How to get fair value for a totaled 2016 Leaf w/ 30 kWh battery

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marybethwynn

New member
Joined
Oct 25, 2017
Messages
2
We purchased our 2016 Leaf S with the 30kWh battery in March 2017 and loved it (honestly beyond reason - and I'm not even a car person). Unfortunately, my husband was in an accident earlier this month that totaled it (without hurting him beyond a seatbelt burn and bruised shins, thank God). Because a 2016 S could either have the 24 kWh battery or the 30 kWh battery, and most car listing sites aren't set up to include battery size as a key feature, we had a terrible time finding a replacement car. We also got a very lowball insurance payout offer based exclusively on comps with 24 kWh batteries. After calling dealers across the country to ask if their advertised 2016 S had a 24 kWh or 30 kWh battery (which many of them found difficult to answer), we found that www.vehiclehistory.com always lists the battery size for EVs. And after looking at enough cars there, we further discovered that VINs on the 30 kwh cars start with 1N4BZ, while VINs on the 24 kWh cars start with 1N4AZ. That made it much easier for us to identify the cars we should be focusing on, and to dispute the comps the insurance company was proposing. We recovered $3k more from the insurance company as a result of contesting their offer with a spreadsheet of every used 2016 with a 30 kWh battery on the market. I wanted to put that out there to hopefully save other 2016 owners the work that we had to do - and to help anyone shopping for a used 2016 S to understand why the price range on them is so wide. You'll see it makes much more sense when you divide them into 1N4BZ and 1N4AZ categories.

I look forward to the day when battery size is a key metric on every car listing, and battery health is listed right along with mileage on used cars!

The only sad p.s. to add is that we did find a replacement car - a 2016 SL this time because that's literally the only used 30 kWh Leaf we could find in the state of Illinois. The heated seats are nice, but we're realizing that our original car had a super battery that consistently had a 130+ mile range after a full charge, with no loss of range even after seven months and 14,000 miles of Uber and Lyft driving. Our replacement car only ever gets to the 106-107 mile point after a full charge. I love having an EV again (for several weeks we had to drive our old gas powered car to get everywhere and paying for gas was the worst) but will always pine for my first ever Leaf.
 
The VIN info you posted was very helpful - thanks for doing it. Yes, there seem to be a lot of 2016 30kwh Leafs that are degrading quickly. Could you post the build date of your totaled leaf if you have it, and of the second one as well? People at this site are trying to figure out just what is going on with the 30kwh packs.
 
The change in range is probably in part explained by approaching winter.
A LeafSpy reading of Ahr would be more informative
 
marybethwynn said:
We purchased our 2016 Leaf S with the 30kWh battery in March 2017 and loved it (honestly beyond reason - and I'm not even a car person). Unfortunately, my husband was in an accident earlier this month that totaled it (without hurting him beyond a seatbelt burn and bruised shins, thank God). Because a 2016 S could either have the 24 kWh battery or the 30 kWh battery, and most car listing sites aren't set up to include battery size as a key feature, we had a terrible time finding a replacement car. We also got a very lowball insurance payout offer based exclusively on comps with 24 kWh batteries. After calling dealers across the country to ask if their advertised 2016 S had a 24 kWh or 30 kWh battery (which many of them found difficult to answer), we found that http://www.vehiclehistory.com always lists the battery size for EVs. And after looking at enough cars there, we further discovered that VINs on the 30 kwh cars start with 1N4BZ, while VINs on the 24 kWh cars start with 1N4AZ. That made it much easier for us to identify the cars we should be focusing on, and to dispute the comps the insurance company was proposing. We recovered $3k more from the insurance company as a result of contesting their offer with a spreadsheet of every used 2016 with a 30 kWh battery on the market. I wanted to put that out there to hopefully save other 2016 owners the work that we had to do - and to help anyone shopping for a used 2016 S to understand why the price range on them is so wide. You'll see it makes much more sense when you divide them into 1N4BZ and 1N4AZ categories.

I look forward to the day when battery size is a key metric on every car listing, and battery health is listed right along with mileage on used cars!

The only sad p.s. to add is that we did find a replacement car - a 2016 SL this time because that's literally the only used 30 kWh Leaf we could find in the state of Illinois. The heated seats are nice, but we're realizing that our original car had a super battery that consistently had a 130+ mile range after a full charge, with no loss of range even after seven months and 14,000 miles of Uber and Lyft driving. Our replacement car only ever gets to the 106-107 mile point after a full charge. I love having an EV again (for several weeks we had to drive our old gas powered car to get everywhere and paying for gas was the worst) but will always pine for my first ever Leaf.
Please PM your VIN number to "Cor". He's been instrumental in replacing degraded 24 KWh batteries with crash victims. He's actively searching for crashed 30 KWh batteries to see if he can install it in a 24 KWh car.
 
Don't have build dates, but I think the S we bought in March 2017 was fairly new to the dealer. The replacement SL was purchased in February 2016, so one of the earlier ones manufactured in that model year I assume. Carfax on it doesn't list manufacture date - odd.
 
marybethwynn said:
Don't have build dates, but I think the S we bought in March 2017 was fairly new to the dealer. The replacement SL was purchased in February 2016, so one of the earlier ones manufactured in that model year I assume. Carfax on it doesn't list manufacture date - odd.

That establishes that the 2016 was an early build. Good enough. Thanks!
 
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