Just checked out a 2013 Leaf S today - 10 bars - Should I buy it?

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LeftieBiker

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Welcome. You need to check the build date on the driver's side door sill sticker. If it is before April of 2013, then run - don't walk - away from the car. The reason is that pre-April 2013 Leafs have batteries that look the same as later ones, but use the old, terrible 2011-2012 battery chemistry. One of those "Canary" batteries would not hold up well at all. Later 2013 cars have batteries that hold up much better, although not well enough in hotter climates. Anyway, I'm going to link my used Leaf buying guide, and ask you to put the City in which you are located in your user profile - or at least tell us where you live, by city. That will help us to answer your question.

https://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=538030
 
Thank you for the reply. It is a 11/13 Leaf, which is nice.
I am in Kansas City, MO.

And actually I had already read all of your thread on buying used Leafs before I went to look at it :) It was very helpful. Now I'm just trying to decide on whether or not it's a smart decision for me and my wife. I figured I would ask and get some of your guy's thoughts since I imagine I'm not the only one facing this dilemma ;)

~ Jake
 
I must have missed actually clicking the Approve button the first time. Hopefully when my mind goes it will be more interesting than that.

EDIT: no, something went wrong with the site. The topic title wouldn't be there if I hadn't approved the now-dissappeared post. The site isn't letting me re-approve it, so what I'm going to do is paste the first post in after this one. Apologies to Jake.
 
Hey all. My wife and I are looking for a 2nd vehicle and I am interested in getting an electric car. A 2013 Leaf S popped up in my area with 56,000 miles, listed for $9,000. It has a manufacturing date of 11/13, which is good from what I read. It has the quick charger included and a couple other small bits, but it's mostly a stock S, which I'm cool with. The car is in decent mechanical shape. There are 10 capacity bars remaining.

I downloaded LeafSpy Lite and got the following battery specs:
- AHr: 49.62
- SOH: 75.87%
- Hx: 63.77%
- QC: 8
- L1/L2: 9,227 (seems unusually high..?)

If we end up purchasing this car, it will be used primarily as my commuter car to and from work, which is 23 miles each way. This would amount to somewhere around 12,000 miles per year. My main concern is that the Leaf would end up having around 100k miles in only 4 years of owning it. From what I have seen, most folks at this point tend to sell their Leafs or perform a battery replacement ($$$). Ideally, I would just keep the car as long as it could get me to work and back. But once it can no longer do that, then I am completely unsure about what to do. It looks like most battery replacement services cost ~$8k, and those aren't even promised to exist in 5+ years for these old Leafs. I am fairly confident that I could do this swap myself (based on what I've seen online), but sourcing a battery will likely be very difficult in 5+ years given how difficult it is right now. It is very disappointing that there is no third party manufacturers supporting all of the Leaf owners.

I do want to point out that I would have the benefit of being able to charge the Leaf at my workplace using L2 charging. This would mean that my Leaf would only HAVE to get me 23 miles from my house before it needs another charge. Does anyone have a rough estimation of when this point would be reached given the battery's current condition?

The big questions that I have are below:
1) How long until this Leaf is no longer able to perform a 23 mile drive (on 30-45mph roads) given it's current battery specs?
2) After that time has passed, what is the likelihood that I'll be able to find a replacement battery for a DIY swap?
3) Is the car listed at a fair price?

Sorry to drop this big post on everyone. But I'm just trying to think through if this purchase makes enough sense for me and my wife. I really like the idea of electric cars, but the battery degradation gives me pause. If there was a guaranteed way to swap in a brand new pack for $3k-4k after the current pack has died, I'd be buying the car right now. But that just doesn't seem to be the case.

Thank you to anyone who is willing to give some thoughts.

~ Jake
 
If you can charge at work I'd say that car will be able to do a 23 mile trip for many years. It should have no trouble doing a round-trip today under almost any conditions in MO.

Battery degradation depends on many factors, as I'm sure you know, but usually the fastest degradation happens when the car is new and as it ages the rate of decline slows down.

Leaf's in general are quite reliable but there are a few parts that can break that are expensive. Fortunately, I'd say that there are no parts that can't be found used on ebay or from a junkyard at a good price since most of the cars last quite a while.

There is an outfit in New Zealand that is working on a replacement battery pack for the Leaf. It's too soon to tell if it will be successful but there is no technical reason replacement batteries couldn't be made, it's just not a viable business case yet. https://evsenhanced.com/aftermarket-battery/

$3k-4k replacement batteries would be a game changer for a lot of people. I don't think we'll see that anytime soon though.

Finally, $9k is a lot for a 2013 Leaf S IMHO but that is about the going rate here in CO as well. Most of the 2013 models listed here are well over that although I don't know if they actually sell for that much.

Last but not least, I think you'd love driving an EV.

OK, really last.....if you can afford it, check out a new Leaf. If you can use the $7500 tax credit you'll get a lot more car for your money.
 
The most important question to ask when buying an EV (after "Can I afford it?) is "Will this car work for me?" 10 bars isn't a lot of range, and if you have Hot Summers it will fall more over the years, but your needs seem to be modest enough that with workplace charging you should be ok.
 
Thank you for all of the replies!

Regarding the question: "Could you afford a new EV?" -> I think we can if we take on a payment plan w/ monthly payments. But I have always tried to purchase cars outright in order to avoid that. So with a payment plan, yes. Without a payment plan, no.

Is there any calculator tool (or some best guesses) for how long it would take this particular car to no longer be able to reliably drive 30 miles (assuming Midwestern winter conditions)? I have added some figures below for the estimated cumulative mileage. If someone is able to help me understand when the Leaf would likely no longer reliably get me to work and back, that would be incredibly helpful information. My commute is on roads that are 30mph - 45mph.

- Year 1: 68k
- Year 2: 80k
- Year 3: 92k
- Year 4: 104k
- Year 5: 116k
- Year 6: 128k
- Year 7: 140k
- Year 8: 152k
- Year 9: 164k
- Year 10: 176k

Thanks again for all of the input so far!

~ Jake
 
The problem with answering that question is that very few Leafs have degraded to the point where they can't make a 35 mile trip at lower speeds. We aren't even sure that any Leaf has degraded to the point where it can't be driven 25 miles. You should consider that good news, but also keep in mind that you'd be paying a LOT of money for a 10 bar Leaf, so it might fail to meet your needs before it has paid for itself, because you wouldn't be paying a lot for gas for those trips, even at $6 a gallon, unless you were driving something like a 10MPG truck instead...

If you do decide to buy the Leaf, please make a lower offer, and bank the money you save (if any) for future repairs. I'd suggest at least $1k below the current price. If it were me, I'd offer $6k, and bargain up maybe another $500.
 
Interesting! Is there a point at which a Leaf's battery will simply die / refuse to work at all? Obviously battery degradation is a huge topic, but I haven't seen much talk about completely failed batteries.

If Leaf batteries just keep on working even at extremely degraded levels, that would make the purchase a little more attractive. But I think I read something that said once your SOH gets around 40-45% then the cells/modules have a difficult time balancing to each other and some can potentially become useless... Something like that.

I appreciate all of the feedback!
 
But I think I read something that said once your SOH gets around 40-45% then the cells/modules have a difficult time balancing to each other and some can potentially become useless... Something like that.

I think that the above was speculation, but if anyone knows otherwise, please post it here.
 
I think cwerda has posted cases of Leaf's with 2 or 3 capactity bars that were still on the road.

The car will go into 'turtle' mode and eventually shut down when any single cell reaches the appropriate trigger voltage. It's possible all the cells will degrade at exactly the same rate but I'd guess that on average, as time goes on the cells will tend to separate in capacity and the delta between them would increase.
 
goldbrick said:
Finally, $9k is a lot for a 2013 Leaf S IMHO but that is about the going rate here in CO as well. Most of the 2013 models listed here are well over that although I don't know if they actually sell for that much.

That was my thought also. Almost 2x what the car would have sold for pre-Covid. I'm going to sell my LEAF after I take delivery of a Tesla. It is much the same car as OP reports but mine has an 11 bar battery and is in outstanding condition at ~ 45k miles. I'll be quite satisfied with ~ $7k.
 
That 2013 "S" should make the 46-mile round trip under reasonable conditions until the battery drops to 8 capacity bars (or lower). I made my 52-mile round trip commute with air conditioning use when the 2011 and 2015 cars were down to 8 capacity bars. The 2015 had a few weak cells that eventually reduced the range so I had to start charging at public L2 stations on the way home before I traded it in on the 2019. It still displayed 8 capacity bars at the time I traded, but highway range was significantly lower than if the cells were well balanced. The car you are considering should make 23 miles on a charge for at least several years. Winter conditions will reduce range significantly (especially since the S does not have the heat pump system), but seat and steering wheel heaters help if it is equipped with them. A new LEAF with warranty would be a good choice if you can take the full tax credit and handle the monthly payments.
 
LeftieBiker said:
Hey all. My wife and I are looking for a 2nd vehicle and I am interested in getting an electric car. A 2013 Leaf S popped up in my area with 56,000 miles, listed for $9,000. It has a manufacturing date of 11/13, which is good from what I read. It has the quick charger included and a couple other small bits, but it's mostly a stock S, which I'm cool with. The car is in decent mechanical shape. There are 10 capacity bars remaining.

[edit]

If we end up purchasing this car, it will be used primarily as my commuter car to and from work, which is 23 miles each way. This would amount to somewhere around 12,000 miles per year. My main concern is that the Leaf would end up having around 100k miles in only 4 years of owning it. From what I have seen, most folks at this point tend to sell their Leafs or perform a battery replacement ($$$).
I have a "hot sports opinion" on this one as I grew up in KC and know it gets really hot in the summer and really cold in the winter.
While that's a relatively low-mileage Leaf, you are planning on putting a lot of miles on it and the S trim does not have a heat pump (and the price is a bit high).
Your last sentence is exactly what I tell folks looking at Gen1 Leafs: if you have no interest in replacing/upgrading the battery pack (I have done both), then I recommend buying new (or least a newish Gen2) and avoiding the inevitable range crush. Trust me: you will not be happy with the pressure of charging every morning and every night to make a work round-trip on a cold day in January a couple years down the road.
 
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