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.

[signal]

Amazing that they had that center, apparently used it for heat durability testing as well as overheat testing...and still dropped the ball so badly. It took how long? Less than a year? for the first AZ Leafs to start losing bars? Either they tested for just a few months and shrugged off the capacity loss at that point, or they made a really bad decision. They could, after all, have just not sold the Leaf in the three or four hottest US states, maybe excluding California...

Anyway, let's keep in mind that this is supposed to be a guide to the most critical things to evaluate when shopping for a used Leaf. How does the guide look right now?

I am glad that Nissan chose to sell the LEAF in Arizona because I have been able to drive electric since 2011 without building my own conversion or spending a fortune for a Tesla. I suspect Nissan's testing at their AZ proving ground included lots of miles driven at highway speeds with frequent quick charges. That driving/charging pattern would minimize capacity loss compared to typical consumer use.

Climate control on 2011 and 2012:
1. The minimum cabin temperature setting is 60 degrees F (15 C) so you cannot have ventilation without heat when ambient temperature drops below that.
2. The controller will sometimes energize the heating element when air conditioning is being used in moderate temperatures.
3. The temperature set point for climate control timer and remote activation is fixed at 77 degrees F (25 C) so the controller may activate heat when you want A/C or A/C when heat is desired if ambient temperature is near that setting.

Items 1 and 2 can be addressed by installing the plug-and-play heater control switch kit available online. For a while, there was a company that sold modified HVAC controllers to address item 1, but that internal modification did not prevent the heater from being activated with A/C as noted in item 2. Some technical owners made their own modifications (either temporary or permanent) to keep the heating element from being activated. I installed a temporary resistor to prevent heating element activation and would have ordered the plug/play kit if my 2011 had not met its untimely demise.

---------
Can you tell to me where I can buy the "heater control switch kit" ????

[LeftieBiker]

The info should be here: viewtopic.php?t=6751

[coulomb]

I don't know if the kit is still available or not.

You might want to consider some other options, some of which are quite cheap, and one (the one I used) requires soldering and a few parts. This link is to the presently last post, which has links to various other pages that have the images still working :
viewtopic.php?f=37&t=11412&p=594916#p594916