Things You REALLY Need to Know When Shopping for a Used Leaf

[Canadian]

New member and have read thread. I notice that it's been suggested that you can take the road test to grade the battery in a used Leaf. However will this test be accurate if the "BMS" has been done on the Leaf recently? Also is there anyway to see if the BMS has been performed on a used Leaf? One more question are there any good resources out there that will give me an accurate price on the Leaf before I go into a dealership and low ball them at the end of the month? This is a great blog for those of us that are looking into purchasing a used Leaf. Thanks to all that provide info and especially Leftiesbiker!

[LeftieBiker]

The range test (road test) is the only way to determine actual capacity right after a BMS reset, because the reset changes everything that displays capacity, but NOT the actual capacity itself. If the Leaf has a 30kwh pack, then Nissan should know if the BMS update/reset was done, but in the case of accidental or deliberate resets of 24kwh Leafs, you can't always tell. The one sure way to know is if the car loses more than one capacity bar in a short period - weeks or a few months.

[Canadian]

Thanks for the fast response. Is the BMS software update exclusive to Nissan for can any dealership/repair shop obtain it?

[LeftieBiker]

Nissan only, and I believe the dealer has to be Leaf-certified.

[cwerdna]

Nissan only, and I believe the dealer has to be Leaf-certified.

Yeah, most likely given the documents and procedure below for the 2016 to 2017 30 kWh car update.

https://static.nhtsa.gov/odi/tsbs/2018/ ... 9-9999.pdf
https://static.nhtsa.gov/odi/tsbs/2018/ ... 3-9999.pdf

[SageBrush]

The range test (road test) is the only way to determine actual capacity right after a BMS reset

Charging tests also work, and are arguably the simpler method. You just need a metered charger, and to be aware of ~ 12% charging losses. I presume it is also easier to convince a seller to let their car be charged instead of driven 50 - 100 miles

I like using public L2 ChargePoint at 6 - 7 kW, and add 50% SoC. Total usable battery capacity in that case would be
kWh_reported * 0.88 * 2

So e.g.,
If it took 10 kWh to raise the SoC 50% the usable battery capacity would be
10*0.88*2 = 17.6 kWh

[GaleHawkins]

https://m.carcomplaints.com/Nissan/Lea ... -2.shtml

I found this helpful in trying to understand our 2015 SV Leaf Spy Pro list of error codes.