EV Battery Warranty on NISSAN LEAF - NISSAN WON'T FIX!

zetmanni

I need some advice please.

I bought a Nissan Leaf through my company Salary Sacrifice. Enjoyed the car immensely, and therefore decided to purchase the car after the 3 year contract through a personal loan.

I have now had the car for almost 5 years (98800 miles) and out of nowhere an alarm appeared on the dash, warning of Battery EV Fault, and that the car would shut down, which is exactly what it did in the middle of traffic. This occurred roughly 6 months ago.

To cut a long story short

I opened a case with Nissan GB reporting of the problem, who they they communicated further with the dealer who I took the car to.

The Nissan Dealer then advised me that they seeked advice from their Master Tech, who stated it could be a problem with one or 2 of the cells in the Lithium Battery, but it would cost £750 to run a test, and if it it is a cell that is damaged and needs replacing will cost in region of £3500 per cell to replace!

To make things worse the Nissan Dealer has stated that they will not fix the issue as the potential damage does not fall under the 5 Yr/100000mile Warranty. They have mentioned that the fine print is that NISSAN will only replace the battery if it has degraded more than 10% within this period? I believe the car (Battery) is now 100% degraded which they are arguing against.

NISSAN GB on the other hand have now closed the case. I have tried to contact them on why they have close the case, Their explanation is that the battery cannot be fixed under the warranty and have gone with the advice of the NISSAN Dealer that I would need to tow the car to their Master Tech at my own expense and get the reparations done at my own account.

I am lost on what options I have, and would like to seek advice on where to go from here, and what is the Warranty actually for?

Thanks

Manuel

DrEskimo

This 5yr/60,000 mile warranty covers faults on the battery component. The 8yr/100,000 mile warranty is a battery capacity one. 

The latter covers the event that the battery is functioning as it should, but at a limited capacity (if it drops below 9/12 bars). 

What you describe sounds more like a fault. It hasn’t degraded. I would try and seek a EV specialist garage outside of the Nissan network as I doubt you will have any luck arguing against Nissan.  

WellKnownSid

Seek out an EV specialist - https://hevra.org.uk/garages.html

flashg67

you've mentioned 'potential damage' - has the battery been physically damged say by accident/running over something etc? 

Mr.Generous

Great advert for Nissan and electric cars. Dreadful service.

Keep_pedalling

Mr.Generous said:

Great advert for Nissan and electric cars. Dreadful service.

I am sure that no petrol or diesel cars have major very expensive engine failures after 100,000 miles 😈. 

WellKnownSid

Keep_pedalling said:

Mr.Generous said:

Great advert for Nissan and electric cars. Dreadful service.

I am sure that no petrol or diesel cars have major very expensive engine failures after 100,000 miles 😈. 

Sadly this won't be the first time a main dealer has quoted £££££ for a new engine / gearbox / expensive thing for an out of warranty car because they are too busy and just don't want the work.

It's important to note that the dealer has not even diagnosed the car - they've just asked for an opinion as to what it might be...

For EV specialists like Cleevely and others, Zoes, Leafs and Teslas are their bread and butter - they will be far more qualified than a Nissan main dealer because they deal with these issues every day and they've worked out the cheapest way to get people back on the road.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ySOspbt0BM

zetmanni

@DrEskimo. 

You have pointed out exactly why they are arguing. The 8yr/100000 mile warranty is for degradation, but see attached from the LeafSpy Report, which you will note the damage in cells as well as the SOH at the top of the pic is in region of 80% which surely should justify that the battery has degraded by 10%?

zetmanni

These are the exact same guys I have spoken to and they have mentioned from the pics attached tgat the battery has degraded that it is best to replace the battery entirely for £8000, but as soon as they ‘touch’ the car, the so-called warranty that Nissan provides will be void.

zetmanni

@WellKnownSid I was talking about Cleevley Motors in my last comment

DrEskimo

zetmanni said:

@DrEskimo. 

You have pointed out exactly why they are arguing. The 8yr/100000 mile warranty is for degradation, but see attached from the LeafSpy Report, which you will note the damage in cells as well as the SOH at the top of the pic is in region of 80% which surely should justify that the battery has degraded by 10%?

The warranty I believe covers degradation when it falls below 9 of the 12 bars on the dash. My understanding is that the bars are not linear (I.e., each bar is not a 8% drop) and would represent degradation to around 60-70% SOH. 

I certainly don’t think the warranty covers 80% SOH.