I'm thinking about buying this Nissan Leaf, any advice?

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krossari

Member
Joined
Feb 9, 2017
Messages
8
Location
Iceland
Hello, I'm new here.

I'm thinking of buying this Nissan Leaf:

http://www.bmvwcars.com/2015_Nissan_LEAF_Union_GA_267090187.veh

Any thoughts on if its a good or bad deal?
 
Can you update your location info via your user name in the upper right > User Control Panel > Profile tab? That way, we don't need to ask in future posts/threads or do sleuthing to deduce it.

What are your daily driving needs in terms of miles? How much city vs. highway? Will you have the ability to charge at your work/destinations?
 
An S with a Quick Charge port, that's cool (if you have any QCs near you...) You may be located in Georgia, or you may just be shopping there. We won't know till you update your profile with your location </hint>

But I hate that dodgy stuff about having to give them an email to get the VIN. You want to insist that they take care of any open recalls before you take delivery. I don't think the S has nav so you don't have to worry about updating telematics--otherwise, that's an extra $199 out of your pocket.
 
krossari said:
Hello, I'm new here.

I'm thinking of buying this Nissan Leaf:

http://www.bmvwcars.com/2015_Nissan_LEAF_Union_GA_267090187.veh

Any thoughts on if its a good or bad deal?
Looks like a great deal! Btw - Your VIN number is actually displayed in one of the pictures if you wanted to run a report on it (I would). One of the other pictures shows your battery life (think high-level/generic) and there aren't any bars missing - another good sign. Full disclaimer - I am only in week 3 with my Leaf and I love it! I had a Jetta TDI before with great mileage and sold it back to VW (part of that whole emissions scandal). One thing you should look at it is your daily commute. That battery is rated for 84 miles of travel on average - but I read about people doing round trip commutes every day of 70 to 75 miles - no issues. Budget for an L2 (220 V) home charger to reduce some range anxiety and charge time - best to assume $1K after purchase and install - this forum has tons of great recommendations on charging stations. You can use the 110 charger it comes with (better verify that original owner left it with the car) but it will take a very long time - 15+ hours to go from empty to full charge. If you don't have a long commute, you're fine using the 110 (level 1) charger - I used mine for a couple of weeks since my commute is about 40 miles daily on average and was fine every day. I've read of others that use nothing but the 110 charger - just need to plan accordingly. Good luck!
 
Thanks for the advice.
I'm actually live in Iceland, I just updated my profile.
I drive around 20 miles a day and we have about dozen quick charge stations here.
We only have 220V in the houses here which is good for the 6.6 charger I think.

I can't charge at work but at home I have a garage.
 
Why buy technology when you can lease. Nissan will have to update the LEAF shortly because the Chevy Bolt is now available. Unless they offer you an awesome deal, I would lease for 2 years. The car comes with 2 years free charging card ( No Charge to Charge ). This is good at most charging places.
 
It seems like the best option right now is either to buy a used 2013 that's come off lease or to lease a new 2017. Buying a 2017 seems like a poor idea because new next gen EVs are just hitting the market.

I'm confused if you're in Iceland, why you're looking at a car in Georgia, USA. I can't imagine that shipping the car could be cheap? Or was that just an example?

It's possible that car buying/leasing works different in Iceland, in which case our advice may not apply.
 
It seems like the best option right now is either to buy a used 2013 that's come off lease or to lease a new 2017.

If they are willing to buy long distance, buying a leftover 2016 Leaf is the best bargain. There are still some left.
 
OP:
Since you presumably do not have any way of checking the battery capacity with LeafSpy, but you know that 12 bars show on the display, the worse case would be that the car is just on the cusp of losing that 12th bar, meaning the battery capacity is ~ 85% of new. You have to decide if the range then is enough. One thought would be that you should estimate about 3 miles per kWh in Iceland in the winter, so for your 40 mile trip to work and back you will require on some days 40/3 = 13 kWh.
85% of new = 0.85*22 = 18.7 kWh -- so you are starting out with 5 - 6 kWh of maximum reserve.
I personally would shoot for leaving the bottom 15% in the battery to avoid range anxiety and accelerated battery aging, so a more conservative estimate of how things stand right now would be:
22*0.7 = 15.4 usable capacity
13 kWh use in winter to work and back

You can count on starting with at least 2.4 kWh of untapped battery reserve before battery aging reduces it further.
This is not a lot. It would mean, e.g., that you can only count on the car (for a while, anyway) to make the work trip each day and no more until you charge some more.

Me ? I would be patient and buy a 30 kWh battery off lease. I'd feel differently in a locale with more temperate weather.
Of course, if you love the cold and are happy not heating the LEAF in the winter this deal looks a lot more practical.
 
Thank you for all the reply's. This forum is really active. :)
I'm afraid leasing is not an option in Iceland as of now.
Everything has huge customs here and usually you would have to pay around 40% on top of the car price that you import to the country.
The government is cutting the customs off electric vehicles to promote a good environment so this is a great deal. The company's here are selling a 2015 Nissan leaf at double or triple the price that is in the USA.

Thank you for the calculation SageBrush. I have a garage and don't mind plugging it in every night. Do you know if it's bad to plug it in even if the battery is at say 70-80%? Or is it better to go down to at least 15% before you plug it in?
 
Do you know if it's bad to plug it in even if the battery is at say 70-80%? Or is it better to go down to at least 15% before you plug it in?

It's ok to plug in at 70-80% occasionally, but it's better to recharge when the battery is below 50%. 15% is a little low, so treat it the same way as 80% - occasionally ok.
 
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