LEAFs in St. Louis, Missouri?

So, do we have enough people with interest to do a St. Louis leaf meet-up someday?
Could be amusing.

--
- Aaron
- The annoying guy with the "AC POWR" license plate despite the car running on DC (figured more people would understand AC)

Is there a minimum needed? I see enough around town, so I'm sure we'd have people show up.

Wagahai said:

So, do we have enough people with interest to do a St. Louis leaf meet-up someday?
Could be amusing.

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Sounds good to me. I don't see enough leafs out in West County. It would be interesting to get other driver's perspective.

Wagahai said:

CoffeeAddict said:

I am in the process of moving and will be buying a car shortly after (used to walk to work). I'll be out in O'Fallon driving to Lucas & Hunt off of 70 each day (a few miles past the airport). No charging stations at work yet, Google pegs the round trip at just under 60 miles. Given the weather in STL, any thoughts on if the Leaf range will cut it for me year round? I've heard really hot and really cold can cut the range and I'll only have about 15 miles to lose

Thanks!

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I'm near K/Mexico in O'Fallon and I drive to Page/270 daily. With my 2012 I would get to 70/270 just as I lost my 2nd bar of charge as I hit 270 under perfect conditions. I'd make it home with 40ish percent. With my 2013, my 2nd bar drops at the same place.. while going highway speeds with AC on, etc. These days I get home with about 50% remaining running AC both directions. If you'd like to arrange a quick trip there and back to see if it'd work, drop me a message.

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Appreciate the information and the offer! Finished up the move and have been traveling for work so haven't been back here in awhile. With the 2014's coming out I'll likely try and work some sort of deal in the next few months on a 13'. I've seen in this thread that Fuze is one of the better dealerships with St. Charles being just OK? I imagine I'll contact them all to see who will work the best price but always good to know where my best chances are.

just picked up my Leaf on Friday.
Black SV. I'm in Frontenac.
Derek

Picked up my Leaf in November, loving it so far.
"Slate" S
O'Fallon MO (commute in to St. Louis)

Plug share says there are 5 dc/qc in the area now. Anyone tried them?

When I was in the market for a Leaf back in mid-November, the St. Peters Nissan dealership's DCQC was up and operational on the East side of the dealership. He said they turn it off at night, though. The West County dealer had theirs installed out front. It was just put in the week before but not operational yet. It should be by now I would think. He said it would be accessible 24x7.

jkoeller said:

When I was in the market for a Leaf back in mid-November, the St. Peters Nissan dealership's DCQC was up and operational on the East side of the dealership. He said they turn it off at night, though. The West County dealer had theirs installed out front. It was just put in the week before but not operational yet. It should be by now I would think. He said it would be accessible 24x7.

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Good to know. I'm at the suntrup dealership right now getting my 12v battery replaced. They weren't happy as they have no certified techs. Just give me the dang battery and I'll replace it. Hopefully they get me taken care of though.

I was wondering if anyone can give me their real life experience in regards to range lost in the extremes of St. Louis weather? I would usually drive < 30 miles a day but could go up 65 sometimes. We were thinking of the SV or SL because of the heat pump. My husband has a volt but it only seats four so the leaf would be the family car. It would be used for school drop offs/ pick ups, errands, hockey games. I could charge between trips. 45 miles would be the longest between charges. Any insight on whether the Leaf would work for us would be appreciated.


Julie

I've had range anxiety and I'm only going 50 miles round-trip.. although from what you've described, you will probably be fine.

I start with the car pre-heated in the garage., but without running heat I easily get down to 30% remaining on some days.
Obviously 30% isn't "dead" but it's not the 30 miles you'd hope for either. If I go a bit out of my way in the evenings, I get the "low battery" warning pretty easy.
Add heat (or worse, defrost) into the mix and.. yah.. never been stranded yet, but I don't have the comfortable feeling.

I'm just worried that I would have to run the heat with kids in the car. That might significantly lessen the range.

Julie,
Just popping in from the other side of the state...

This past winter has been bitter. This was my second winter with the Leaf and used a lot more heat this winter than last. I've got a 2012 so no heat pump. There were times when I hit 100% charge and only got 40-50 miles with an 18 month old battery. But that was running heat the entire time. Usually I was getting 50-80 miles depending. Last week when the weather was nicer I was able to pull 80 miles on a single charge through the rolling hills of KC but none of that was highway. Car will be 2 years old in June.

jkoeller said:

When I was in the market for a Leaf back in mid-November, the St. Peters Nissan dealership's DCQC was up and operational on the East side of the dealership. He said they turn it off at night, though. The West County dealer had theirs installed out front. It was just put in the week before but not operational yet. It should be by now I would think. He said it would be accessible 24x7.

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I've used the St. Charles Nissan DC a few times. They leave it "on" at night but have a lock in place over the charging plug. Sometimes they remember to lock it, sometimes they don't so in a pinch it *could* be available. They do have a few L2's that are available anytime, DC is supposed to be only when the dealership is open.

I would be surprised if West County left their's available 24/7, the folks at St. Charles said it was a Nissan liability thing since it was the very high voltage, so they only wanted it on during business hours. Though would not by any means be the first time a dealer was misinformed.

Julieinthecity said:

I was wondering if anyone can give me their real life experience in regards to range lost in the extremes of St. Louis weather? I would usually drive < 30 miles a day but could go up 65 sometimes. We were thinking of the SV or SL because of the heat pump. My husband has a volt but it only seats four so the leaf would be the family car. It would be used for school drop offs/ pick ups, errands, hockey games. I could charge between trips. 45 miles would be the longest between charges. Any insight on whether the Leaf would work for us would be appreciated.


Julie

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Hi Julie,

I'm out in O'Fallon MO and commute 60 miles each day with the Leaf. The majority of that is highway driving. I drove the Leaf all winter but I'm a bit crazy and didn't really use the heat very often. Without using the heat (just seat/steering wheel heater) I would charge to 100% every day and would arrive back at home somewhere in the low 20%'s genereally. I did pre-heat also so the way home was always a bit colder than the way there. If you would only max out at 45miles before having the ability to charge again you shouldn't have any issues.

Do you currently have a L2 station at home? That will give you a lot more freedom if you have multiple trips in the day and didn't really want to have to worry about energy usage.

We will be installing the clipper creek L2 charger. I found a good deal on an SV premium and we are supposed to pick it up tomorrow!

Julieinthecity said:

We will be installing the clipper creek L2 charger. I found a good deal on an SV premium and we are supposed to pick it up tomorrow!

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Congrats! Welcome to the club.

Just saying hello, fellow STL Leaf owners. After mulling over a Leaf for a couple of years we finally pulled the trigger. My wife's work moved closer to home and they have a few LVL 2 chargers available to employees at no cost.

If you saw a nod and wave from a crazy guy in a Leaf in the St. Charles area, it was probably me .

Ran into problems at West County Nissan in Ballwin, MO (St. Louis County). Was running errands in the area and vehicle was down to 5 miles and a single bar. Arrived at dealership, both Level 2 space and DC Fast Charge/Level 3 were occupied with dealership (gas) vehicles, that obviously were not actively charging. Went inside to request vehicle(s) get moved. Receptionist made multiple pages to porter with no response. Manager on duty later appears at desk, yells and raises voice at me saying "this is a business, we are here to sell cars". Salesman present asked if I purchased my vehicle here, my response was "it doesn't matter". Eventually one of their cars was moved and I was able to charge. They acted like they were doing me a favor allowing me to charge here. I rarely avail myself to the charging stations at dealerships but its nice to have in situations such as this. Nissan markets this benefit, I get that each dealership is independently owned and operated but this whole experience really upset me. Surely Nissan corporate can work to ensure all LEAF owners/lessees receive access to the charging station. I ultimately was able to charge and made it home.

I picked up a 2014 SL on 12/6. It had been on the lot since June and they had just marked it down $10k. Now I've just got to get 240V run out to my garage.