pipestem
Well-known member
Update: Changed thread title. Jump to last page for the update.
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Original Post. Six Months in a Used Leaf - 2015
Hi everyone. Yesterday, marked my six month anniversary for Little Zippy, a red 2015 Leaf S. I bought it with 24007 mi on the odometer from Carvana, so it was a leap of faith for the car and the dealer. Some observations...
- This is a great car. We have no real complaints. So glad I made the jump.
- A used Leaf is a great deal. Prices are still low and the car ages well. There are really almost no signs of use. I drive it normally, have not been near a dealer, and only washed it once. It tracks perfectly straight. All controls still feel like new. The seats and paint show no sign of use. No rattles. This is a well made little car. I have not spent another dime on it other than weekend plugins at my house. I feel like a Leaf is not the sort of vehicle most people would abuse, so go used.
- S model is fine. I don't need that carwings stuff. Electric everything (no pun), bluetooth, siri, heated seats front, back, and steering wheel. The radio and climate controls on the dash and steering wheel work great. It's nearly perfect. The only bummer is that music does not stream from the iphone to the car, I have to use the cable and half the time it does not show the correct song on the display -wow, first world problem.
- Slow charging for local driving is fine. I am driving about 900 per month, same as before in my ICE car. I have only used 4 QC in 6 months. 90% of my charging is L2 at work, the other 10% is at home on the 110. This has been no problem. I have only once turned down a local trip due to low charge.
- It really eats charge at interstate speeds. dang. But, around town, shopping, friends, restaurants, it hardly loses any charge. This this is great. I wish I worked in town. I really hope future EVs have better highway performance.
- We need more QC locations. I have many available locally, where I don't need them, but virtually none on the main roads for regional trips. If Tesla can do this, why cannot Nissan ? In fact, why can't we standardize Chademo or CCS ? Why don't my state highway rest stops have QC ? Seriously?
- Winter range drops about 10-20%. Half of December and all of January were often below freezing, and even the last week was below freezing every night. I only ran the heat about half the time, but have used the seats and wheel heating every all the time. This range drop has had no limiting effect on my driving. No big deal.
- Love the power, but wish it had more power beyond 30mph. 2018, I know. I just have to wait a few years for reasonable used ones.
- The manual seat controls suck. I really wish it had a power drivers seat] like nearly every other car over $20K.
- Hub caps ? Seriously, this is the only car over $20K with plastic hubcaps. I got lucky (?) that mine at least has Altima hubcaps which are better looking, to me.
- I did look at a 2018, and was not that much impressed. The range jump is great but not quite enough to be a regional trip car in this area, much less national. In that case, it does not have any more true utility than my 80 mile range Little Zippy. I wish they had actually made a 100% new car and had not taken the heated seats and wheel out of the S, and added real wheels. I am noping that in a few years there will be lots of good used EV on the market.
- All together, it needs just a few more features and a better QC network, a little more range, and it would be perfect.
Leaf spy report. The weird thing is that it degraded by the end of December, but has shown no additional degradation since them, despite the older weather. I am living in fear of losing that first bar, I know it won't last forever.
We got lucky and received a nice fresh snowfall for the drive home from a dinner party last night. The red car looks great with a fresh coat of snow.
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Original Post. Six Months in a Used Leaf - 2015
Hi everyone. Yesterday, marked my six month anniversary for Little Zippy, a red 2015 Leaf S. I bought it with 24007 mi on the odometer from Carvana, so it was a leap of faith for the car and the dealer. Some observations...
- This is a great car. We have no real complaints. So glad I made the jump.
- A used Leaf is a great deal. Prices are still low and the car ages well. There are really almost no signs of use. I drive it normally, have not been near a dealer, and only washed it once. It tracks perfectly straight. All controls still feel like new. The seats and paint show no sign of use. No rattles. This is a well made little car. I have not spent another dime on it other than weekend plugins at my house. I feel like a Leaf is not the sort of vehicle most people would abuse, so go used.
- S model is fine. I don't need that carwings stuff. Electric everything (no pun), bluetooth, siri, heated seats front, back, and steering wheel. The radio and climate controls on the dash and steering wheel work great. It's nearly perfect. The only bummer is that music does not stream from the iphone to the car, I have to use the cable and half the time it does not show the correct song on the display -wow, first world problem.
- Slow charging for local driving is fine. I am driving about 900 per month, same as before in my ICE car. I have only used 4 QC in 6 months. 90% of my charging is L2 at work, the other 10% is at home on the 110. This has been no problem. I have only once turned down a local trip due to low charge.
- It really eats charge at interstate speeds. dang. But, around town, shopping, friends, restaurants, it hardly loses any charge. This this is great. I wish I worked in town. I really hope future EVs have better highway performance.
- We need more QC locations. I have many available locally, where I don't need them, but virtually none on the main roads for regional trips. If Tesla can do this, why cannot Nissan ? In fact, why can't we standardize Chademo or CCS ? Why don't my state highway rest stops have QC ? Seriously?
- Winter range drops about 10-20%. Half of December and all of January were often below freezing, and even the last week was below freezing every night. I only ran the heat about half the time, but have used the seats and wheel heating every all the time. This range drop has had no limiting effect on my driving. No big deal.
- Love the power, but wish it had more power beyond 30mph. 2018, I know. I just have to wait a few years for reasonable used ones.
- The manual seat controls suck. I really wish it had a power drivers seat] like nearly every other car over $20K.
- Hub caps ? Seriously, this is the only car over $20K with plastic hubcaps. I got lucky (?) that mine at least has Altima hubcaps which are better looking, to me.
- I did look at a 2018, and was not that much impressed. The range jump is great but not quite enough to be a regional trip car in this area, much less national. In that case, it does not have any more true utility than my 80 mile range Little Zippy. I wish they had actually made a 100% new car and had not taken the heated seats and wheel out of the S, and added real wheels. I am noping that in a few years there will be lots of good used EV on the market.
- All together, it needs just a few more features and a better QC network, a little more range, and it would be perfect.
Leaf spy report. The weird thing is that it degraded by the end of December, but has shown no additional degradation since them, despite the older weather. I am living in fear of losing that first bar, I know it won't last forever.
Code:
ODO Date Ahr SOH Voltage Hx QC L1/L2 SOC KWH Ah Temp avg GID % GID
24358 11/3/2017 55.89 90.00 395.40 84.64 363 377 93.9 19.50 52.50 67.2 89.7 252
29545 3/24/2018 53.46 86.08 395.37 76.33 367 556 96.9 19.50 51.82 43.8 89.3 251
We got lucky and received a nice fresh snowfall for the drive home from a dinner party last night. The red car looks great with a fresh coat of snow.