Nissan Qashqai battery

Indoor

My car is under 3 years old with 14400 miles but the battery has failed to start the car. The mechanic who jump started this under an insurance included in a fee paid monthly to a building society stated this was the fifth he had attended on Qashqais and that I should take it to a garage to get replaced. I phoned Lookers Carlisle from whom I had purchased the car new but was told I had to pay £144 for them to diagnose the fault and see if it was covered by the 3 year warranty. As this was more than a new battery I took it to a local garage to have replaced and again was told this was not an uncommon occurrence. Has anyone else had a problem with a Qashqai battery . I contacted Nissan customer services but they just reiterated I had to pay for a diagnostic.

lopsyfa

It has probably died because you are mostly doing short miles (based on the 14400 miles in three years). You have done the right thing by simply replacing the battery otherwise you will have wasted the diagnosis fee.
You should invest in a trickle charger if you are going to keep the same driving profile otherwise the new battery will soon fail.

AdrianC

Agree with Lopsy.

How many of that 14k has been in the last year?

Indoor

I have done about 4000 in the last year

colino

Take it to a real garage with a real battery tester to check out the condition of the battery.  It may need replaced or just need charged up.  Low miles with loads of modules (that don't always go to sleep properly) can kill a battery quite quickly though.

TadleyBaggie

My Qashqai's battery died after 15 months or so, apparently there was a bad batch for the stop/start models. RAC guy turned up, tested it, confirmed it was faulty and replaced it. RAC claimed it back directly from Nissan.

facade

"modern" cars have alternators controlled by the ecu.

I found out on Tuesday that it works completely opposite to how I thought.

I thought the alternator ran full chat during the warm-up cycle, when no-one cares about emissions, then chopped back when running to reduce fuel consumption and CO2 when they are measured.

Apparently what they actually do is not bother to work at all until the engine is thoroughly warm, and also reduce the output at low speeds to avoid overloading the teeny little engines cars are saddled with now (load-shedding). The result is that they don't even manage to replace the energy used in a cold start on a short trip, and if the car is mainly used to nip down to the shops, the battery gradually discharges, then leaving it standing discharged destroys it.

Seems counter-intuitive, and frankly insane, but fits with the battery problems people seem to get nowadays.

Homer_home

Indoor said:

I have done about 4000 in the last year

Mystery solved

BillTrac

I got a brand new Qashqai in March 2019. After a couple of months I went away for a week. Came back to a non-starter. RAC got me going and said I should get Nissan to check it. took it to my dealer the next day and they replaced the battery. Apparently, there was a batch of batteries that had this issue.