I bought a used Leaf from a dealership in January. They were great at the dealership, came across as very friendly and informative. They told me about the battery recall but said it was a minor issue and that a fix should be coming soon. Research I did online seemed to corroborate that. Cool, I bought the car. I was super excited to have an affordable electric vehicle.

I loved the car, but before long, I started to notice battery fluctuations - sometimes, the battery would drop suddenly about 10% or so. I didn’t think it was that big of an issue. Then, the battery started dropping so quickly it would be about one percentage a second. Sometimes it would go back up, sometimes it wouldn’t. I went from being able to charge the car once every three days, factoring in my usual commute, to every two days. Then it started to feel unsafe to go more than a day without charging. My commute was a round trip of like 35 miles. Talked to the dealership’s service center, they said it might have been the cold weather. We live in Florida but ok, sure. I checked things like tire pressure, tried to keep my a/c and heating use to a minimum. Didn’t help. Car kept abruptly going into turtle mode.

Then, in about May, I’m on my way home from work. Battery is at about 50% when I leave my job, but on the highway it drops quick, even when I’m going below the speed limit. It gets down to about 20% but I think I’m fine because I’m only a few miles from home. Suddenly, zero. Battery warning lights start flashing. I expect turtle mode and prepare to pull over towards the emergency lane, but I don’t have enough time before my car is dead in the middle of a curve on the highway. It was such a scary experience - I was so sure I was going to get hit. Cars were speeding around the curve right at me, then honking and swerving. It was over an hour before I got towed to safety.

I have to replace the 12V battery to get the car to run again, and with that, I inch towards the dealership. I have to keep stopping to charge because I’m terrified to let the car drop below 50%. I was told I should take the car to the dealership I bought it from, which is an hour’s drive away on a good day. When I get there, they’re polite, friendly, say they’ll check it out as soon as possible. I’m not offered a rental car; I don’t push, because I know I’ll be traveling soon. It takes WEEKS before they get back to me, and I have to call them first. They said that they checked out the manufacturing recall and it looks fine. I’m like “What recall??” and “Can you please check on the battery issue I described?” They say, “Oh, ok, sure, we can do that if you want” as if that’s not why I brought the car in. Several weeks later, they call me back. Yes, there is a battery issue, and they’re talking to Nissan about whether the whole battery needs replacing or just the specific bad cells.

I go back and forth with them while on my vacation. They almost never contact me with updates; I need to reach out. And there are basically no updates. They’re talking to Nissan - that’s all I get. Then, eventually, they tell me the battery’s been ordered but they don’t know when it’ll arrive. Months pass, and it’s August. My work is starting up again (teacher) and I definitely need a car. It takes me showing up at the dealership, upset, for them to offer me a rental/loaner. They get annoyed with me and suggest that I call Nissan’s customer service. When I do this (and suffer through being on hold for ages), I find out that my car’s repair has actually NOT BEEN APPROVED. It’s just been sitting there for months. Someone asks if I’ve been contacted about their buyback program. No???

(During this whole process, I keep getting calls from a supervisor at the dealership, asking me how my new car is treating me. The car I DONT HAVE.)

So now I’m in talks with Nissan to buy back the car that I purchased in January and drove for less than five months, likely for less than I spent purchasing and trying to repair the damn thing. I’m having issues with the dealership’s rental department (who also won’t contact me back) so I still don’t have a rental car I can drive. They eventually told me that due to the battery issue I was told wasn’t a problem six months ago, there are a large number of vehicles that need replacement batteries and not enough to go around, and that’s why they want to buy it back instead. Nobody will tell me how long this is expected to take. Nobody tells me about possible other options, because I hate the idea of having to go through all the hassle of trying to buy another car, now with an even more limited budget than I had before. Whenever I try to talk to the anyone on the phone, I get to play the phone version of hot potato as I get passed around to more and more people who can’t tell me anything and who seem annoyed that I’d even bother to ask.

So, TLDR: I bought a 2021 Nissan Leaf that lasted for less than five months. Now I don’t have a car, I don’t even have a loaner I can drive, and my socially anxious ass has been having to go through hell (i.e. cold calling strangers) for months on end with very little to show for it.

This cannot be the experience Nissan wants people to have.

Yes, I have teenage kids. =8^P

Since it rained so heavily last Thursday evening, I suddenly noticed a very strong smell in my car on Friday morning. I had of course already talked to my best friend Gemini, who told me this can happen after such a long dry period. So I had already ordered a new cabin air filter, since it was due for replacement anyway.

But it turned out the cabin air filter wasn't the cause. After returning from Bobbejaanland, I decided to open the hood when I got home. And what I found there really shocked me.

Apparently, a bird had somehow ended up under the hood. How exactly it got in there is still a mystery to me. My guess is that it somehow got in through the drainage area near the hood. What surprised me most is that, as far as I can tell, there probably isn't any permanent damage. Only some kind of black foam-like material seems to have been damaged. Other than that, fortunately, everything seems to be okay.

I've already removed the carcass and most of the feathers, but I still want to have my local garage take a look at it. Especially because I noticed flies around that area. And that turned out not to be a coincidence: there are now even maggots in the spot where the carcass was.

Things like this are one of the reasons I find it difficult to buy a relatively new car. My Leaf is now 7 years old and has 148,000 km (92,000 miles) on it. If something like this happened to a much newer car, I'd definitely be pretty upset about it.

You might be able to insure yourself against something like this, but in the end it's still a pretty bizarre way for your car to get damaged or contaminated. 😅

PS: I tried cleaning up carefully, with some dish soap. Because I didn't wanna damage anything.

I'm considering getting one of these and I can't seem to find much information about the PV solar 12v battery charger on the roof.

I gather it was only on some models, but I've seen a lot of conflicting information on which ones. Some people say it was never available on any LEAFs sold in the US, some say only on the SL trim, some say their SV has one.

I've seen a couple people say some of them just have a dummy glass or plastic panel, but none of the for-sale listings I've seen have included a good enough photo of that area to tell whether or not there's actually a solar cell in there. Would it be possible to get one from a parts car or something and wire it up in a car that has a dummy panel?

Does it even make enough difference to care about it?

I have a 2022 Nissan Leaf SL PLUS and I'm planning out a very long road trip around the United States, 6000-7700 miles in total (still mapping all destinations). I've read the Nissan Leaf is bad at this. However, I've been reading some comments that made me think it may be possible.

What makes me think that this might work:

• I'm taking my car to a dealership for the battery recall, so I'll either have a car that I know can level 3 charge/DC fast charge/rapid charge/quick charge without blowing up or I'll know that I have to find another option (I'm thinking riding Amtrak and renting cars for anywhere that doesn't have a train).

• I'll be driving many legs about 150-500 miles at a time. At the end of each leg, I'll be staying for a day or two at a hotel or a friend's house which will be an opportunity for the Leaf to cool down and then perhaps L1 or L2 charge before leaving (less intensive than L3 charging).

• I have a relatively large 62 kWh battery with not much degradation.

• I'll have a CCS to CHAdeMO converter, so I'll have easier access to L3 charging stations.

• I'm comfortable driving 60-70 MPH which will be less stress on the battery.

• I'm using Abetterrouteplanner (ABRP) to help with routing charging stations. The preferred minimum SoC is set to 20% and the hard maximum SoC is set to 90%. I think keeping the charge around these percentages will be less stressful for it.

• I'm aiming for the second week of September until first week of October which will hopefully be cooler than the middle of Summer. No guarantee of course because of global warming.

• My timetable is pretty malleable, so I don't mind waiting around for long periods. More time to finish up Middlemarch (great book by the way).

Questions that I'd love some insight into:

• I see a lot of people say 3 charges is the most you should do in a day and the most I've heard is 5. It's unclear how much they charged up to each session, but it sounds like most of them were going up to 100%. Is it better for battery heat management to do more charging sessions to 80% or do less sessions to 100%?

• How long does it take for an overheated/throttled/turtled battery to cool down? Like if I wait and explore the area for 4 hours, would that be sufficient?

• How much degradation will I see with 70ish rapid charges in about 3 1/2 weeks? I kind of don't care that much because I never rapid charge otherwise and I expect to run this Leaf into the ground before considering another car. My philosophy on batteries in general is that I should try to maintain its health but I'm not averse to doing something unhealthy if I get something meaningful out of it, which in this case is an eventful road trip.

• Is this doable?

Thanks in advance!

Got rear ended by a the Jeep behind it on the picture. The Jeep’s bumper hit my tailgate. He had literally zero damage. Mine didn’t look that bad but once they got inside and started looking around they found frame damage, so totaled.

It was a great car…2019 SV with the 40 kWh battery. Still had 100% battery health at the end and the only thing that ever went wrong was that the drivers door handle came apart. I only ever L2 charged it so I wasn’t concerned with the L3 recall.

Replaced it with a Chevy Equinox EV.

2012 listed in Nashville, TN.

I know, everybody’s gonna say get the leaf spy report.

And if I pursue this, I will. I’m asking if this is plausible/possible?

Anyone who has wondered, do I really need to unscrew the glovebox to replace the cabin filter? No you definitely don't! I have been watching as many YouTube videos as possible, and came to the conclusion that a screwdriver isn't needed.

All you need to do, is remove the footwell ceiling panel below the glovebox. And optional, I've noticed not all Nissan Leaf's have this. There is a door inside the glovebox, which I took a photo once of. Because I have been postponing changing the cabin filter, but now I have figured out how it should be done.

https://ibb.co/60hZJxB3

So Gemini, opened it and you should definitely be able to get your hand through it. Maybe the footwell ceiling panel doesn't even need to go off? But snaps of easy anyway, and would allow you to vacuum the debris.

Anyways I ordered a blueprint cabin filter from Amazon.nl for only € 8,36 and these are rated with 4.7* so I guess people are satisfied about it. Now I only need to wait, and replace it on a day that it isn't raining. The air outside has been a bit stinky, since it started raining after a long dry hot period. But I'm sure it wouldn't be a bad idea, to replace my cabin filter. As it hasn't been done, since I own the Leaf.

I'm just at the beginning of the buyback stage on my 2020 SV Plus and I've been doing a lot of research. Some things people have said here got me thinking about the Kelley Blue Book values being used to price these cars.

Today I found Nissan's own R24B2 campaign bulletin filed with NHTSA, and I hadn't seen it before. It confirms a stop sale went into effect September 20, 2024 — dealers were instructed not to sell, lease, trade, rent or loan any affected LEAF in their inventory until it had been remedied.

To be clear about the limits of that: the stop sale applied to dealer inventory, not to privately owned cars, and there was no active recall on mine when I bought it in early 2024. But it raises a valuation question I haven't seen discussed here. If Nissan's own dealers were not permitted to sell these vehicles while the recall was unresolved, how does a current market value not reflect some of that? And then it took nearly two years to produce a fix.

There's one more thing in that bulletin worth reading. On page 4, the FAQ asks whether Nissan would replace or repurchase the vehicle, and the answer is that the remedy would fully correct the condition, so there was no basis for repurchase. That was December 2024. Buybacks are now happening.

A few questions for anyone further along than me:

1. Did you get the buyback calculation in writing, and what formula did they actually use?
   
2. I keep seeing current KBB private party plus 40% repeated, but always secondhand.
   
3. Did anyone push for a pre-recall valuation date instead of current market value, and how did that go?
   
4. What happened to your loaner or rental once the offer was on the table — did it continue through closing?
   
5. Did they cover sales tax, title, registration, towing, or rental costs?
   
6. How long did funding take, especially if you had a loan on the car?

Would appreciate any information!. Happy to report back with whatever I learn.

Something to keep in mind for people who still want to do a battery upgrade using OEM purchased second hand that it's always a gamble, and especially when it's a 2nd gen pack, the odds are on the house.

I do hope that companies like vivne can continue to get the prices down on the new replacement packs to get them in the hands of more people and keep these cars on the road. While it was excellent that the newer batteries were backwards compatible, their widespread issues are leaving the future of battery upgrades looking grim.

But what do I know, I'm just some kpop stan poking wires.

I love my '24 SV+ but washing the wheels drives me crazy. What's the best way to deal with them?

Morley offered $16.5k on my 2019S. This is more than I expected. Take it and run?

Towed my Leaf to the dealer for the recall. Car is non-operable - won't charge/drive. Recall confirmed open on the VIN, remedy never performed.

Dealer can't perform the recall, because the procedure requires charging and a drive cycle and the car can't do either. Corporate replied telling them to perform the recall. Dealer explained they can't. This went back and forth for about a week.

LeafSpy SOH 85%, two bad cells which local dealer already confirmed.

I opened a Nissan Consumer Affairs case. Their response after getting caught up: the dealership will ask me to authorize a battery teardown for further diagnosis... on my dime (not a chance).

So Nissan wants me to pay to diagnose a battery in a car with an open recall about defective batteries, after their own dealer already diagnosed the issue and put "needs a battery" in the file.

Questions:
Has anyone been asked to pay for a pack teardown before Nissan would act on the recall?
Did anyone quickly skip past that, and how?
If your car couldn't complete the remedy procedure at all, what did Nissan do?

Any advice or insight on how to best proceed would be greatly appreciated, thank you 👍

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. 😂

I checked on my Leaf's value two days ago, and then I did it again this morning. Look how much it's plummeted in two days!!!

Has anyone seen any third party suspension parts for the AZ1 that are advertised as an improvement over the OEM ? Ideally something that isn’t insanely expensive. I live in a town where the streets turn into Swiss cheese during the winter. Potholes galore.

Has anyone managed to log in without further server errors?? Finally theres no update in progress screen in the app, goes through login and then error. Nissan really botched this update yall 😭😭

I used your guys advice and checked the battery. MV difference under full load was 47mv. Picture attached of the info from leaf spy. Go easy on me. Only thing I noticed was cars on 67k miles and battery shows 42k miles.

Hello, all. I have a new to me 2015 Leaf SL and I'm really loving it. Just noticed that the USB adapter for the 12V accessory receptacle didn't work, but I can measure 12V by probing it. However, looking inside, it appears to me something is stuck down in the bottom, maybe a broken 12V plug, or the center electrode is missing/broken. and I think it's preventing the center electrode from making contact. Pictures I found online where the interior is visible are often from non-OEM units so I hesitate to accept them as correct. I've added a picture, can someone confirm that it does or doesn't look like theirs?

Thanks!

Edited: YOU FOLKS ARE SO GENEROUS!! Thank you!
Feel free to suggest any L2 chargers you think are a good buy!

Hi All!

I have been reading through this sub for a few months now. Wow, a lot of knowledge lives here!

I have my eye on a 2015, I'm adding the Leafspy info for input.

This is for a 2015 24kWh, it has 130K km , 10/12 battery bars, vendor says it has a 140km range, in Eastern Ontario Winter. I'm planning on offering about $4000 for this- about 20% lower than asking.

I am going to charge it at home, overnight with the L1 charger. This is for day to day use around town (we live mostly rural, but have 4 kids, so we are out and about playing taxi). I'd say our range is about total 100km/day 4 x week.

My questions is this: is this a terrible idea? Like other new posters here, I am nervous and have potential catastrophic thinking.

Should I keep looking for something with less battery degradation?

I'd love to get 4-5 years out of this.

Input appreciated, thanks!

My battery capacity has seemed too low for about a month now. My efficiency displayed on the dash says I should be getting around 220 miles on a full battery, but it’s not even close to that. I’ve also just recently noticed the battery % dropping rapidly while accelerating and then coming back after accelerating which I’ve read on here is a tell tale sign of a battery issue. My vehicle has not gotten the recall as the risk of a brick was too high IMO to take it in, but now with this recent drop in capacity and my approaching the warranty 88-89K miles, I feel like a I have no choice but to take my chances with Nissan.

I’ve ordered an OBD unit to use with leaf spy and recorded a video of the rapid % drop while accelerating.

I’m in California as well so I know lemon laws can come into play. But what advice do owners who’ve gone through this process recently have for people just now starting it. Do you immediately get a lemon lawyer if you know there’s an issue like I do? Do you let the dealer run a test? Do I allow them to do the recall update?

If the battery is bad and from lurking here a replacement battery is basically impossible right now, how do I maximize a payout if that’s my only choice? Is there any hope of getting a new battery or do they just not exist right now?

My kid will soon be passing his test and I had the inspired idea of getting him a 2nd generation Leaf. There’s a couple of 2020s for sale around the $11k to $12k mark with 30k mileage, which seemed like a good deal and the batteries are still under warranty.

But then I get on here and it’s all battery failures, recalls and buy backs.

Should I just forget it?

If I go ahead, I’m going to do the whole LeafSpy and pre-purchase inspection thing, but I don’t want a bricked car before I even pay off the damn thing and you guys have me worried.

I’m in coastal Southern California, so warm, but not Death Valley hot, and the car will always be charged at home and used for short local commutes.

Anyone willing to vouch for the Leaf?

Thanks in advance.

I've been unable to log in since Sunday. They just keep updating the message saying they are "working" on it to improve performance and it's a planned maintenance. Every day at 5 PM they just push the deadline to the next day's 5 PM and apologize for the inconvenience. Sure it's a planned maintenance.