Hello, fellow QQ owners! Have you had similar problems.

[GACliff]

Hi, I'm Geoff, and I own a QQ J11. (Sounds like an addiction meeting, doesn't it!)

I purchased my Acenta Premium last August (2019)from a used car dealer in Helston, Cornwall, where I then lived. I had some problems with the stop/start and keyless ignition system and by November I had become heartily sick of the frequent difficulties in starting - and twice blocking a road when the car stalled and would not restart! Eventually the dealer agreed to install a replacement battery, and this seemed to solve the problem.

I installed a Car Genie Dongle from the AA (which monitors the car's management system, my journeys and driving style, and crucially the battery charge), which gave me some peace of mind.

In December 2019, I moved from Helston to Dudley in the West Midlands, where I found I was doing shorter and less frequent journeys. I was therefore not overly concerned when I received frequent notifications from the app that the battery level had dropped. An occasional charge from a trickle charger seemed to suffice. In July of this year, I was surprised by a phone call from the AA to say that they had noticed the frequent battery warnings, and asking me if I needed their help (a free service, I was told). I declined the offer as the car was booked in for a service and MOT the very next day, and I had already arranged for the garage to check the battery and charging system. This was done, and no problems were found. However I continued to receive frequent warnings from the app until last week, when the inevitable happened and the car refused to start.

Now I decided to take up the AA's kind offer. But it wasn't that straightforward, they told me, for my membership did not include Homestart, so I asked for it to be added in order that I could obtain help to get started. A patrolman soon arrived, and carried out tests which suggested that the battery was failing to hold a charge. He suggested that I may need a new battery (quoting a price of £250), and was surprised when I told him that the battery was only one year old. Never mind, he said, it will be under warranty and I should have a valid claim against the supplier since the battery should not have failed. I declined his offer, and continued to charge the battery while I considered my options.

Now my difficulties really began. I contacted the dealer from where I had purchased the car (and who had fitted the battery last November) to ascertain if there was a warranty in force. There was!, so they contacted the supplier to arrange a replacement. The supplier (Mill Autoquip) said (no doubt correctly) that the warranty applied to the dealership, not to the car owner, so they could only exchange batteries if the faulty one was returned to the dealer in Helston - 280 miles away from its present location! Protesting that this was unreasonable, and I was not prepared to drive that distance, especially with a failing battery, I asked if it would be possible to arrange exchange at a location nearer my home. I was told that Mill Autoquip's nearest outlet to my home was at Weston-Super-Mare - a 'mere' 92 miles away, and tentative arrangements were agreed.

I made local enquiries and found that I could buy a suitable battery at Halfords for as little as £115. This was probably little more than the cost of driving down to Weston, si I decided to go with this.

Subsequently I chose a higher-spec, AGM battery which, with the fitting charge and application of my AA discount, cost me a little over £160. Now came a real surprise; the fitter explained to me that it was necessary for a new battery to be 'registered' to the car's electrical management system, otherwise it would be likely to have a severely shortened life. I had not heard of this previously, and I cannot find it mentioned in any of the documentation supplied with the vehicle. Nor was it mentioned in connection with the proposed exchange of batteries at Weston or Helston. Nor yet was it mentioned with regard to the battery installed by the Helson dealer a year earlier! Is this something that most of the trade either does not know, or maybe chooses to ignore? Could this be the reason that I have had so many problems, and, no doubt, many others, too? Comments, anyone?

Geoff.

[gloucester]

Welcome to this forum.

You don't say how old your car is.

If you search on here you'll find references to this registration requirement. I don't have direct experience since my replacement battery was done at the supplier's premises under warranty.

[Gel]

If the new battery was an absolutely identical to the original, no recoding to car would be necessary.
If you search for "battery" here you'll find numerous posts; many have had issues with their OEM
(Fiamm) Batteries, + RAC patrols authorised to swap at roadside by Nissan if in warranty.

If battery spec altered, charging system needs recoding; it's not uncommon with modern cars.
(See YouTube for more info).

Price AA quoted for new battery was steep; I paid around £80 from a Nissan dealer including fitting;
they confirmed no recoding to system was required.

Downside is that warranty offered, unlike other aftermarket suppliers, was just 12 mths.

[GACliff]

My QQ is a 2014 model. I have no way of knowing what battery was fitted prior to it being replaced last November. However I was informed that ALL replacement batteries need to be recoded, since the management system makes allowance for ageing batteries, and overcharges the replacement accordingly. I'm no expert, of course, since I knew nothing of any of this until yesterday!

[calnorth]

Thoughts:
This story is very perverse and spreads across numerous forums including the Qashqai club uk. I think we can say straight off the bat that current Fiamm is....? I've never had significant battery problems with cars until about 2010 when as retired I stopped doing 50 mile a day round trips. Too many short trips will drain/kill them...of course.

Now we seem to have new electronics managing the alternator and monitoring battery use/life. Personally I can do without it no matter what the "experts" say.

The advertised battery spiel is about high charging the new AGM etc batteries and that Lead Acid cannot not tolerate. Thats after cold starting and hopefully everybody drives 50+ miles. We can all rest easy right here then? My examination in using such new batteries e.g Bosch is that I can drain them fairly easily. The question arises as to which makers batteries will tolerate that more than others...thats the high charge and fairly deep discharge cycles. Production design and quality figures large there. Daily usage...well, you know?

As regards Nissan QQ and battery changes there exists the need to reset the battery monitoring electronics which the RAC type man should do. Owners/Halfords etc can't do that as far as I know. What we don't know is what the charge rate resets to...lets say "normal" for the new battery. Its likely then that if it isn't reset the new battery will be under charged. Thats because the monitoring system has lifed the old battery...its deemed older yet is a new battery install. Did the Nissan Start/Stop design flag wavers consider this? Dunno!

Has anyone noticed the use and talk about Super Capacitors and de-rating car batteries. Alleviating the battery having to crank at a few hundred Amps. Interestingly its coming off green windmill and solar panel management. I'm surprised.....