The never-ending purchase

[Rat]

Is it just me or is the process of actually buying this car ridiculously long? We all know ab out the long delay from time you register, to time you order, to the time you are told your Leaf is here and are given a delivery date. That's to be expected. But it is the time since then, including after taking delivery, that seems to take forever.
April - I get the word my car is here, but it's the wrong model.
May - The wrong model is delivered. search for right model.
Early June - Right model is delivered. Fine car. Order environmental plates same day. I also notify Ecotality I've taken delivery and apply for the $5k CA rebate.
July. I get the rebate! That's the only thing that was reasonably prompt, and I just made it in time. Late July I finally get the quote from the electrician on the Blink install. It's too high. Pink slip arrives from DMV.
Early August - EV Project and electrician huddle about the quote. Quote is adjusted down. I accept.
Mid August - regular license plates arrive. I order the HOV lane stickers.
2 days ago - the electrician comes to install the Blink and for the first time I learn that the main panel has to be replaced. He does that instead of installing the Blink. A 2nd visit is scheduled for next week.

It's been two and a half months since I took delivery and I still don't have the Blink EVSE and I still don't have my vanity plates and I still don't have my HOV stickers. I've never had a car purchase process drag out so long before. Obviously Nissan is not responsible for the DMV delays and Ecotality is probably the only ones responsible for their issues, but it just seems wrong. I still feel like a beta tester. I should have had my car in April like everyone else in my area who ordered when I did and the EV Project should have scheduled me a lot sooner once they knew I was taking delivery of my car. The DMV should coordinate the vanity plates and just send those first instead of requiring you to get the regular plates and then exchange them and the stickers should be part of the buying day process, too. Talk about inefficiency. Are others experiencing this same kind of timeline?

 

[davewill]

Well, I got delayed by the April from hell, and it took until late July to get the HOV stickers, and I'm still waiting for my EV Parking sticker, but otherwise no, no one has had it quite as bad as you have.

I would say that the electrician is squarely to blame for not recognizing that your panel needed upgrading. What's the point of having an electrician do the quote if they aren't going to find basic stuff like that? Anyway I hope you're not on the hook for paying for the extra work...but I bet you are.

 

[Nekota]

You may encounter inspection requirements for carbon monoxide detectors coupled to smoke detectors since the law went into effect in July.

See this link http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=4135

So it could get worse

 

[BLUEH20]

Hi RAT,

Regret hearing about all the problems you having with the free EVSE and all the delays in getting your cash back grants.

I would love to have to suffer for all those goodies but alas I live in the part of the country: No Free EVSE's, no state monies, no HOV stickers (oooops-no HOV out here in the sticks) and no rebates for the Level Three interface Option on the car.

One good thing--The LEAF is a heck of a great car and a real fun daily driver.

Sincerely hope that this all comes together quickly and you have a great experience from here one.

 

[Rat]

Great. I live in Los Altos, too, same as Wescom. I have a fixed quote from the electrician and I assume it includes all work and materials necessary to meet inspection. They didn't say anything about smoke or CO detectors. We have two interconnected smoke detectors and one separate CO detector between the bedrooms. If the inspector won't sign off and the electrician demands payment anyway and wants more $ to do the connections and detectors, there's going to be a nasty argument. I'm already paying more for this than I thought reasonable. If I had known back in February about the expense and the hassle, and the fact there would be a conversion kit to use the Nissan EVSE with the 220V dryer plug I wouldn't have upgraded from SL to SV and would of course not be dealing with EV Project issues. I wonder what the position of Ecotality is on this inspection issue. I would guess they aren't going to pay the electrician their $1200 either until the inspector signs off.

 

[Rat]

I would say that the electrician is squarely to blame for not recognizing that your panel needed upgrading. What's the point of having an electrician do the quote if they aren't going to find basic stuff like that? Anyway I hope you're not on the hook for paying for the extra work...but I bet you are.

Well, I think there enough blame to go around. When we remodeled 20+ years ago the contractor put a 200A panel in where all our breakers are and said we might need that much power someday since everything's going electric. So on my questionnaire for eTec I said I had a 200A panel. It says 200A right on it. I didn't realize that's a subpanel, not the main panel. The main panel only has 125A. However, the electrician they sent out did the inspection and saw the 125A main panel on the outside wall, pointed out it was 125A, and said (I quote) "You should be all right." I thought that meant no panel upgrade was necessary. In any event they quoted the job AFTER that assessment. So they can't charge me for the panel upgrade as that was clearly included, even though they didn't tell me that. As for the smoke detector, CO detector issue, I foresee problems. I'll have to read that law.

 

[surfingslovak]

One good thing--The LEAF is a heck of a great car and a real fun daily driver.

Sincerely hope that this all comes together quickly and you have a great experience from here one.

Hear, hear!

 

[Rat]

I finally got a date for the final inspection on the Blink install: Monday. OF course, if the CO thing is a problem that could go on forever. Second, I just got the notice that my environmental plates are finally ready for pickup, only 4 months after I ordered them. The only problem is they sent them to a DMV office 230 miles away. Sigh. Will it never end?

 

[highcountryrider]

Yes, that crap about having to get the regular plates before you can order the
vanity plates is really STOOPID! I sent my request in for the vanity plates using
the temporary number. I'll let you know how that works out.

 

[Rat]

Made the call to DMV, waited for 20 minutes to get the automated call back (at least that's better than staying on hold that long). The nice lady confirmed that yes, the plates were in Santa Maria and yes, they should have been sent to Santa Clara. Apparently ability to read is not among the KSA's required of a DMV clerk in Sacramento. They will send the plates on.

 

[TRONZ]

Is it just me or is the process of actually buying this car ridiculously long?

"A watched pot never boils" so yes, months seem like years. Our Order to Delivery was exactly 5 months to the day... and seemed like forever! You will not get the normal perspective on time back until after your car is delivered.

 

[richard]

"A watched pot never boils" so yes, months seem like years. Our Order to Delivery was exactly 5 months to the day... and seemed like forever! You will not get the normal perspective on time back until after your car is delivered.

Well put, TRONZ. April 2010 to April 2011 was the longest year in my life. Time seems to be flowing at a normal clip now, though.

 

[smkettner]

I signed up for LEAF in March 2010. I should finaly have my charging equipment in place by end of October 2011 and call it done.
Schneider is working perfect. EVSE upgrade should be complete early next week.... then to file taxes to get the credit will put me right at two years to complete.


Last vehicle I ordered was an F150 back in 2001, took three months from order to delivery and having plates, done.

 

[planet4ever]

Apparently ability to read is not among the KSA's required of a DMV clerk in Sacramento.

Don't be too hard on them. After all,
Santa Claria and
Santa Mara can be easily confused. :lol:

 

[Levenkay]

I probably shouldn't describe >my< oddball experience, but it may establish a reference point on the other end of the "how long did you wait" spectrum...

I had been increasingly interested in purchasing an EV as a daily commuting car, but kind of holding out waiting for the Ford offering; My area (Portland, OR) was supposedly one of the "debut" areas for the Focus Electric, "in late 2011", so I was kind of waiting for the "late in 2011" timeframe to roll around, when a visiting friend from Seattle enthused about the Leaf he and his wife had finally taken delivery of, and kind of intensified my resolve. I visited a fairly large nearby Ford dealer to see if they had any brochures or anything, but they had essentially zero awareness concerning the Focus Electric. That was kind of off-putting for being two or three months in advance of rollout, so I went out the next weekend to look at some "orphan" Leafs at a local Nissan dealer. Two of them had been originally reserved by people who'd been approved as EV Project participants, had the L3 charge port, etc. "I like that one!", I said. The dealer went over the controls, took us out for a test drive, and provided paperwork to fill out.

So, my "time to purchase a Leaf" delay, from "I believe I'll go look at one" to driving it home, was about three hours. The Blink charging station showed up and got installed about 3 weeks later, just slightly after the license plates.

 

[DrillbabyDrill]

Uh... quit your bitching.

 

[derkraut]

I finally got a date for the final inspection on the Blink install: Monday. OF course, if the CO thing is a problem that could go on forever. Second, I just got the notice that my environmental plates are finally ready for pickup, only 4 months after I ordered them. The only problem is they sent them to a DMV office 230 miles away. Sigh. Will it never end?

230 miles away?? Did you move and forget to give them your new address? How else could this happen? :? :?

 

[Rat]

I finally got a date for the final inspection on the Blink install: Monday. OF course, if the CO thing is a problem that could go on forever. Second, I just got the notice that my environmental plates are finally ready for pickup, only 4 months after I ordered them. The only problem is they sent them to a DMV office 230 miles away. Sigh. Will it never end?

230 miles away?? Did you move and forget to give them your new address? How else could this happen? :? :?

I told them Santa Clara and they mailed it to Santa Maria. 8 of 10 letters are right, and in the right order. 80% isn't bad for a government worker, right? I did finally get my plates, 4 months to the day from when I ordered them. The DMV worker looked in the computer and agreed I had correctly designated Santa Clara. Whoever physically addressed the envelope must have just misread it as Santa Maria.

But I still don't have the Blink unit install completed. The EVSE is in my garage and working fine, but the electrician had to install a new main panel and had cut into the stucco on the side of my house. That's all open to the elements except for a plastic sheet propped against the wall. We've had several substantial rains since it was cut open. The electrician left it open to allow the inspector to see the connections, and now that has been inspected, but the inspector said he couldn't sign off on the final until that is all sealed up, and some additional work involving grounding needs to be done. I had to contact the electrician's company twice and the Blink network twice to get someone to schedule the final work and inspection. After these four calls someone did finally call me to ask if they could schedule the final inspection for the next day. I said no because the grounding work isn't done and neither is the stucco fixed. Despite four explanations previously, he seemed unaware this work had to be done, so he said he'd have to call me back to schedule the sheetrock guy. I told him to check with the electrician to see if it is okay to close up the wall before the grounding work has been done. I've got big coils of copper wire coming out from my crawl space to the garage on one end and the water heater closet on the other. That was Monday. Now it's Friday, no call back, and I still don't know if this job will ever be done. I've said it before: if I had it to do all over again I would never have joined the EV Project or have upgraded from the SV to the SL. The car is great but the process of buying and completing the whole series of transactions is excruciating.

18 months since reserving, 13 months since ordering, 4-1/2 months since taking delivery. In addition to the unresolved Blink issue, there is still the tax credit issue to be handled next spring.

 

[Rat]

Well, I'm only griping about this every 6 weeks, so you can put up with another installment. A couple of weeks ago I got a mass e-mail from the EV Project asking about my experience. I replied with a scathing account of how bad it was administered, including all the stuff already set forth above in this thread. The electricians had never gotten final inspection scheduled and never finished attaching the ground wires, which is one of my main complaints. EVP never replied to me but the next day I got a call from the electricians (Sprig in San Jose) to schedule the final inspection, so I said fine. That took place last week, only it didn't pass. There were 3 issues: 1) the ground wires needed to be connected (but the electrician did get that done before the inspector arrived); 2) the electrician failed to bring the photos and deficiency form from the previous inspection, so this inspector could not determine what had already been passed; 3) the inspector asked about the plasterer's job sealing the area around the new electrical panel and the electrician knew nothing about it. He didn't even know that had been done. The inspector seemed to imply that an inspector had to view the paper and wire mesh before or while the stucco work got done and that hadn't happened. Sprig hired the plasterers but I already repainted the area myself; basically it looks like the inspector will require the electricians to chip away all the stucco they just had done so the inspector can see what's underneath and then they will have to send the plasterers out again to fix that if it's not adequate (which I suspect it's not) and then re-stucco. That also means two more inspections, including the final, assuming the electrician can find the photos and deficiency form from before. This latest inspector gave them yet another deficiency form to bring the previous deficiency form to the next "final" inspection. If he can't find them (which is what he told me happened because their office is so disorganized and has had turnover) then he will have to go to the city get a copy of their copy of that deficiency form, which could mean three more inspections. And I'll have to repaint again, presumably. At least the Blink is working fine and I no longer rest my foot on a coil of bare copper wire when I sit on the john in the garage bathroom. I still haven't paid Sprig and I don't know if the EVP has paid them the $1200. It's now over 6 months since delivery and counting. The Leaf is great, but the purchase process is sheer agony when it's not comical.

 

[leafkabob]

Hi Rat,
Wow, what an ordeal. Is it possible that you can view your inspection records online? Here in Phoenix you can look up a building permit by property address. You can then see all building permits on that property. Mine show permits back about 7-8 years. On any given permit, you can read the results and inspector notes and comments. Just thinking you may be able to print a copy of the deficiency report for the next inspection. As I'm writing this I realize the answer is probably no, since the inspector could have pulled up the report on this last visit. Just a thought.