My Nissan Leaf Forum

The 2017, IF it has lost one bar AND hasn't had the BMS update, sounds like a good candidate. Hawaii is hot, so a 1 bar loss in 2 years isn't unreasonable. The car should still have much more range than any 24kwh Leaf. If it had the update, then maybe 6 months has to pass before you can get an accurate idea of what shape the battery is really in. Given your situation I'd be focusing on that car. Offer a wad of cash significantly but not insultingly less than the asking price once you have enough info on the battery.

^^ I agree with this. A LEAF that starts out life with a 30 kWh battery seems like a sweet spot for an inexpensive commuter car.

LeftieBiker wrote:The 2017, IF it has lost one bar AND hasn't had the BMS update, sounds like a good candidate. Hawaii is hot, so a 1 bar loss in 2 years isn't unreasonable. The car should still have much more range than any 24kwh Leaf. If it had the update, then maybe 6 months has to pass before you can get an accurate idea of what shape the battery is really in. Given your situation I'd be focusing on that car. Offer a wad of cash significantly but not insultingly less than the asking price once you have enough info on the battery.

Thank you, this is very good to know.

I'm probably making poor comparisons to our limited experience. Our 2015 Leaf's battery is perched at 88% SOH and nearly 15,000 miles and perhaps it's about to lose its first bar, so I would've expected a 2017 model (two years newer, only 12,500 miles) to be in slightly better shape. But yes, the 2017 will probably always have more range than our 2015 regardless of bars, and either EV has more range than we need.

From a used-car buyer's perspective, I've found that space-cadet sellers can be painful to work with... yet they discourage the other buyers who'd be bidding up the price. They also become very flexible on price as they approach their last day on the island. Especially for a stack of $100s.

And we still have the third seller if this one falls through, as well as whatever comes on the market during the rest of the month. Even after that we have the used-car dealers to work through, although that's a different type of pain.

The more I think about it, the more I like becoming a two-EV garage. Even if a hurricane or earthquake destroys Oahu's electric grid, our photovoltaic inverter has a limited ability to produce 1500 watts of power (during daylight) without being connected to the grid. That's way better than depending on bicycles, dwindling gasoline supplies, and walking.

It'd be a bonus to never do spark plugs or oil changes ever again...

^^ All EV is wonderful

The Europeans and Chinese are moving to an EV future much faster than the retarded Trumper USA, aided in no small part by their willingness to buy small cars. The VW group is gearing up to produce a 20k Euro, 37 kWh air cooled BEV.

That sounds like an almost perfect commuter car, and it will last. Now that I am retired I don't think I will bother to replace my second car (LEAF) when it dies but if I change my mind this spec car would fit us to a Tee

It looks like we're buying the 2017 Leaf on Friday, the day the seller is leaving the island.

The car is in good shape. The seller renewed the registration & safety check before we drove it, so that's fine now. The first owners put less than 10K miles on it in two years, and he's only had it since February (another 2500 miles). LeafSpy says the SOH is 81.90%, which confirms that the car has lost its first battery bar. It's had seven QCs (at Nissan dealers) and 394 L1/L2 charges.

The seller had owned a 2013 Leaf but its battery had degraded to a range of 60 miles, and he says that with the 2017 he no longer felt range anxiety. His long-term plan was to keep the 2017 for years and drive it into the ground, and he doesn't seem particularly happy about selling it.

He had no idea whether the car has had the update to the BMS. We didn't see any paperwork on it (he saved everything from the first owners) but we'll check the VIN with the dealer for that and any other TSBs. The car had no warning lights on the dashboard and no codes on LeafSpy.

He was a little surprised to learn about OBD-II readers and LeafSpy. He was more interested in the tech than worried about it, so I doubt he was neglecting to mention any problems. He's not a car person but he really enjoyed its low operating expenses and did most of its battery charges at his workplace for free.

It's the baseline S model. He's also had several other offers, so $14K turned out to be the right price (at the high end of our KBB & Edmunds values). There might even have been a bidding war, but we're the first buyers to offer cash and we're willing to let him keep the car until he leaves.

The Leaf roof is different than our old Prius roof, so our old Thule rack mounts won't fit the newer Leaf. I'll either have to buy new mounts or buy a new rack.

^^ Losing ~ 10% of battery capacity a year is harsh. It may be that actual loss is less and the car is misreporting but you will not know that until the car has been 'fixed' and a couple months elapse. If the loss is real and continues, the car will not meet your requirements 2 years from now.

Your other choice to figure this out now (which I would do in your shoes) is to drive the car down to a lowish SoC and then charge up to 90+ percent on an EVSE that reports metered kWh. This is the definitive way to measure usable battery capacity.

^^ Losing ~ 10% of battery capacity a year is harsh. It may be that actual loss is less and the car is misreporting but you will not know that until the car has been 'fixed' and a couple months elapse.

Yes, that's a big loss. Hopefully the BMS update will do more than get the BMS to misrepresent the SOH for a few months. Do you know if the owner let the car sit at 100% for long periods? That would be my guess, and my advice is, of course, don't do that. Charge in the morning if possible, and time the charges to stop at 60-80%, if that's all you need.

We’ve had the Leaf for a week, and it seems mechanically fine.

SageBrush wrote:^^ Losing ~ 10% of battery capacity a year is harsh. It may be that actual loss is less and the car is misreporting but you will not know that until the car has been 'fixed' and a couple months elapse. If the loss is real and continues, the car will not meet your requirements 2 years from now.
Your other choice to figure this out now (which I would do in your shoes) is to drive the car down to a lowish SoC and then charge up to 90+ percent on an EVSE that reports metered kWh. This is the definitive way to measure usable battery capacity.

LeftieBiker wrote:Yes, that's a big loss. Hopefully the BMS update will do more than get the BMS to misrepresent the SOH for a few months. Do you know if the owner let the car sit at 100% for long periods? That would be my guess, and my advice is, of course, don't do that. Charge in the morning if possible, and time the charges to stop at 60-80%, if that's all you need.

Both owners seem to have driven the car only once or twice per week and recharged the battery to 100% every time, no matter how little they discharged it. This week I managed to discharge the battery to 14% and actually got the warning, then recharged it to 100%. (13 hours on the L1 charger.) We’ll keep discharging it down below 40% (or further) before recharging it above 90%, and we’ll see if that helps its capacity.

I’m searching for at least one new key fob (and preferably a second for a spare).

The second owner had the Leaf for six months, and he only decided to sell it because abrupt life changes convinced him to leave the island. In retrospect, the only thing he did with the car was losing the second fob. While we were signing over the title we searched the car and found not only his sunglasses (that he’d “lost” months ago under the driver’s seat) but also the reading glasses of the first owner. We even found the key number plate (for the car’s key ID), which the second owner didn’t know about.

I found the first owner’s e-mail address among the dealer’s paperwork. (He said he'd also left the island and didn’t want his reading glasses back.) He claims he turned over two fobs to the second owner, but we didn’t find the missing one anywhere in the car. I sat in the car (without a fob) and tried to turn it on, and it can’t sense a fob in the car. I crawled through & under everything while vacuuming it, and it looks like the second fob really is gone. That means we’re searching for a replacement second fob, and perhaps a third for a spare.

Other details:
- I used LeafSpy to shut off the backup beep and to disable the door auto-lock.

- Next week I’m getting Leaf feet for my Thule roof racks (which currently have Prius feet). Our local surf shop says they have that kit.

- We added another 420 watts of photovoltaic panels to our rooftop array. (Used panels at $1 per watt.) We’ll watch that for a few months to get a handle on our use, and then we’ll buy more panels if we’re not at net zero. We used to spend about $500/year on gas.

What’s the best way to get two more fobs and have all three programmed to the Leaf? Do I buy a specific type of fob (new or used?) from eBay or a dealer? Can I program the fobs myself (using the car’s electronics or LeafSpy) or do I need to give my fobs (wherever I bought them) to the dealer for their special equipment?

We’ll keep discharging it down below 40% (or further) before recharging it above 90%, and we’ll see if that helps its capacity.

Unless you really, really need the full range, don't recharge it above about 70% - 80% at most. Even 90% would be better than 100%.

On the mainland it's not that hard to get fobs from Ebay and have them programmed by a locksmith who does a lot of car keys, for a couple of hundred dollars. Where you are, you may have to use the dealer - maybe using genuine Nissan fobs bought new from a wholesaler online. Expect to pay about $300 for the programming, plus the cost of the fobs. On the bright side, you should only need one new fob.

I was returning my 2013 Leaf for the end of lease turn in (after 5 years on a 2 year lease). I found my "lost" prescription sunglasses in the forgotten-by-me eyeglass holder in the ceiling. Leafs must like to collect eyeglasses...