Renault leased battery “capacity guarantee” is a joke

yoke · 29-11-2021 7:47am #1

Background: Renault Fluence EV, battery leased from RCI (Renault Credit International) bank, terms of lease contract states that while the car is under 10 years old, RCI will pay for the battery to be reconditioned or replaced if it ever goes below 75% at maximum charge.

What they don’t tell you is that it’ll cost you ~€430 to get software upgraded on the car and some tests run by their dealer network before they will even consider reconditioning your battery.

To add insult to injury, when I rang Renault Airton road back in June, I was told to bring in the car for a test, cost me €108 (they charged for 1 hours work), they confirmed the SOH on the battery was at 69%, and then they pissed about for nearly 5 months and finally after loads of chasing up, they gave me a call last Friday to tell me that the next step (if I wanted to continue) would be to get some software upgrade at a cost of around €325 to determine if the battery was really below 75% SOH.

No chance of a refund of my €108 either.

What a joke of a dealership, has anyone actually gotten a leased battery replacement from Renault in the last 2 years, and how much were you asked to pay for “diagnosis”?

29-11-2021 11:56am

why are you pursuing this. best case scenario is they'll give you a battery from another similarily old car that will be just above 75% SOH to get out of warranty period. You are not going to be getting a new battery.

the_amazing_raisin · 29-11-2021 5:51pm

Gotta say that battery lease was a great moneymaking scam for Renault, even worse than gadget insurance

29-11-2021 6:14pm

at this stage the battery must be purchasable for a few hundred euro from Renault Finance and you can sell it to someone who likes to tinker for cost then break the car down for parts.

silver_sky · 29-11-2021 6:46pm

Check what your lease agreement states. Is it for you to prove (or pay) to confirm that the battery is indeed below the warrantied SOH?

celtic_oz · 29-11-2021 8:01pm

sounds like you have a case, worth 2K ?

https://www.courts.ie/small-claims-procedure

29-11-2021 9:32pm

The lease if I remember correctly states that only around 75% is guaranteed and so if they get it back to 80% then that's what Renault deem a suitable replacement or fix so walk away, very sorry to hear you got messed about, you shouldn't have to pay so much to get a diagnosis on the battery but this may or not be stated in the contract who pays for diagnosis and if there's nothing in there about who pays for this then I would assume the garage are entitled to charge you what they want.

What I would do is see if you can buy the battery and flog the car with the battery.

What mileage is on it and how old is it ?

29-11-2021 9:35pm

Based on my enquiries about the Zoe they depreciate basically straighline and this should be around 9 years old so cheap to buy out.

Zoe has basically no problems with battery degradation and there are those who favour the lease option because the figures on finance work out better.

ELM327 · 30-11-2021 11:46am

The zoe has very little in common with the fluence. The fluence battery is actually the same battery that is in the gen 1 pre lizard pre sunderland nissan leaf. IE the problematic one.

30-11-2021 2:06pm

I'd have no problem buying a 22kWh Zoe secondhand with our without lease as the batteries don't degrade to any great extent and they charge at 22kw.

The Fluence EV is another story altogether.

k123456 · 30-11-2021 6:58pm

not meaning to be cynical of Renault

But on older software the battery is at 69%

If they dont trust or can rely on their own SW, why should you have to pay for newer SW

I would not be surprised if the new SW will give you a reading of 75 plus , I wonder is there something in the new SW to give a favourable reading

To add insult to injury, when I rang Renault Airton road back in June, I was told to bring in the car for a test, cost me €108 (they charged for 1 hours work), they confirmed the SOH on the battery was at 69%, and then they pissed about for nearly 5 months and finally after loads of chasing up, they gave me a call last Friday to tell me that the next step (if I wanted to continue) would be to get some software upgrade at a cost of around €325 to determine if the battery was really below 75% SOH.

KCross · 30-11-2021 7:17pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058220262/renault-leased-battery-capacity-guarantee-is-a-joke

You need to forget about the deler and contact Renault themselves. The dealer is probably covering themselves for the investigative work they have to do to prove that the warranty repair is required, as they wont get paid otherwise.

A sternly worded email to Renault Ireland is your next step, imo. If a software upgrade is required then thats the solution to get you back above 70% and that should be done under the warranty. You should not be paying for that.

daheff · 30-11-2021 8:10pm

I think at this point go direct to Renault. Tell them a main dealer has tested and given you a below 75% result. Tell them you are invoking clause whatever its of the battery lease to have the battery issue resolved.

It's now up to Renault to prove it's not below the 75% threshold.

If they start saying that some new software is required that wasn't available at the point of signing of the lease then it should be pointed out that Renault would need to relay on the software available at the point of signing (and not having signed a lease trying to rely on software that did not exist at the point in time the lease was signed.) If they are not happy with this software now, how would they have been happy to sign such a lease at the time relying on this software??

unkel · 30-11-2021 8:18pm

Robust emails, if they don't satisfy you, go to SCC and claim back all you've paid them so far. The SCC can not force Renault to replace your battery, they can only force a company to pay you back what you have already paid them. Up to €2.5k. I would claim back the full amount in lease payments. And oh yeah, stop those payments, you should have dumped the car or stopped the payments or bought out the lease years ago

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118243949#Comment_118243949

Wouldn't call it problematic, it is extremely reliable, but it degrades a lot more than any other EV battery. Full disclosure: I own a Fluence Z.E. - battery owned. It is nearly 10 years old but still easily gives a 80km range in summer and a 60km range in winter. That's perfectly fine for our use of it as a second local Dublin car. The car was near mint and I paid just over €2k for it. This car is cheaper to own than any banger petrol / diesel that someone gives you for free.

yoke · 30-11-2021 9:03pm

Thanks for all your replies on this so far everyone -

following up on this, the contract for the lease is with RCI banque (bank), and the contract does say that I’m liable for the expense of the test:

“The EV Customer may, at its own expense, instruct an authorised and approved centre displaying the "ZE" logo to carry out a Diagnostic to test the capacity of the Battery. Should such a Diagnostic determine that the Battery charging capacity is lower than the threshold set out in Clause 8.4, RCI shall, at its discretion, either:

8.5.1 replace the Battery;

8.5.2 repair the Battery; or

8.5.3 Implement any other necessary resource to overcome this reduction in capacity“

so, according to the contract, RCI banque are within their rights to refuse to pay anything to me so far (and have done so).

However, the problem is that the Renault dealer told me at the beginning that they’d need to test the car battery which should take less than an hour, charged the hours rate which was €108, gave me a receipt saying SOH at 69%, then told me they would contact me when the battery was in. After no contact from them for about a month, I followed up, they said the Renault ICM database (whatever that is) still lists my car at 81% battery because the previous owner had the car tested some years ago, and had that battery reconditioned, presumably up to 81%). And after 5 months of them repeatedly telling me they were still waiting for the ICM database to be updated, they’ve now told me that RCI banque are telling them that they need to upgrade the software on my car before they can upload the results from their lab test to the ICM database to get it updated - this sounds like bollox to me, why would a bank tell them how to do their technical job, it’s more like whoever runs the ICM database is telling them to upgrade the software before running the test again (IMO).

At this point I told the dealer that I’d settle for my €108 back and walk away, because I know that even if I pay the extra €325, they will either magically find that a software update has increased my battery capacity to 75% (even though the real world range remains the same) and tell me to F.O., or else they will recondition my battery just up to 75% (they’re hardly going to give me a new battery, like other posters here already mentioned) but nope, they won’t even do that, as apparently I have “consumed the service” (which does not make sense - if the service is consumed, how come I don’t have an answer to the question of “is my battery below 75%” which I can use to force RCI to recondition my battery).

regarding the mileage on the car - the car is great (apart from the battery) and has only 34k miles on it, but it’s 9 years old. I’ll contact RCI banque about purchasing the battery and update again on this thread to let you know if they give me a reasonable figure (but I’m not holding my breath for that haha, they will probably give me a “PFO” figure of about €5k or something).

celtic_oz, thanks for the link to the small claims court - I might have a look at that later on, depending on how much I expect theyd actually get back (probably only €108 cos I have the receipt for that, I’m not sure how the small claims court calculate liability amounts but I doubt they’d reimburse me for my own time wasted, phone calls/followup etc. 🙂 hence my post warning other people about this).

yoke · 30-11-2021 10:18pm

Unkel - interestingly I’ve been told by a friend that if I stopped the lease payments, that RCI banque would be able to repossess my battery, making the car totally useless, so not to stop paying the lease.

not sure if SCC could get my lease payments paid back to me by RCI banque because they will argue that they never broke the lease agreement, it is the dealer who is not giving me the official stamp (Renault ICM database update, I guess) to say that my car has 69% SOH (interestingly it is listed in my receipt from June from the dealer that the car was found to have 69% SOH, not sure if that’s worth anything).

my car has about 50km range in winter and 70km in summer btw. I’m interested in all the comments I’ve seen here which say “but it degrades a lot more than any other EV battery” (referring to Renault Fluence EV battery - I thought the technology was just lithium batteries, the same as any Tesla or other EV?

Do the other EV models use “tricks” to keep the battery from degrading so quickly, such as saying the max capacity of the battery is lower than it actually is, and setting the software to only ever charge the battery up and use up to 90% of its “real” capacity (and report that as 100%, so for example a 40KWH leaf might actually have a 44KWH lithium battery, but has software that prevents it charging to above 40KWH, thus protecting the battery from degradation)?

30-11-2021 11:17pm

https://www.speakev.com/threads/renault-fluence-battery-diagnostic-fee.126832/#post-2512706

of relevance. There was some flexibility back in 2019 it seems.

kennethsmyth · 30-11-2021 11:30pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118247520#Comment_118247520

Ok you have had the test that you paid for and this has now shown 69%, push the garage to contact Renault or start pushing yourself. A solicitors letter to Renault will be cheaper than the 325eur - you do not need to pay this to the garage for any form of update, especially one that may hide the 69% that has been stated. Push, push, push now as you have your proof of test. Anything else is not your concern.

medi_bai · 30-11-2021 11:46pm

Minor thread hijack here.

The leases for these batteries can be bought out? Anyone gone through this process before? Have an idea of cost / ease of doing so?

I've seen a Zoe I like the look of, but the battery is leased and I just never liked the idea of that.

Cheers!

medi_bai · 30-11-2021 11:46pm

kaahooters · 01-12-2021 10:10am

why should you get 108 back when you agreed to the work to be carried out?

2ndcoming · 01-12-2021 10:24am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118249440#Comment_118249440

Because it turned out to be a scam... Just because you agree to something in good faith doesn't mean you're stuck with the outcome regardless.

ELM327 · 01-12-2021 11:22am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118247249#Comment_118247249

Hey man, you know I love the fluence EV more than most!

But it is the early leaf battery which causes the same deg issues.

ELM327 · 01-12-2021 11:22am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118247986#Comment_118247986

Remove the sim card and they cant track the car.

kaahooters · 01-12-2021 11:31am

how is it a scam, it was to determin the soh of the battery, its a seperate issue that the soh turned out to be 69%.

OP asked for a scan, got the scan, now wants the cost of the scan back because hes not getting a replacment battery, which is a seperate issue.

yoke · 01-12-2021 12:27pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118249821#Comment_118249821

kaahooters - the problem is that they’re now completely refusing to give an official response saying the SOH is below 75% unless I pay for the software to be upgraded and the tests to be carried out again, they’re estimating this at €325 but obviously could be higher.

All I’m asking the dealer for is an official response that says to me that the SOH is well below 75%. If they give me that, then my problem would be with RCI banque, but until the dealer gives me that, my problem is with the dealer not the RCI banque.

unkel · 01-12-2021 12:37pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118247986#Comment_118247986

Technically they own the battery, so they could reposses it. But will they in practice? Damage and steal your property (the rest of the car) to physically remove the battery? I don't think so. Start a court case to force you to hand over the battery or let them remove it? I don't think so. Disable the battery if they could? Yes they will do this and have done this in the UK. But they can only do this if they have remote access to the car. In the Zoe there is a SIM card, if you remove it, they don't have access. In the Fluence, I don't think there even is a SIM card, so they have no remote access to the car. Only sayin'....

Now I'm not promoting for anyone to breach a contract they signed up for, I would go into negotiation first about buying out the battery (for a pittance). But if they are totally unreasonable, you might have to rethink your options.

unkel · 01-12-2021 12:41pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118249783#Comment_118249783

Oh I agree. But that doesn't make these cars (early Leaf / Fluence Z.E.) bad or unreliable cars. Just that their range is typically about half of what it was when new, 9-10 years later. Still plenty of range for most people for a cheap second family car / local runabout. With local being the operative word in the Fluence as it can't even DC fast charge 😂

ELM327 · 01-12-2021 1:20pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118250191#Comment_118250191

AFAIK and I do stand to be corrected on this, there is an actual physical sim card in the Fluence ZE. The Zoe came with an e-Sim, like Tesla etc.

01-12-2021 1:51pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118248552#Comment_118248552

I enquired and it is possible. It makes for example a 2014 car more attractive than a 2015 as depreciation on battery for buyout appears to be straightline even if the 2014 car is in better condition with lower miles than the 2015 car.

yoke · 01-12-2021 2:01pm

https://www.speakev.com/threads/how-to-prevent-rci-from-disabling-battery-charging.20323/page-2 suggests it can be done.

Looks like a job for a mechanic or someone who knows where to find the TCU at least.

But the dealer’s still an arsehole for refusing to give a response or my money back, and putting me in this position in the first place.

looks like I can’t force them to give a response, so will probably have to go down the SCC route if I want anything off them at all.

tbh they’re a bunch of idiots, as I was considering actually buying a brand new EV off them before this, but after this I never want to have to deal with them (or RCI) again. No chance.

Someone else on this thread compared the lease guarantee to a scam, and at this stage I’m inclined to agree - the lease “guarantee” seems to be worth less than the paper it’s printed on

01-12-2021 3:40pm

You won't have to deal with RCI again as battery lease is gone. The new Megane is a class ahead of the ID3 so don't overlook the car and there have been suggestions that in the UK they were doing everything they could to get the Fluence off the roads by offering favourable discounts to owners for upgrade. Check on speakev.com for references to that.

magicbastarder · 01-12-2021 3:44pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118249821#Comment_118249821

it's a scam if they charge you to scan your car, and then tell you the scan cannot be trusted.

kaahooters · 01-12-2021 5:02pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118251580#Comment_118251580

look, the t&c of the lease werent read untill after the scan, the scan was agreed to, and if the car was on an old version of firmware, or softwar that may be misreporting the soc, wheres the issue?

its been celearly stated that yoke read the contract after the scan, where it details that the scan need to be preformed:

The EV Customer may, at its own expense, instruct an authorised and approved centre displaying the "ZE" logo to carry out a Diagnostic to test the capacity of the Battery. Should such a Diagnostic determine that the Battery charging capacity is lower than the threshold set out in Clause 8.4, RCI shall, at its discretion, either:

8.5.1 replace the Battery;

8.5.2 repair the Battery; or

8.5.3Imp lement any other necessary resource to overcome this reduction in capacity“

software is buggy, if its not up to date they wouldnt know untill the scan, cant blame the dealer for poor matinance of a car, which is exactually what there defence will be if brought to smc.

its celarly detailed in the contract, if it goes to smc keep us posted, id like to know where it goes.

slave1 · 01-12-2021 5:32pm

Never had to pay for software update in a car, ever

magicbastarder · 01-12-2021 7:10pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118252059#Comment_118252059

did the garage warn the OP that the scan they would perform would not be adequate to actually determining the battery state?

ted1 · 01-12-2021 7:17pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118249440#Comment_118249440

Two things, 1st because Renault won’t stand over it.

2nd thing, he has a test which states the battery condition. No need for a second test. If result have an issue it’s with their garage

kennethsmyth · 01-12-2021 8:06pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118250134#Comment_118250134

Any software upgrade relating to the battery should be under normal TSB or warranty - RCI should either pay the 325eur for the upgraded software to save themselves the new battery or provide the new battery. Myself I'd be telling them I'm consulting a solicitor if one or other is not provided.

silver_sky · 02-12-2021 12:28am

Renault Airton Road is a Renault-owned garage but it's part of their retail arm RRG. The battery is owned by RCI. You need to consider that these while both "Renault" are two separate companies and neither have a clue. Customer service can help occasionally as a go between but are also a bit useless and based in UK.

The agreement is with RCI so take whatever it is you got from the garage proving the battery is below the guaranteed amount and request them to make good. If they won't accept the test then clearly what you paid for from the garage wasn't sufficient and they need to do it properly. You paid for a test but if they didn't do it right they should do it again at their own expense.

Have you called RCI? the guy who deals with the leases here is fairly ok-ish to deal with. I've spoken with him a few times.

unkel · 02-12-2021 12:33am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118250681#Comment_118250681

Playing devil's advocate here but it does beg the question why you bought an EV with a battery lease in the first place? Unless you bought brand new in 2012 - 2014 when it was still generally thought that batteries would not last long and then would have to be replaced at very substantial costs.

For the last 7-8 years or so it has been generally accepted by people in the know that batteries last a lot longer than people thought initially and many people have warned (on this forum) for a long time against buying battery lease EVs unless you can get them dirt cheap and you don't mind scrapping them after a few years (or find any other way) to end the lease

silver_sky · 02-12-2021 12:49am

I've a battery lease Zoe and when I went to buy the difference between owned and leased just didn't add up. Huge money between them, you would struggle to make it back before the 10 year cutoff. Mine is up for renewal in a few months so will see what the story is with RCI on it.

unkel · 02-12-2021 12:55am

For years there were still people buying used Zoes (on battery lease) for similar money to comparable battery owned used Leafs. Total madness. But as said, if you bought 7 or 8 years ago, most of us weren't aware back then that batteries would last quite well and battery lease was a terrible idea.

silver_sky · 02-12-2021 1:15am

I bought more recent than that but UK import. I did look at owned ones here in Ireland but expensive and the few I saw were in poor condition (car, not battery). I think the gap was about 5K then between leased and owned. Mine still has 22.6kWh available I think?

yoke · 02-12-2021 3:41am

kaahooters - the terms of the lease were read before the scan. Not sure where you're going with this - do you honestly think I went to Renault Airton Road and paid 108 euro just to get their opinion on if my battery was shite 🙂 I had told them I wanted the scan for RCI to change my battery, I already knew my battery was shite since I only got maximum 70km out of it while driving in perfect weather on warm summer days with no heating, AC, or even radio on and a very light foot.

magicbastarder and ted1 - exactly! The whole point of the scan was to determine the battery state for the purposes of getting RCI to fulfil their contractual obligation to fix the battery up to at least 75%, to be completely honest I was surprised at the 69% result because I had expected it to be even lower, based on my driving experience.

silver_sky - the problem is that the garage is no longer standing over their initial diagnosis and statement to me (made in front of myself and my wife) that the SOH was at 69%. They are saying (after 5 months of attempting to get the ICM database updated with my old results) that the old findings are invalid and that if I don't get a software update for €325 (3 hours work at 108 per hour, and they'd throw in a new test "for free") that they have no findings to give me at all, to give to RCI.

If I contact RCI at this point, I'm sure the RCI person will just tell me that they can't do anything unless the garage gives them a test result.

unkel - I bought the EV relatively cheap 2 yrs ago as a 2nd car/runabout to try out the technology and specifically because of Renault's 75% guarantee - I knew lithium batteries degraded quickly (it's pretty much the exact same technology as what's in a mobile phone or laptop battery), and I did not want to end up with a car with no range, which I figured would easily happen if I was stuck on a specific old battery. I guess the biggest mistake I made was assuming that Renault would actually do what they said in their contract without resorting to dirty tricks to weasel out of it. Live and learn 🙂

Another interesting thing is that the battery in this particular car had been already reconditioned in Feb 2019 by the original owner and at Airton Rd renault. It looks like the last update to the ICM database showed the battery at 81% straight after that recondition was done - I wonder if she paid for a software update in 2019 as well. She sold the car to me in late 2019, but told me she'd got the battery changed in February, so I figured that Renault were honouring their contracts.

Flinty997 · 02-12-2021 4:07am

Can you get it done cheaper in another dealer say in the UK (probably not since brexit)

yoke · 02-12-2021 5:40am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118254853#Comment_118254853

Brexit shouldn't affect this, but I know from a previous experience where I had to bring a previous car to manchester to get it serviced properly that it costs a lot more than €325 to get the ferry over and then drive across wales/half of england... actually this car wouldn't even make it that far on my 50-70km range so I'd probably get stuck out there if I attempted it 😀😀

slave1 · 02-12-2021 9:10am

NI based dealer?

Flinty997 · 02-12-2021 11:26am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118252196#Comment_118252196

Good few years back Parents had a Opel Astra the dealer tried to charge €90 for a software update. Didn't pay for it. They couldn't even explain what it did.

unkel · 02-12-2021 11:36am

@yoke - it's a pity you didn't ask here 2 years ago. Myself and others would have strongly advised against going battery lease. There is simply no grounds for it at all. The payments are ludicrously high. Even in a worst case scenario where the battery has about 50% left after the guts of 10 years - in a battery owned car you could just sell it to the next owner who would be happy with the reduced range (like me with my 60-80km Fluence Z.E.)

And as others said, l've never paid a cent for software updates. When I knew the dealer would want to charge me, I'd look up what the software update was supposed to fix, then claimed that I suffered that problem so my car should get the software update for free to fix the problem

And if that wouldn't work / the car was out of warranty, I updated the software myself.

Flinty997 · 02-12-2021 11:46am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118241041#Comment_118241041

There was lots of talk about this, but I don't think they ever actioned a means to pay it off.

Flinty997 · 02-12-2021 12:31pm

I think the Zoe is a under appreciated EV. if you were happy enough with it, I'd consider trading up to a newer one to get rid of the lease, battery issue and getting bigger range and more up to date model. You'd probably get a decent deal of a dealer. with all the other EVs around, the Zoe popularity is declining.

The OPs original plan was probably to run it as long as possible and not trade up.

Renault leased battery “capacity guarantee” is a joke

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