Thinking about picking up a 2013 SV to go with my 2012 SL

[Roadburner440]

I am sure you guys are thinking I am nuts, but I was QCing my car over the weekend and ran in to a pretty good deal on a 13' SV for 12,900. Is fully loaded with AVM, Bose stereo, and my wife is sick and tired of putting gas in the truck since I came back from deployment and the Volt has been gone since November. :lol: Was just curious as guys with the 13's and newer seem overall happy with them. It has 6,200 miles on the clock, looks like brand new, and my LeafDD was showing Hx101 and still above 60ahr in the pack. After doing some plodding around on here some seem to believe these 13's have the magic battery where others I guess got the crap 11/12 battery. I know a lot of you guys have moved on to the Kia Soul EV, B-class, and Model S (wish I could!). Unfortunately here in Virginia though stuff like that isn't even available. Other reasons I was looking at too is cause I was debating doing the Brusa upgrade on my 12', and determined it just wasn't cost effective at all. So at least with this I can get the 25amp EVSE upgrade cord, and have 10amps over my 12' at the house, and the full 30amps at all the L2 EVSE's going in around here since all the Chademo units keep getting busted. I do appreciate everyones help over the years. Haven't been active a whole lot lately, but still do a lot of learning on here about things going on as a whole.

EDIT: Forgot to add the car was built in November of 2013, so is a late model to my understanding which is also why I think it has a good battery in it. The VIN is 1N4AZ0CP5DC421712 , and it seems all the 2013's that have the low ahr/hx readings are all in the low 40000 range from my poking around on here.

 

[LeftieBiker]

I'm not sure (nor is anyone else) if all of the 2013 MY Leafs got a somewhat better battery, or if a few got a Much better one, with the rest getting a slight improvement. It doesn't seem as if we are seeing the same rapid degradation as the 11-12 battery pack, so my theory is that they changed the chemistry a bit when they moved battery and car production to Tennessee. I haven't had mine checked yet, but even though it started to charge to 79% instead of 80 after a year, it still shows 12 bars after 2 years and 11k miles. If you have no reason to think the BMS was reset, it sounds like a great deal.

 

[Roadburner440]

Thanks. I am going back Saturday to test drive it. I am hoping by then they have the SD cards for the radio in since I am not even remotely going to get it without those as the whole radio system is bricked. I will see if I can do an extended distance test drive and see what kind of distance I get out of it with the LeafDD hooked up to compare. At least your car is doing better than my 12. Down to 52ahr with a Hx of just under 75%. Still showing 11 of 12 bars, but I expect the 11th one to go any time now. Traffic is so terrible here though so I still get 60-70 miles per charge even on the highway where I usually average the lightning quick speed of 24mph. :lol: I might ask them to print out a service history for it just to make sure as I think the only way to reset it is at a dealership with a Consult tool. It does have an entry on the Carfax saying something about at 6,284 miles the Body computer/module was reprogrammed. Car was in Lancaster, PA its whole life so I can't imagine it has a lot of real degradation.

 

[Roadburner440]

Went and drove it but didn't wind up getting it. Car had 66ahr of battery, and felt great to drive a Leaf that had a darn close to new battery. However at highway speed it made this weird low pitch hum/grinding noise that I cannot place. Dealer insisted it was normal, and that the car had a warranty so I didn't have to worry about it. However it was quite annoying especially since our 12' doesn't do that. So needless to say I ran, and ran quickly. I will keep my eyes peeled for ones as they come off lease. Searching on the forums seems it isn't a common issue though, but is something that has happened on the 13's. Replacing the transaxle seems to have fixed it for some people. I am guessing that might be why whoever had it got out of the lease in a year and a half. Might even be a lemon buyback or something and that is why they took it out of state. Ah well.

 

[LeftieBiker]

Tires can make all kinds of annoying noises. If the car had aggressive all-seasons (or snows) on it, you might want to look into swapping wheels for another drive.

 

[Roadburner440]

It was consistent regardless of road surface type, and always over 45mph and getting increasing louder as speed increased. Our 12' makes road noise depending on the surface, but as soon as I hit blacktop it is dead silent. This one the noise was still there, and has the same tires my 12' does (stock Ecopias). I will just keep looking as they are only going to get cheaper from here on out as they start exponentially coming off of lease.