Roadburner440
Well-known member
Alright so here it is in pictures and words. Personally it sucks being without my Volt, and having to give the Leaf back yesterday. So today is our first day with a full gas car in over a year and a half. So far the Malibu rental is getting 19mpg.
Getting back to the Leaf though. So we got it at some point Wednseday night. We had just popped in to the dealer to introduce ourselves, and try to get things moving on the Nissan site. Somehow we wound up leaving with the Leaf till Saturday. Either way when they made the offer I was not going to turn them down. So we took the car and I drove it the 17 miles back here while my wife drove the Volt. Parked the car, and charged it to 100% (unsure how to do it elsewise at this point).
So on day 1 of finding myself suddenly on my extended Leaf test drive that I wanted my morning started off normal. With the 10 mile drive to work on I-64 @ 55+, and waiting over an hour in traffic at the base gate. Normally loaner/rental paperwork would suffice to get in to the gate, but I got turned around and told to go to pass and ID.
This forced me to go back on I-64 to go to pass and ID that was by my guess another 10 miles away (at this point I was sort of concerned even though I only used 1 battery bar, but it was still unknown). I found myself getting off at the airport terminal exit of 664 to sit in more traffic. Notice the sun is now rising, and I have been on the road since 5AM.
So at this point I am 3 bars down, and really beginning to have my doubts if the Leaf is really a car for us. As I continued to sit in traffic creeping. I finally made it to pass and ID, got my temporary pass, and got on base. Later in the day I would go to drop off stuff at the post office for my work, and go to McDonalds. Then drive home. I also had to drive back home to drop our Volt off (for those that have been following you know why), and then go back to work. We also did some other running around, and by the end of the day the car had seen about 76 miles of duty. All in all after 76 miles this is where I stood
Which is not bad, and at this point my doubts I earlier had about this car were starting to melt away.
So continuing on to Friday (day 2) I drove it to work. It was a much more normal day. It only used 1 bar on my way in, and I came home. At this point I felt like we needed to push the limits. So we all packed in the car, and put the car through what could be our worst driving day ever with no recharging since I originally left in the morning. All I told I drove to work on I-64, went above the speed limit, we drove to a far Wal-Mart with wife and kids in the car. We had 40mph winds in the area. We also went all the way to Jefferson Avenue which is where our kids doctors office is. So all told I TRIED to turtle the car with my worst day driving and could not do it. We even used the A/C, radio blasting, windshield wipers, head lights, fog lamps, and I managed to get down to 1 bar before my wife told me she was tired and wanted to go home. :lol: So all said and done I did my WORST to this car, and did not even get the low battery warning to come on. It spent probably 80+% of this drive on I-64 at 60-65mph with all 4 of us in the car. Which is impressive.
So on Saturday it was time for the car to go back. We had one last mission for it which was taking it to the Portsmouth Naval Hospital and back to see what type of charge it would take. So we set out on I-64 yet again with all 4 of us in the car to do our worst. I did not take photos yesterday as we were rushing trying to get the car ready to go back. Did not want to turn it in, but they need their example back so hopefully they can sell more. Here is a picture of it on our SPX charger though since our Volt is gone for the moment. Now it sits empty with the Impala rental sitting in front of it.
So we took the car back to the dealer. Got to talking to our sales guy, and their leasing/sales manager. We went on ahead and pre-ran our NMAC credit check, and worked up the numbers. All in all there was a misunderstanding on the price. I was quoted $34,181 by a person unauthorized to quote a price on the Leaf (I expected this much).. But they are giving me the car for MSRP. No mark up, and kicking in the floor mats. They also are giving us an excellent value on our trade which we had evaluated yesterday. So all in all it is looking up. With the MSRP of 37,250 for the SL, $1700 in taxes/tag/title/dealer fee, and Tier 0 (.0175 money factor), slight negative from our trade, and no money down, we are looking at about $485 a month (likely lower by the time the car arrives). So overall me and my wife are happy, and we accepted their offer on the Nissan site. So our car is now "Pending." I am not sure how this process goes as this is our first car we have ever ordered, but that is that.
So to sum it all up we drove 201.1 miles in 3 days, and used 52kwh of electricity costing us $5.75. I track my usage through Excel spread sheets. If you guys want them I can make them available to you. You will notice below I removed the gas portions for the Leaf. I had to change a lot of the formulas for that as it kind of skewed everything. Not a bad shake at all, and especially for it being such a nice car. It certaintly is cushier suspension wise than our Volt, and I feel is just an excellent car all over. Not to mention any doubts I had about the range are nill. As our family policy is to plug in any time we are home, so I should never seen the range that low again. In fact I probably will only charge the car to 80% regularly. Will definately be sending my cord to Ingineer though for modification. Guess I need to start working on getting the dryer outlet put in its spot now. I have noticed just from 3 days of the Leaf my cord on my SPX charger is stretched out (it is a coiled cord). Can't wait to get my build date and actually have the car though.
Leaf efficiency over the 3 days.
Volts efficiency for February. I closed it out cause it won't be back before Monday which is the end of our power bill period. I use this to track what % of my power bill belongs to the Volt & what belongs to the house.
Getting back to the Leaf though. So we got it at some point Wednseday night. We had just popped in to the dealer to introduce ourselves, and try to get things moving on the Nissan site. Somehow we wound up leaving with the Leaf till Saturday. Either way when they made the offer I was not going to turn them down. So we took the car and I drove it the 17 miles back here while my wife drove the Volt. Parked the car, and charged it to 100% (unsure how to do it elsewise at this point).
So on day 1 of finding myself suddenly on my extended Leaf test drive that I wanted my morning started off normal. With the 10 mile drive to work on I-64 @ 55+, and waiting over an hour in traffic at the base gate. Normally loaner/rental paperwork would suffice to get in to the gate, but I got turned around and told to go to pass and ID.
This forced me to go back on I-64 to go to pass and ID that was by my guess another 10 miles away (at this point I was sort of concerned even though I only used 1 battery bar, but it was still unknown). I found myself getting off at the airport terminal exit of 664 to sit in more traffic. Notice the sun is now rising, and I have been on the road since 5AM.
So at this point I am 3 bars down, and really beginning to have my doubts if the Leaf is really a car for us. As I continued to sit in traffic creeping. I finally made it to pass and ID, got my temporary pass, and got on base. Later in the day I would go to drop off stuff at the post office for my work, and go to McDonalds. Then drive home. I also had to drive back home to drop our Volt off (for those that have been following you know why), and then go back to work. We also did some other running around, and by the end of the day the car had seen about 76 miles of duty. All in all after 76 miles this is where I stood
Which is not bad, and at this point my doubts I earlier had about this car were starting to melt away.
So continuing on to Friday (day 2) I drove it to work. It was a much more normal day. It only used 1 bar on my way in, and I came home. At this point I felt like we needed to push the limits. So we all packed in the car, and put the car through what could be our worst driving day ever with no recharging since I originally left in the morning. All I told I drove to work on I-64, went above the speed limit, we drove to a far Wal-Mart with wife and kids in the car. We had 40mph winds in the area. We also went all the way to Jefferson Avenue which is where our kids doctors office is. So all told I TRIED to turtle the car with my worst day driving and could not do it. We even used the A/C, radio blasting, windshield wipers, head lights, fog lamps, and I managed to get down to 1 bar before my wife told me she was tired and wanted to go home. :lol: So all said and done I did my WORST to this car, and did not even get the low battery warning to come on. It spent probably 80+% of this drive on I-64 at 60-65mph with all 4 of us in the car. Which is impressive.
So on Saturday it was time for the car to go back. We had one last mission for it which was taking it to the Portsmouth Naval Hospital and back to see what type of charge it would take. So we set out on I-64 yet again with all 4 of us in the car to do our worst. I did not take photos yesterday as we were rushing trying to get the car ready to go back. Did not want to turn it in, but they need their example back so hopefully they can sell more. Here is a picture of it on our SPX charger though since our Volt is gone for the moment. Now it sits empty with the Impala rental sitting in front of it.
So we took the car back to the dealer. Got to talking to our sales guy, and their leasing/sales manager. We went on ahead and pre-ran our NMAC credit check, and worked up the numbers. All in all there was a misunderstanding on the price. I was quoted $34,181 by a person unauthorized to quote a price on the Leaf (I expected this much).. But they are giving me the car for MSRP. No mark up, and kicking in the floor mats. They also are giving us an excellent value on our trade which we had evaluated yesterday. So all in all it is looking up. With the MSRP of 37,250 for the SL, $1700 in taxes/tag/title/dealer fee, and Tier 0 (.0175 money factor), slight negative from our trade, and no money down, we are looking at about $485 a month (likely lower by the time the car arrives). So overall me and my wife are happy, and we accepted their offer on the Nissan site. So our car is now "Pending." I am not sure how this process goes as this is our first car we have ever ordered, but that is that.
So to sum it all up we drove 201.1 miles in 3 days, and used 52kwh of electricity costing us $5.75. I track my usage through Excel spread sheets. If you guys want them I can make them available to you. You will notice below I removed the gas portions for the Leaf. I had to change a lot of the formulas for that as it kind of skewed everything. Not a bad shake at all, and especially for it being such a nice car. It certaintly is cushier suspension wise than our Volt, and I feel is just an excellent car all over. Not to mention any doubts I had about the range are nill. As our family policy is to plug in any time we are home, so I should never seen the range that low again. In fact I probably will only charge the car to 80% regularly. Will definately be sending my cord to Ingineer though for modification. Guess I need to start working on getting the dryer outlet put in its spot now. I have noticed just from 3 days of the Leaf my cord on my SPX charger is stretched out (it is a coiled cord). Can't wait to get my build date and actually have the car though.
Leaf efficiency over the 3 days.
Volts efficiency for February. I closed it out cause it won't be back before Monday which is the end of our power bill period. I use this to track what % of my power bill belongs to the Volt & what belongs to the house.
