - Nissan have refused to even contribute to the repair.

I will call Clevely today, or perhaps I'll get my spanners & rubber gloves out! But I really shouldn't be having to resort to this as my car is still within warranty!

Dave..

Hi Dave,

Sorry to hear about your abysmal experience with Nissan and the battery warranty. Having read the various opinions and responses, i've another suggestion. Try and raise your problem with someone else at Nissan. I'm making a complete guess that your problem is that the person dealing with your warranty claim has no understanding of EVs, and thus has made an interpretation that is wholly unreasonable (to either someone with common sense, or anyone with a modicum of EV experience). While either escalating or trying a new route with Nissan will take up more of your time, they might yield results using up less time that alternatives such as small claims etc.

Lastly, getting a single cell fixed by Cleevely would be the way to go if the other routes fail. Other forum members have had cells replaced via Nissan, which seems to be performed at two UK locations (Sunderland and somewhere down south - Swindon?).

Good luck.

 

[NGee]

The bar system is "simple" but so simple to be almost meaningless - you say it's well documented these figures, does Nissan provide them? if so a link would be very welcome - as a layperson who's just bought a new car I shouldn't have to reverse engineer the software to understand how these bars work.

All other gauges in the car are linear so why are the battery bars the exception?.

If you had read my full post (I know it's long!) you would see that I have found the failed cell - Nissan have diagnosed & admitted it has failed & after many pleas with Nissan and the dealer they have refused to offer any help at all leaving me no recourse but to involve the ombudsman.

Thanks for your reply any way - the better this is understood the better.

Dave..

Respectfully, it's not meaningless because it's the basis upon which Nissan provide a warranty for the battery! The 8 year warranty says that if the battery drops below 9 bars of the original 12 then they will fix the battery to return it to at least 9 bars. All warranties are limited in their scope and in this case it seems that Nissan have been pretty clear on what is covered and what they will do. It does not, unfortunately, assist you since the one clearly failing cell has not pulled down your overall state of heath to anywhere near the point where the warranty terms are met.

Apart from that cell the remainder of the pack would appear to be in good health, and while I wish you luck in pursuing Nissan via the ombudsman I am sceptical that you will have success in this circumstance. A goodwill contribution would seem to be a better proposition to pursue.

I would personally be making enquiries with independents such as Cleevely EV's about the cost of replacing that one module, and were it in the region of £500-£900 treating it as being a cost of running the vehicle just like replacing a DMF on a ICE. Not saying you should feel happy about it, but the reality appears to be that you have had a failure which isn't covered by the 8 year/100,000 mile warranty.

 

[srichards]

@graaaaaaavy

I'd raise a formal complaint with Nissan. Then if they refuse to fix it I'd take it to the ombudsman and see what happens. If the ombudsman rules in Nissan's favour then you've lost nothing. If they tell Nissan to fix it then you've saved yourself the cost of getting it fixed.

 

[Snaxmuppet]

I don't disagree with @NGee but I feel that the real issue here is that the warranty doesn't seem to cover premature failure that doesn't drop the SoH below 9 bars. That is nothing short of outrageous IMO. According to the Nissan battery warranty, in keeping with other battery warranties I have seen, only warranty against a loss of overall capacity or SoH with there being a threshold below which they will repair or replace... in the case of Nissan that appears to be 9 bars SoH, with Kia it is 70% of quoted new capacity. This means that if a battery fails significantly due to workmanship issues or for any other reason but it doesn't reduce the overall battery SoH or capacity below the warranty threshold it really doesn't matter how old that battery is... it is not going to be eligible for a warranty repair. It might be a month old, it might be a year old. That means that effectively they only warranty against higher than expected degradation at the end of the warranty period. No allowance is being taken for the fact that the battery might be a lot newer but still has significant premature degradation.

I don't think this argument will help the OP. His warranty is what it is. But I do feel that EV battery warranties are not fit for purpose as they stand. I am not sure that anyone can do anything to force manufacturers to change the method by which they determine if a battery issue is to be covered by their warranty. The manufacturer determines the warranty conditions... we as customers either agree or we choose to buy from someone else.

 

[graaaaaaavy]

@graaaaaaavy

I'd raise a formal complaint with Nissan. Then if they refuse to fix it I'd take it to the ombudsman and see what happens. If the ombudsman rules in Nissan's favour then you've lost nothing. If they tell Nissan to fix it then you've saved yourself the cost of getting it fixed.

This is about where I'm up to - the ombudsman has deemed it worthy of investigation so fingers crossed!

 

[graaaaaaavy]

Hi Dave,

Sorry to hear about your abysmal experience with Nissan and the battery warranty. Having read the various opinions and responses, i've another suggestion. Try and raise your problem with someone else at Nissan. I'm making a complete guess that your problem is that the person dealing with your warranty claim has no understanding of EVs, and thus has made an interpretation that is wholly unreasonable (to either someone with common sense, or anyone with a modicum of EV experience). While either escalating or trying a new route with Nissan will take up more of your time, they might yield results using up less time that alternatives such as small claims etc.

Lastly, getting a single cell fixed by Cleevely would be the way to go if the other routes fail. Other forum members have had cells replaced via Nissan, which seems to be performed at two UK locations (Sunderland and somewhere down south - Swindon?).

Good luck.

This may be worth a shot - I have spoken to a couple of people at Nissan customer service - my complaint manager struggled to string a sentence together so it could well be that they didn't really understand what they were talking about.

Thanks again!

 

[Hitstirrer]

There is a lot of debate about what is meant by a warranty offer of action if performance drops below 70%. I am sure that most buyers took it to mean that if the battery was only capable of physically moving the car to 70% of the original 100% range then it would have modules replaced if not totally replaced.

The ombudsman, who hopefully is not an EV driver, would resonate with that simple layman's opinion and conclude that Nissan was being disingenuous if they now seek to hide behind semantics to avoid responsibility.

I would reinforce that aspect when submitting your claim to the ombudsman and hope that common sense would prevail with an important precedent being set for future similar cases.

 

[graaaaaaavy]

UPDATE...

I have contacted Cleevely EV about replacing the faulty cell. The work would cost about £500+VAT but there are no modules available at present due to the high degradation seen on 30 kWh modules.

I have scoured the internet and can't find a single one for sale. - Interestingly when I enquired at Fish Bros Swindon (Nissan's battery center) and was quoted £2400 for the cell swap I also asked for a price to supply the parts and did actually get one.

A (presumably new) 30kWh battery cell module including consumables for replacement is £1590 (inc VAT) - add Cleevely's time & we're still at £2190 inc. VAT - slightly better than Nissan but still unaffordable.

If a battery contains 24 modules that's £38,160 for a pack's worth - bargain!

 

[graaaaaaavy]

Respectfully, it's not meaningless because it's the basis upon which Nissan provide a warranty for the battery! The 8 year warranty says that if the battery drops below 9 bars of the original 12 then they will fix the battery to return it to at least 9 bars. All warranties are limited in their scope and in this case it seems that Nissan have been pretty clear on what is covered and what they will do. It does not, unfortunately, assist you since the one clearly failing cell has not pulled down your overall state of heath to anywhere near the point where the warranty terms are met.

Apart from that cell the remainder of the pack would appear to be in good health, and while I wish you luck in pursuing Nissan via the ombudsman I am sceptical that you will have success in this circumstance. A goodwill contribution would seem to be a better proposition to pursue.

I would personally be making enquiries with independents such as Cleevely EV's about the cost of replacing that one module, and were it in the region of £500-£900 treating it as being a cost of running the vehicle just like replacing a DMF on a ICE. Not saying you should feel happy about it, but the reality appears to be that you have had a failure which isn't covered by the 8 year/100,000 mile warranty.

If Nissan put a nice clean figure on the battery degradation, we would have something more to work with. For example - if Nissan guaranteed the battery to 70% I would be arguing that although the SOH is showeing more than that, effectively the battery HAS degraded below 70% of it's original capacity as I can only use 62.5% of it.

However, though there is no official figure attached to the health bars - the salesman who sold me the car said about 70% - but this is not documented anywhere so we just have to trust that these bars represent the likely health of the battery - which they don't as I have 11/12 and my battery certainly isn't healthy!

What would be even more useful - and in my mind this is a bigger failing - would be for there to be some way to spot a failed or failing cell. Anyone who's used leafspy knows the data is there and plain to see. The car should we directing you towards a garage as soon as 1 cell appears weak (beyond a certain threshold). My symptoms began nearly 18 months ago. I was reassured by the dealership at the time that if the health bars say it's ok, then it's ok. Unfortunately it took me 12 months to catch on that something wasn't right by which time Nissan wanted to wash their hands of me.

Even the technician in the dealership who diagnosed the failed cell was shocked that Nissan didn't cover it under the battery warranty - to the point that he didn't charge me for the diagnostic having not quoted me a price being so certain it must be covered. It seemed to be news to the sales staff also.

I notice that Nissan no longer refer to it as a warranty - just a state of health "guarantee" these days, but when I was sold the car it was an "8 year battery warranty".

I have persued goodwill with Nissan and they just stopped replying to my emails!

Cleevely are unable to source cells at the moment - if you know of any going, I would be very keen. Also any other suggestions of EV independents I may approach?

Sorry for the long reply - hopefully it explains better where I'm coming from.

Comments as always, appreciated, Dave..

 

[farmergiles]

If Nissan put a nice clean figure on the battery degradation, we would have something more to work with. For example - if Nissan guaranteed the battery to 70% I would be arguing that although the SOH is showeing more than that, effectively the battery HAS degraded below 70% of it's original capacity as I can only use 62.5% of it.

However, though there is no official figure attached to the health bars - the salesman who sold me the car said about 70% - but this is not documented anywhere so we just have to trust that these bars represent the likely health of the battery - which they don't as I have 11/12 and my battery certainly isn't healthy!

What would be even more useful - and in my mind this is a bigger failing - would be for there to be some way to spot a failed or failing cell. Anyone who's used leafspy knows the data is there and plain to see. The car should we directing you towards a garage as soon as 1 cell appears weak (beyond a certain threshold). My symptoms began nearly 18 months ago. I was reassured by the dealership at the time that if the health bars say it's ok, then it's ok. Unfortunately it took me 12 months to catch on that something wasn't right by which time Nissan wanted to wash their hands of me.

Even the technician in the dealership who diagnosed the failed cell was shocked that Nissan didn't cover it under the battery warranty - to the point that he didn't charge me for the diagnostic having not quoted me a price being so certain it must be covered. It seemed to be news to the sales staff also.

I notice that Nissan no longer refer to it as a warranty - just a state of health "guarantee" these days, but when I was sold the car it was an "8 year battery warranty".

I have persued goodwill with Nissan and they just stopped replying to my emails!

Cleevely are unable to source cells at the moment - if you know of any going, I would be very keen. Also any other suggestions of EV independents I may approach?

Sorry for the long reply - hopefully it explains better where I'm coming from.

Comments as always, appreciated, Dave..

Why do members keep harking on about degradation?

You have a FAULTY cell so a warranty repair is required, and not a claim under the battery guarantee.

 

[Snaxmuppet]

There is a lot of debate about what is meant by a warranty offer of action if performance drops below 70%. I am sure that most buyers took it to mean that if the battery was only capable of physically moving the car to 70% of the original 100% range then it would have modules replaced if not totally replaced.

Range is not a definitive measure for anything. I could drive the car on a trip and you could do the same with the same car and one of us would likely get better range than the other (I'll let you work out who would be better

It really needs some metric that is not subjective... such as max / min cell voltage etc. That is not open to any kind of variance depending on the driver.

 

[Hilltop Dave]

As the voltage spread is staying almost the same (164mV @ 97.5% SOC, and 172mV @ 36.4% SOC), is this a case that Cell 46 still has its proper capacity, but has over the years lost a bit of charge compared to the other cells (? through leakage across the terminals?) which is not being replaced through the normal cell balancing when charged to 100%,

I wonder what would happen if Cleevely EV were able to put some extra charge into Cell 46 so that its voltage matched that of the other cells. Would this restore the working capacity of the battery pack?

 

[graaaaaaavy]

Range is not a definitive measure for anything. I could drive the car on a trip and you could do the same with the same car and one of us would likely get better range than the other (I'll let you work out who would be better

It really needs some metric that is not subjective... such as max / min cell voltage etc. That is not open to any kind of variance depending on the driver.

We can translate range into available battery capacity by dividing by efficiency which is recorded - in the winter I average pretty much dead on 4 miles / kWh - at 70 miles (as close as I'd want to take it to standstill) that shows 17.5 kWh available. This also tallies with leafspy which shows the battery still has about 25% of charge stored but 0% on the dash.

In the summer i get between 4.5 m/kWh & 5 on the best days

 

[graaaaaaavy]

As the voltage spread is staying almost the same (164mV @ 97.5% SOC, and 172mV @ 36.4% SOC), is this a case that Cell 46 still has its proper capacity, but has over the years lost a bit of charge compared to the other cells (? through leakage across the terminals?) which is not being replaced through the normal cell balancing when charged to 100%,

I wonder what would happen if Cleevely EV were able to put some extra charge into Cell 46 so that its voltage matched that of the other cells. Would this restore the working capacity of the battery pack?

It's an interesting idea & from comments I have seen from others, this may work temporarily but is unlikely to be a long term solution. As far as I'm aware, this procedure requires removing the cell from the vehicle which is not going to be a cheap option. I will enquire though, thanks!

 

[Snaxmuppet]

Why do members keep harking on about degradation?

You have a FAULTY cell so a warranty repair is required, and not a claim under the battery guarantee.

With my Kia warranty the battery is covered against failure in the 7 year warranty. But there is also a separate capacity guarantee that it won't drop below 70% in the 7 years or they will bring it back up to 70%. So I wonder... is the EV battery excluded from the standard warranty altogether? It isn't in the Kia warranty. If not then is your car still in warranty for the other compnents? Could this 9 bar guarantee be a capacity warranty in disguise and so not a warranty against cell failure per se which would only be covered under the normal car warranty which is 3 years IIRC (?)?

We can translate range into available battery capacity by dividing by efficiency which is recorded - in the winter I average pretty much dead on 4 miles / kWh - at 70 miles (as close as I'd want to take it to standstill) that shows 17.5 kWh available. This also tallies with leafspy which shows the battery still has about 25% of charge stored but 0% on the dash.

In the summer i get between 4.5 m/kWh & 5 on the best days

Yes, that works for you but I, with my car, may have completely different numbers. Range cannot be used for warranty purposes. Range is not guaranteed as it is very much a variable dependent on so many things.

 

[graaaaaaavy]

With my Kia warranty the battery is covered against failure in the 7 year warranty. But there is also a separate capacity guarantee that it won't drop below 70% in the 7 years or they will bring it back up to 70%. So I wonder... is the EV battery excluded from the standard warranty altogether? It isn't in the Kia warranty. If not then is your car still in warranty for the other compnents? Could this 9 bar guarantee be a capacity warranty in disguise and so not a warranty against cell failure per se which would only be covered under the normal car warranty which is 3 years IIRC (?)?


Yes, that works for you but I, with my car, may have completely different numbers. Range cannot be used for warranty purposes. Range is not guaranteed as it is very much a variable dependent on so many things.

Range is dependent upon 2 things - Efficiency & Capacity - If you know any 2 of these factors you can prove the other. Nissan even records trips & data on their system presumeably for this reason.

Range = Capacity x Efficiency.

All of these things can be measured accurately. We know the range from the odometer readings. We know the efficiency as the car constantly monitors the energy usage at all times and from this we can ascertain very accurately, the available capacity.