Should I do it? '14 SL w/36K for $11.5K?

So the wife and I decided to go for it. Out the door for $8.6K after some effort. Pretty happy with that deal.... We are prepared for the realization that we won't be able to use it some days, or even weeks at a time but are ok with that considering the price. The car has everything we wanted in terms of features and that is kind of a big deal as we have been searching for a while. We really only wanted a white one too, so that made things more difficult.

Regardless if how you guys feel if it is a good price or not is not important, what is important is that we got what we wanted and that we felt it was a good buy. I know you can pick these up for a fair bit cheaper but there is a lot more work involved. We don't have a lot of free time so trying to work out a private sale and shipping is just more than we wanted to deal with. That is why we decided to go to a dealer, who were very nice at finding us a car then letting us test it for three days in a row.

Anyway, time to enjoy the car! Thanks for all the advice, information, and discussion. It really helped a lot!

Now unfortunately i'm having trouble getting my car added to the Nissan owners portal website so I can use the remote app to control charging and climate control. Their website is really slow too... Grr. I'm assuming I am not alone in this?

My concern all along was mainly that you not get a car the wouldn't meet your needs for a few years. Since you have a backup ICE vehicle for frigid weather, I think you did fine at that price. As you say, you have specific wants that are hard to meet. Also, used prices vary widely from region to region.

Yeah I think we’ll be fine most of the time. Honestly my biggest worry is how much will a battery pack cost when it is needed and will Nissan have them available. Hopefully the Fenix power thing will work our or someone else starts making or refurbishing packs.

Now how the heck do I program this thing to only charge to 80% and stop?

Now how the heck do I program this thing to only charge to 80% and stop?

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That feature was dropped after 2013, likely because of the way Nissan worded it and the resultant way the EPA estimated the range. You will have to manually unplug it to get ~80% charge. It requires a little mental arithmetic, but you get used to that. You can also program a charge timer to reach 100% about two to four hours after you unplug it. (Depending on the charging rate.)

You cannot directly program it to stop charging at 80% (Nissan eliminated that option starting in 2014). Don't worry about charging to 100% overnight as long as you drive it the next day. I think you will be very happy with the car and it will meet your needs for several years. I recommend that you get level 2 charging at home to make maximum use of the car. With L2 charging, you can preheat or precool while plugged in so that your morning commute will require very little climate control energy from the battery.

IAMTHESTIG said:

Now unfortunately i'm having trouble getting my car added to the Nissan owners portal website so I can use the remote app to control charging and climate control. Their website is really slow too... Grr. I'm assuming I am not alone in this?

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You'll need to verify that you have the 3G version of the hardware that communicates with the Nissan servers. This used to be a free upgrade, don't know if that still applies. I had some issues getting my used '15 SL upgraded and properly connected. I would suggest you contact Nissan customer support and hopefully get an agent as good as the one that assisted me through the process with the local dealer. When it's working, it's one of my favorite features of the car. I do have to reset the hardware every couple of weeks or so by pulling a fuse for a few seconds, PITA but worth it for the feature set.

I think I read earlier that you're considering installing L2 charging capability at your home; I did that and am glad that I did. You'll be able to set charge and climate control timers and have confidence that your car will be completely ready for you and your wife each morning.

Congrats on your purchase, I wish you many miles of fun with your Leaf.

What year and how much to pay for it can be a struggle or was in my case leading up to our purchase last month.

It was not long before I realized the creep up of the buy-in price would lead to buying a new Leaf.

We settled on a 2016 Leaf SL because I wanted the newer battery technology and the four external cameras to help me see how to better park since I have no head movement due to arthritis. Wound up going with a Nissan dealership on my way to look at some on Craigslist. Because of the 9/12 battery health bars it was easier to get them off their over priced asking price.

I had set 2015 as my age cutoff and the one I wanted off of CL was only about $1000 cheaper than the 2016. That meant I paid more for any car I have ever purchased in the last 50 years of buying cars but we are happy so far with our first EV. It is covered in snow and ice as of tonight so the Subaru will cover for it until the roads are salt free.

Quality only costs once but sadly the cost is UpFront.

Congratulation on your new purchase. For the telematics, all 2016+ Leaf has 3G radio, Nissan offer free upgrade for the 2015 model year. All 2014 and earlier model will have to pay to upgrade. You can check the version number in the setting and it will tell you if it has a 3G radio, someone has post instruction on how to check this in the MNL, you can search for it.

Nissan uses the AT&T for the cellular service for the Leaf, so how well it works will depends on the AT&T cellular strength in your area. The AT&T cell reception is pretty bad at where I live. If I park the car just one parking space over, the telematic will stop working. It is a nice feature, I use it quite often to check the SOC and to turn on climate control before taking kids to school.

Very well done! More than 3k off ask and from a dealer.

Thanks for all the help everyone! Looks like I’ll have to take it in for the upgrade if I want the remote control. Not sure it’s worth it really. I can set timers and even go out and turn on climate control, lock the car and come back in 15-20m.

So the day after I bought the car the damn 12V battery crapped out. Was down to 8V. Couldn’t get it to charge on a trickle charger so I replaced it at $200 with an AGM. luckily I told the dealer and they were nice enough to write me a check for the battery - this is after buying it “as-is”. Really nice dealer will definitely visit them again.

All is well now, we both like the car. Just hope it outlasts the loan before it gets to the point where the pack needs replaced. I’m pretty confident if I care for it, avoid heat, and about it sitting at high or low SOC too long we’ll be ok.

And don't leave it plugged in for many hours after or before charging - even with the AGM battery, which was a good idea.

What’s wrong with leaving it plugged in if it’s not actively charging?

IAMTHESTIG said:

What’s wrong with leaving it plugged in if it’s not actively charging?

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Somehow leaving it plugged in, but not charging, keeps the computer awake (possibly polling the presence of the charging cable), causing the 12V battery to drain quickly. It only takes about 2-3 days to cause my car to have a completely dead 12V battery if I leave it plugged in.

Lothsahn said:

IAMTHESTIG said:

What’s wrong with leaving it plugged in if it’s not actively charging?

Click to expand...

Somehow leaving it plugged in, but not charging, keeps the computer awake (possibly polling the presence of the charging cable), causing the 12V battery to drain quickly. It only takes about 2-3 days to cause my car to have a completely dead 12V battery if I leave it plugged in.

Click to expand...

I don't think later cars have this problem.

The 2011 and 2012 didn't recharge the 12V battery while plugged in and not charging. Both higher drain than when sitting, and not charging periodically as is done while sitting lead to a dead battery in a few days.

WetEV said:

Lothsahn said:

IAMTHESTIG said:

What’s wrong with leaving it plugged in if it’s not actively charging?

Click to expand...

Somehow leaving it plugged in, but not charging, keeps the computer awake (possibly polling the presence of the charging cable), causing the 12V battery to drain quickly. It only takes about 2-3 days to cause my car to have a completely dead 12V battery if I leave it plugged in.

Click to expand...

I don't think later cars have this problem.

The 2011 and 2012 didn't recharge the 12V battery while plugged in and not charging. Both higher drain than when sitting, and not charging periodically as is done while sitting lead to a dead battery in a few days.

Click to expand...

Supposedly was fixed sometime in the 2014 model year, maybe. My car can go 3 weeks unplugged and start just fine. 3 days plugged in and it's dead. So the power drain difference is indeed quite large.

WetEV said:

Lothsahn said:

IAMTHESTIG said:

What’s wrong with leaving it plugged in if it’s not actively charging?

Click to expand...

Somehow leaving it plugged in, but not charging, keeps the computer awake (possibly polling the presence of the charging cable), causing the 12V battery to drain quickly. It only takes about 2-3 days to cause my car to have a completely dead 12V battery if I leave it plugged in.

Click to expand...

I don't think later cars have this problem.

The 2011 and 2012 didn't recharge the 12V battery while plugged in and not charging. Both higher drain than when sitting, and not charging periodically as is done while sitting lead to a dead battery in a few days.

Click to expand...

Yes. The problem to which WetEV refers is a different one. You can still drain the 12 volt battery on ANY 2011-2017 Leaf by leaving it plugged in but not charging for long periods. I don't know if it was finally fixed in the 2018+ Leaf, and don't want to test it.

Ahh yes. I did read that on this site during my research. However during my troubleshooting of my 12 V battery when it died I had a multimeter on it, trying to see if it was getting charged when the car was “on”, which it was. I also turned to car of e then plugged in to charge the car, and a few seconds after I saw voltage go up to 14-15V for about a minute or so then back to rest. So that leads me to believe the car is capable is charging the 12 V battery when plugged in, though when and how often I don’t know. I was just making sure the car was even charging the battery.

I was also doing parasitic discharge testing and found the car was drawing .5 amps for 2-3 minutes after reconnecting the 12 V battery. Then it dropped down to .02 amps. How often that high draw happens and what was causing it I don't know. I’m assuming the computer as the car was not on.

There is conflicting information on this so I’m kind of just trying to figure it out on my own.

IAMTHESTIG said:

Ahh yes. I did read that on this site during my research. However during my troubleshooting of my 12 V battery when it died I had a multimeter on it, trying to see if it was getting charged when the car was “on”, which it was. I also turned to car of e then plugged in to charge the car, and a few seconds after I saw voltage go up to 14-15V for about a minute or so then back to rest. So that leads me to believe the car is capable is charging the 12 V battery when plugged in, though when and how often I don’t know. I was just making sure the car was even charging the battery.

I was also doing parasitic discharge testing and found the car was drawing .5 amps for 2-3 minutes after reconnecting the 12 V battery. Then it dropped down to .02 amps. How often that high draw happens and what was causing it I don't know. I’m assuming the computer as the car was not on.

There is conflicting information on this so I’m kind of just trying to figure it out on my own.

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Owning an EV is the best way to learn about them in real time.

We will be adding EV's in the family in the years ahead so we went with a used one that will work for our 30 mile round trips and let us learn about EV's at the same time without breaking the bank much worse.

Best of learning and having fun. People have a lot of questions since they have never talked to an EV owner in many cases. At WalMart the other day I did get called a liberal because I was charging a car that said Zero Emissions on the door. If she only knew!

I also turned to car of e then plugged in to charge the car, and a few seconds after I saw voltage go up to 14-15V for about a minute or so then back to rest. So that leads me to believe the car is capable is charging the 12 V battery when plugged in, though when and how often I don’t know. I was just making sure the car was even charging the battery.

Click to expand...

The issue is when you leave the car plugged in but not charging for a long time, either because charging has finished or because a timer has been set that won't allow charging to start for many hours. Also, the charge delivered to the 12 volt battery while the main one charges is enough to maintain the existing charge of the 12 volt battery, but is not sufficient to recharge it.

Yeah generally I don't leave it plugged in anyhow, I try not to plug it in until I actually want to charge it. I did try the charging timer but i've decided I don't like having to unplug it if I need to do a quick trip - it wasn't charging yet anyway. I'll be keeping an eye on the 12V battery for a couple months as i'm all paranoid now.

Anyway thanks everyone for the help, you've been awesome.