Thinking about buying a LEAF ~ Massachusetts

[RonDawg]

Congrats on your purchase.

Confirming the car has 12 capacity bars? On the right side of the display, where the range estimator / "Guess-o-Meter" is located it's the thin bars on the right, with the bottom two colored in red. Hopefully you have 10 white bars above the two red ones.

 

[ksnogas2112]

Awesome!

 

[DNAinaGoodWay]

Glad it worked out for you. Congratulations. Now the PIP will seem like such a gas guzzler.

I think you love it. Already seen pics of it on your Plugshare check-ins.

If you get an email from Marlboro Nissan for a free oil change, they gladly apply that to a free tire rotation for you.

Enjoy.

 

[Dalsnpals]

Congrats and you will enjoy the fun driving the leaf. Also being from Ma. It drives well in the snow.

 

[Math2]

Congrats on your purchase.

Confirming the car has 12 capacity bars? On the right side of the display, where the range estimator / "Guess-o-Meter" is located it's the thin bars on the right, with the bottom two colored in red. Hopefully you have 10 white bars above the two red ones.

Ron, as soon as I read your post the other night, I ran out to my car and started counting the bars! I'm all set, 10 white and two red! Thanks!

 

[RonDawg]

Congrats on your purchase.

Confirming the car has 12 capacity bars? On the right side of the display, where the range estimator / "Guess-o-Meter" is located it's the thin bars on the right, with the bottom two colored in red. Hopefully you have 10 white bars above the two red ones.

Ron, as soon as I read your post the other night, I ran out to my car and started counting the bars! I'm all set, 10 white and two red! Thanks!

Good. You could still have some capacity loss, but a missing first bar means the capacity loss is already significant. The gauge is not linear; the first bar disappears after it loses 15% of capacity, while the remaining bars disappear with each 6.25% or so, instead of the 8.33% that 1/12 would normally represent.

Since you bought and not leased, you may want to check out this Wiki (link also at the top of the page), particularly the entries about the battery: http://www.mynissanleaf.com/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

 

[rafalek2000]

You can read my story on "buy or lease" thread. I'll be located in CC Mass. and thinking of taking the plunge with the Nissan Leaf. Granite EC located in Yarmouth would really diminish my range anxiety. The plugshare app is awesome. I hope people who sign up for it are willing to help an EV friend in need.

I'm too far away from Boston to consider QC. You on the other hand, located south would benefit from QC.
Boston is a progressive town, I assume it will provide QC in the near future.

 

[Yogi62]

Joyce,

Ah ha! So you are new owner of Sparky(1)! You got a good deal, and paid less for the car than they paid me.
I babied it from day one (no teens/no food in the car!) because after the 2013's were announced I knew I might
go for a trade-up.

I was VERY careful with the battery while I had it. I only charged to 100% maybe 2 times just to see the full range
and it got to LBW only once, never to VLBW. Most of the time was 40% to 80% on my 15 mile each way commute.
For the first month I was L1 charging, and then I got a Siemens Versicharge and did L2 up to 80%, no QC ever.
VersiCharge was nice because I could easily delay charging until the early morning, or just plug it in and get a boost
for an evening trip.

When I picked up the car at the dealer in MA, it had 2 bars of charge and 46 miles on it and was blocked in by
3 other leafs in a display area with no plugs near by. I think they charged it once, did a couple customer test
drives and then left it sit with 2 bars for a while. They replaced the 12V battery to get it to boot up because it
had drained from inactivity. (odd with the solar panel....). Check the headlight tilt, I am not sure they were
in sync, or I didn't understand why they tilt. Other than that, I had zero issues with the car.

You can read about the initial purchase here:
http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=11152" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

And the trade-in here:
http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=12266" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Sounds like you might commute to Mathworks in Natick? Every time I see a blue/grey 2011-2012 I wonder, "is
that it"? If we ever have a "users group" meeting out here perhaps Sparky(I) and Sparky(II) can meet again.

 

[DNAinaGoodWay]

Wicked cool info to pass on Yogi, what a great post!

 

[DaveEV]

Wicked cool info to pass on Yogi, what a great post!

+1 - always nice to pass along info about a well taken care of LEAF!

 

[Math2]

Yogi, I just now saw your post about being the original owner of my LEAF, and I'm so glad you posted! Shortly after I traded in my 2011 Prius, I saw it drive past my street! I'm always keeping an eye out for it! (We had it custom pin striped, so it is different from the other dark blue Prius and easy for us to spot.)

First, I live in Weymouth, and do not work at MathWorks (good guess, though).

From reading my post, you saw that I was looking for a slightly used LEAF since it would be out second car. The dealer did tell us that the first owner decided to buy a 2013 LEAF, but one never know what dealers may say to sell a car. It's nice to know it was the truth.

We looked at the prices used vs new with incentive, and used worked better for us. We were very pleased with the dealer, although will probably not go back due to the distance from Weymouth.

We do enjoy the LEAF, but can see that it's not a car for everyone. It's very enjoyable to drive, but it's the heat that is what we don't like. I only have less than 10 miles each way to work, and it's usually not worth even turning the heat on. It takes at least 5 minutes to get warm, but in those 5 minutes COLD air blows out. I'm usually more comfortable with the seat and steering wheel heat. On these very cold days I have just taken the Prius Plug-In to work.

Since we have two plug ins, we did install a L2, 220, charger in our garage. That makes a big difference in charging and preheating.

You'll be sad to hear that the LEAF was in a very minor accident two weeks after I got it. I was about 5 cars back, stopped at a red light. The cars behind me had also stopped. Unfortunately, the driver behind me had her foot slip off the brake pedal, and she bumped into me! I was going to get it fixed, but the dent it so slight it is not really noticed. It would have been covered under her insurance, but she would have had a 3 year surcharge for a tiny dent. In addition, if I do sell it down the road, it would show up as an accident on CarFax.

Again, thank you for posting!!

Joyce

 

[cwerdna]

We do enjoy the LEAF, but can see that it's not a car for everyone. It's very enjoyable to drive, but it's the heat that is what we don't like. I only have less than 10 miles each way to work, and it's usually not worth even turning the heat on. It takes at least 5 minutes to get warm, but in those 5 minutes COLD air blows out.

The hybrid heater available on the '13 Leaf SV and SL heats up very fast.

For me, in Nor Cal, if I put the car in READY and turn on the heat (w/no preheating), by the time I've backed out to my driveway, I have warm air. However, it's obviously not as cold here (low to mid 30s at the lowest for outside air temp) and my car isn't cold soaked outside either.

 

[LeftieBiker]

Have you tried the heat first on Low vent with Recirculate, then High/Low vent, still with recirculate, for a few minutes? Also, if you are always in Eco mode, you may find that Normal mode provides faster heat. That's assuming the modes work like that in the pre-2013 leaf...

 

[Math2]

UPDATE:

As of tomorrow, I will no longer own a LEAF. I will be trading it in for a 2015 Prius v.

One reason is that with the LEAF & 2012 Prius Plug-in, we sometimes needed a bit more room. The Prius v should give us that room.

Also, although my ride to work is under 10 miles, it just wasn't working for us. With the heat on or off, I ended up charging it (80%) every night. I had to think about days that I had off site meeting after work. Should I take the PIP or LEAF. The LEAF is a nice car, but I need more range and heat.