How bad is 1 missing bar on a 2013?

I'm looking at buying a 2013 S with 37k miles for $8k. It's all good but for the fact that it is 11/12 bars. Is this a deal breaker? How bad is a missing bar? Thanks for any advice that you can offer.

Means remaining battery capacity is about 75% to 85% of original. Leaf Spy will give you the exact number (%SOH).

Unless you really need the range it might still be OK. I mean just going off the bars it could have just dropped the 12th bar, in which case it would basically be like many of the 12 bar Leafs you might see. Of course 11 bars could also mean almost 10 bars which again if you only need a short range it would be OK but don't expect to regularly get over 60 miles without having to recharge. To get a real indication of the battery you need to get something like LeafSpy and a OBDII adapter.
Even at 11, 10 or even fewer bars a Leaf is still a very nice car and has just as much power as a 12 bar car, just less range and therefore you have to charge it more often.

Check the build date. If it's before 4/2013 then pass on the car, as it will likely lose more bars quickly. If it's built after March, then you still need to use LeafSpy to see the actual capacity. As Jeff noted, you could have a car about to drop to 10 bars, although that's mainly likely with an early build.

How do I locate the build date? Can you suggest a good decoder to do that?
Thanks

You can get a '13 SV or SL with less miles and 12/12 for $8k. Keep looking or buy that car for $6k or less.

CarvanaCarBuyer said:

How do I locate the build date? Can you suggest a good decoder to do that?
Thanks

Click to expand...

No free one I know of Many of the larger dealers provide Carfax free of charge, even from the dealers website, although only for the vehicles they actually have. The easiest place to get the build date if your actually at the car is in the drivers door jam, near where the lock latches, not the door but where it locks against the actual car.
We now have a VIN decoder that gives you the original window sticker for many post '12 cars but AFAIK that sticker doesn't tell the actual build date. Besides the build date the in service date is important as that is when the 3 year/36k full warranty and 5 year 60k battery capacity warranty starts. Not to be confused with the 8 year 80k?? battery failure warranty.

You can always call Nissan corporate with the VIN and they will tell you all sorts of info about the car from manufactured date to option packages and color.

How bad ?
At least one bar bad, and some part of second bar bad.