Looking at used 2014 Leaf - battery and leafspy questions

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Jam8

Member
Joined
Mar 13, 2018
Messages
9
Location
Santa Barbara, CA
This is my first post, and even after reading many threads and attempting to access the wiki, I'm still not 100% clear on how to assess the health of a leafs battery using leaf spy.

While I don't have a leaf yet, I'm certain enough that I will, the point that I purchased an OBDII Bluetooth reader and the LeafSpy pro app. I tried it out on a 2014 leaf at a used car dealership. The leaf is an SV model, with about 42k miles.

The dashboard shows 11/12 capacity bars. As best I can tell, the leafspy reading indicates that the next capacity bar is about to disappear. Is that correct?

Also, the AHr seem high to compared to the SOH and Hx. The leaf has lived most of its life in coastal central California, so it should not have been exposed to extreme temperatures. LeafSpy screenshot link below.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/0674qvayruy9eas/2014leafspy.png?dl=0
 
Looks pretty good to me. Yes, you’re between 10 & 11 bars, but you might get through the summer before losing the 2nd bar. A better question is how low can you get before the vehicle doesn’t meet your needs. I’m still fine with my 9-bar 2011 and will be for a few more years, but you might find next winter is tough for your commute. What’s the price?
 
^^^
Agreed. Looks about right for a not-very-mild climate of Central CA, esp. given that it's before the lizard battery and that the '14 marked the the first year of Leaf w/o the charge to 80% feature.

Where are you located? 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?
 
It's at a used car dealer, they were asking $10,000. After some negotiating they agreed to $10,000 out the door, including registration. I think that made the sale price just about $9,100.

They've since dropped the on-line listing to $9,500, but I doubt they'd lower their offer to me. They claimed that it only allowed $68 of profit for them. I'm skeptical, might see if they're willing to budge as the car sits on the lot.

The range would probably still be suitable for most of my needs, but as the range decreased I imagine it would make some longer trips less practical, like driving 40 mostly freeway miles to visit family in Ventura, unless I had sufficient time to re-charge before the return trip. But for commuting to work and around town driving, I have no doubt the battery capacity should be fine for me for a few years.

I didn't realize that the 2015 was the first year with a feature to stop charging to 80%. That seems like something that could/should have been software upgradeable for older models. Are there external chargers that have this feature or other methods that would apply to pre-2015 Leafs?
 
I didn't realize that the 2015 was the first year with a feature to stop charging to 80%. That seems like something that could/should have been software upgradeable for older models. Are there external chargers that have this feature or other methods that would apply to pre-2015 Leafs?

Eh??? The charge to 80% feature ENDED with the 2014 model year, after being available in one form or another from 2011. It was never reinstated. You can get an EVSE that will turn off with a timer or even with a command from an app, but there are none that can determine the car's state of charge.
 
LeftieBiker said:
I didn't realize that the 2015 was the first year with a feature to stop charging to 80%. That seems like something that could/should have been software upgradeable for older models. Are there external chargers that have this feature or other methods that would apply to pre-2015 Leafs?

Eh??? The charge to 80% feature ENDED with the 2014 model year, after being available in one form or another from 2011. It was never reinstated. You can get an EVSE that will turn off with a timer or even with a command from an app, but there are none that can determine the car's state of charge.

Ah, I see now that I misread cwerdna's post. Thanks for the clarification. Too bad that feature was discontinued, it seems like it would be a useful option for many.
 
powersurge said:
I think $10K could buy a better battery car...
Do you have any pointers or ideas? I've been monitoring the market near me for almost a month and haven't seen a ton of better deals. Also, this would end up being about $9k.
 
I think you could do better, especially in California. Mine came from San Jose, and I bought it a almost a year ago with better numbers than that for $7000. It's a 2013 SV with about 37K on it now, 83% SOH.
 
powersurge said:
I think $10K could buy a better battery car...
A LOT better.

I paid $8300 for my '13 LEAF. It is now 4 years old and has 58 Ahr capacity per LSpy. I bought from these folks:
https://carportal.co/buy/

They will provide LSpy data upon request.
 
These are all under $9k and higher mileage. As long as the battery is in good shape, I personally think the mileage is irrelevant - it's all about the battery...

https://goo.gl/n61Lyb

https://goo.gl/NNYvhY

https://goo.gl/SVRHoa
 
Just remember that when looking at 2013 Leafs you want to note the build date on the driver's side door jamb sticker, and avoid any Leaf built BEFORE April of 2013 unless it has a new battery pack.
 
SageBrush said:
powersurge said:
I think $10K could buy a better battery car...
A LOT better.

I paid $8300 for my '13 LEAF. It is now 4 years old and has 58 Ahr capacity per LSpy. I bought from these folks:
https://carportal.co/buy/

They will provide LSpy data upon request.

How did you get the vehicle from SF Bay area to Colorado? I'm about 300 miles from SF, so it could be somewhat of an "adventure" to get it home. Maybe I could use some combination of driving, charging, driving, and AAA towing.

I'm thankful for the suggestions alternative outlets for purchase, but pretty much all of the Leafs I'm finding on craigslist, carvana, and other sites are all tracking at similar prices. A range from 9k to 12k+ for 2013 and newer model years. I get the impression that maybe the leaf has appreciated in value over the past year, or a sudden increase in demand is driving prices up.

My need isn't urgent, so I'll keep looking for a Leaf built in 04/2013 or newer. I had been interested in an SV or SL trim primarily because of the heat pump. Is that a significant difference from the electrical resistance only heater?
 
Jam8 said:
How did you get the vehicle from SF Bay area to Colorado? I'm about 300 miles from SF, so it could be somewhat of an "adventure" to get it home. Maybe I could use some combination of driving, charging, driving, and AAA towing.
You can either pay (I think ~ $200) to have it put on car carrier to you, drive it yourself ( ChaDemo exists in your area), or tow it. Or make a combination of it.

I live way off the beaten path of public L2 (let along L3!) , so I ended up paying $700 to put it on a truck carrier to within 100 miles of my home and then I rented a U-Haul to tow it home. The car transporters were much more open to offers that let them drop the car off near the highway they were traveling.

If you can be a little flexible, I don't think you will find the distance expensive or much of an obstacle.
 
I had been interested in an SV or SL trim primarily because of the heat pump. Is that a significant difference from the electrical resistance only heater?

It provides a noticeable benefit at temps above 30F or so. Unless you live where it's very warm or very cold (below 20F) the heat pump helps range quite a bit. In frigid temps (15F or lower) it provides no real benefit.
 
LeftieBiker said:
I had been interested in an SV or SL trim primarily because of the heat pump. Is that a significant difference from the electrical resistance only heater?

It provides a noticeable benefit at temps above 30F or so. Unless you live where it's very warm or very cold (below 20F) the heat pump helps range quite a bit. In frigid temps (15F or lower) it provides no real benefit.

That sounds analogous to my experience with having a heat pump water heater (in terms of efficiency at least - not sure that range anxiety has a water heater parallel).

The temps around here rarely gets below freezing. In a cold year we may have one or two light frosts. So I'd probably do better with the SV or SL, all else equal.
 
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