Fifth Maintenance Checkup
for my Nissan Leaf

February 19, 2016

Mark D Larsen


As the wheels turn
(click to enlarge)


The maintenance settings in my Leaf reminded me that it was time for another scheduled checkup. As you can see in the photo above, when I pulled up to the service bay at the dealership, the odometer showed just a few ticks past the recommended 37,500 threshold. As was the case in the previous checkups, there was hardly anything to check. It wasn’t even necessary to rotate the new tires, since Big O now takes care of that for free. Consequently, the service technician merely inspected:

He also ran the usual battery diagnostic test. Below are scans of the printouts for my records. I am amused that the one on the left shows a diagram for any vehicle, including engine, transmission, exhaust, etc., —all irrelevant for an electric vehicle. The technician told me that there are sheets specifically for Leafs, but the manager doesn't bother to order them for the shop.


Am I missing parts?
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Star Shine
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The printout on the right above confirms that I have lost two capacity bars, but still gives me “5 stars” in all four categories for the way I care for my battery. Because the first category reports how frequently one has used QuickCharging, it jogged my memory of something I had noticed using Leaf Spy Pro the other day. After leaving the dealership, I therefore took a screenshot of that readout, shown below on the left. You can see that, in the second line at the top, it states “2 QCs.” This makes me laugh, since it is obviously referring to the two times I tried —and failed— to QuickCharge at Tahiti Village when attending the National Drive Electric EV'ent in Las Vegas last September. Evidently whenever a QuickCharger connects to a Leaf, but then immediately shuts off without charging, that also counts in the onboard computer’s tally.


Leaf Spy Pro
(click to enlarge)

LEAFStat
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I am also surprised that the screenshot shows 3,753 Level 1/Level 2 charges in my Leaf. I refuse to believe that said number is accurate. I have owned my Leaf for only 1,422 days, rarely charge it more than once per day, yet that readout gives an average of... 2.64 charges per day! In point of fact, since the odometer at the top of the page shows that I have driven 37,569 miles, Leaf Spy’s tally is claiming that I’ve plugged it in... every 10 miles! No way!

Since Leaf Spy only rounds up the capacity state-of-health (SOH) to whole percentages, I have also included on the right above the LEAFStat screenshot that I took when first starting the car in the morning. As you can see, it reports a more accurate 73.80% capacity, supposedly 1.30% away from losing the third bar, accordingly to the LEAF Wiki Website.

While my Leaf was in the doctor’s office, shown below on the left, I noticed in the dealership an odd display, below on the right, which made me shake my head in wry amusement.


Give me a lift
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No Chargers to Charge Program?
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If you open the enlarged version of that photo, you will see that it is touting Nissan’s “No Charge to Charge” program. Unfortunately, there are NO “DC fast charging locations” anywhere around here. Indeed, the map on the display shows the greater Salt Lake City area, where there are 15 such stations to date. My guess is that Nissan simply produced and sent these displays to all the dealerships in Utah, without even realizing that this one... is 300 miles away! Oops.