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I went to look at a for sale 2016 Leaf today. Candidate car has 48K miles. I am new to the community but have done some research. I know a bit but would love opinions. There is a lot going on, so thanks for following along.
1) Battery - The CarFax shows "-Battery Replaced" at 39K miles by a Nissan dealer. Those are the exact words. I have my doubts and suspect that maybe battery cells were replaced. I used LeafSpy (thanks to a friend). Batt SOH was 66.3% showing 9 out of 12 bars. Thus, my thought that this service record is not a battery replacement. LeafSpy mV delta was only 13 mV. Vehicle showed 65 miles of range at 90% charge at the start of my test drive. I drove 8 miles on my test drive including 3 miles on highway (speed 70 MPH+) and the range dropped from 65 to 56 (loss of 9 miles). Seems reasonable given the highway miles. But what should i make of the 66% SOH and 9 bars and the CarFax statement "battery replaced" less than 10K miles ago? I only want a car to get to work and back everyday (20 miles RT) that can put those 20 miles back on overnight in 14 hours of 110V charging. And I want a car that can do this for 4 years, maybe 5 years.
2) Clicking noise- there was a subtle yet audible occasional click when decelerating and/or taking a turn. Unfortunately i cannot isolate this as most decelerating was accompanied by taking a turn. I should have scrutinized this more. It wasnt a sequence of clicks, just generally one or two and not too loud, but noticeable. Anyone have any idea what this might be? Suspension?
3) Level-1 charging - The private seller was not very knowledgeable about this car. This was a second or third vehicle for him and not his daily driver. His name is on the title. He is not selling for someone else. I very much got the impression that he just never learned much about this car. But....this is where it gets WEIRD. He said he had been typically charging the car AT THE NISSAN DEALER! The level-1 cord in the car was in a bag that he claimed that he had never opened. It has a Ford logo on the charger (weird). Clearly someone lost the original and i think he bought it with this cord. I told him that i wanted to see the car plugged in and observe it to be charging, so we plugged it into a garage 110V outlet. The blue light on the dash blinks and the green plug icon in the vicinity of the speedometer/odometer blinks. I assume this means the car is taking a charge and i was satisfied. But now i have my doubts. Has ANYONE ever heard of a car not taking a charge when these positive indicators are blinking? Why would he only charge his car at the dealership? I should have stayed around 15 or 30 minutes to see a positive impact of the Ford cord on range (1 mile, 2miles, anything!) but i did not. I didn't think about it. Was he playing dumb about a car that somehow shows positive charge lights but will only charge using DC Chademo? Or could it be that he literally didn't know he could charge this car overnight with the cord his cargo area? There's no moving parts so the blue and green lights mean that it's charging, right??
4) Water - i took out the rear carpet in the cargo area to look for spare and a jack (ha ha, yeah, i know now) but glad i did b/c there was some water under the carpet on the metal floor. It didn't smell musty and it didn't show rust. But it was weird! He said it was probably from the car wash. Not something i wanted to see when considering a purchase. Do these cars have a reputation for bad seals around their hatchback? According to CarFax the car had MINOR back end damage seven years ago. Hard to imagine that water leaks into the car for 7 years and doesn't rot the carpet or rust the floor. I don't know what to make of that.
This was a lot.
Thanks in advance for your opinions.
1) Battery - The CarFax shows "-Battery Replaced" at 39K miles by a Nissan dealer. Those are the exact words. I have my doubts and suspect that maybe battery cells were replaced. I used LeafSpy (thanks to a friend). Batt SOH was 66.3% showing 9 out of 12 bars. Thus, my thought that this service record is not a battery replacement. LeafSpy mV delta was only 13 mV. Vehicle showed 65 miles of range at 90% charge at the start of my test drive. I drove 8 miles on my test drive including 3 miles on highway (speed 70 MPH+) and the range dropped from 65 to 56 (loss of 9 miles). Seems reasonable given the highway miles. But what should i make of the 66% SOH and 9 bars and the CarFax statement "battery replaced" less than 10K miles ago? I only want a car to get to work and back everyday (20 miles RT) that can put those 20 miles back on overnight in 14 hours of 110V charging. And I want a car that can do this for 4 years, maybe 5 years.
2) Clicking noise- there was a subtle yet audible occasional click when decelerating and/or taking a turn. Unfortunately i cannot isolate this as most decelerating was accompanied by taking a turn. I should have scrutinized this more. It wasnt a sequence of clicks, just generally one or two and not too loud, but noticeable. Anyone have any idea what this might be? Suspension?
3) Level-1 charging - The private seller was not very knowledgeable about this car. This was a second or third vehicle for him and not his daily driver. His name is on the title. He is not selling for someone else. I very much got the impression that he just never learned much about this car. But....this is where it gets WEIRD. He said he had been typically charging the car AT THE NISSAN DEALER! The level-1 cord in the car was in a bag that he claimed that he had never opened. It has a Ford logo on the charger (weird). Clearly someone lost the original and i think he bought it with this cord. I told him that i wanted to see the car plugged in and observe it to be charging, so we plugged it into a garage 110V outlet. The blue light on the dash blinks and the green plug icon in the vicinity of the speedometer/odometer blinks. I assume this means the car is taking a charge and i was satisfied. But now i have my doubts. Has ANYONE ever heard of a car not taking a charge when these positive indicators are blinking? Why would he only charge his car at the dealership? I should have stayed around 15 or 30 minutes to see a positive impact of the Ford cord on range (1 mile, 2miles, anything!) but i did not. I didn't think about it. Was he playing dumb about a car that somehow shows positive charge lights but will only charge using DC Chademo? Or could it be that he literally didn't know he could charge this car overnight with the cord his cargo area? There's no moving parts so the blue and green lights mean that it's charging, right??
4) Water - i took out the rear carpet in the cargo area to look for spare and a jack (ha ha, yeah, i know now) but glad i did b/c there was some water under the carpet on the metal floor. It didn't smell musty and it didn't show rust. But it was weird! He said it was probably from the car wash. Not something i wanted to see when considering a purchase. Do these cars have a reputation for bad seals around their hatchback? According to CarFax the car had MINOR back end damage seven years ago. Hard to imagine that water leaks into the car for 7 years and doesn't rot the carpet or rust the floor. I don't know what to make of that.
This was a lot.
Thanks in advance for your opinions.
