14 months into owning and I'm pretty sure it's time to sell...

Bought my 2016 SL last October with 1052 miles on it for $17,400 shipped to my house. It's a great car, I love driving it. I love how quiet and smooth it is. I love not taking my key out of my pocket to start the car or unlock the doors. I love not stopping at the gas station. I wish more places I go had level 2 chargers available because that would save me a ton of time by not having to stop at the level 3 charger to get enough power to come home.
I bought the car with the intention of using it for 90% of our driving, keep miles off the Odyssey and save money by not having to buy gas. I think we've done pretty good... 36,000 miles on it in the past 14 months.

The problem is, at this rate, I'll be out of my battery warranty long before I've paid for the car. If my pack is significantly degraded by then, I'll be needing an $8000 battery while still owing money on the car. I thought Nissan was going to offer a $2500 refurbished pack, that made the car a lot more enticing.

The other problem is that my kids have both grown enough in the last 14 months that they aren't very comfortable in the back seat anymore.

I think it's time to sell while I can still say "it has 60,000 miles and 6 years left of the battery warranty." and before there's a significant noticeable loss in battery capacity. Leafspy says I'm at 91.5% (25.5kWh) now.

Tsiah said:

I'll be needing an $8000 battery while still owing money on the car. I thought Nissan was going to offer a $2500 refurbished pack, that made the car a lot more enticing.

The other problem is that my kids have both grown enough in the last 14 months that they aren't very comfortable in the back seat anymore.

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AFAIK, there's no price yet for 30 kWh packs. As for the bolded part, I've not seen such an offer for the US. It's Japan-only at the moment, unless you have a reputable source stating otherwise.

How many kids do you have back there? Considering 2 adults can fit reasonably comfortably in the back... Three isn't great though.

One reason the Leaf works for me now is my oldest has just bought his own Nissan Kicks, and my youngest just inherited grandma's old 2004 Altima (with only 40K miles), so my Leaf will be mainly for me.. and sometimes the wife.

Tsiah said:

Bought my 2016 SL last October with 1052 miles on it for $17,400 shipped to my house.... 36,000 miles on it in the past 14 months.

I think it's time to sell while I can still say "it has 60,000 miles and 6 years left of the battery warranty." and before there's a significant noticeable loss in battery capacity. Leafspy says I'm at 91.5% (25.5kWh) now.

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I’m reading the same concern in two different threads and trying to wrap my head around 30k+ miles per year on any car, let alone a leaf. That leaf must be constantly on a L2 charger or L3’d significantly when not rolling. Most likely your battery is doing fine given the duty cycle. My own ‘14 with a 24KWh pack was decaying about the same rate at 15k miles/yr and no L3 charging, and in a colder climate.

My hunch is that any vehicle will be up-side-down financially and a resale dog when driven that many miles/yr. I suggest not stressing over the problem. The financial hit to trade it is already a given fact. You are likely better off running it into the ground than trying to trade it this early.

cwerdna said:

AFAIK, there's no price yet for 30 kWh packs. As for the bolded part, I've not seen such an offer for the US. It's Japan-only at the moment, unless you have a reputable source stating otherwise.

How many kids do you have back there? Considering 2 adults can fit reasonably comfortably in the back... Three isn't great though.

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I know there's no price for the 30kWh yet, but if they want $8000 for a 24kWh battery the 30kWh is going to be $10000 at $333/kWh. I didn't know that refurbished battery deal was Japan only, I guess I missed that important detail.

I have 2 kids, one of them is 5'11" and she has issues with her back. I feel relatively comfortable back there, but she says it's not and my wife (who also has back problems) says it's not comfortable. My almost 4 year old barely has any leg room because in her car seat there's almost no room between her and the back of the front seat.

rogersleaf said:

I’m reading the same concern in two different threads and trying to wrap my head around 30k+ miles per year on any car, let alone a leaf. That leaf must be constantly on a L2 charger or L3’d significantly when not rolling. Most likely your battery is doing fine given the duty cycle. My own ‘14 with a 24KWh pack was decaying about the same rate at 15k miles/yr and no L3 charging, and in a colder climate.

My hunch is that any vehicle will be up-side-down financially and a resale dog when driven that many miles/yr. I suggest not stressing over the problem. The financial hit to trade it is already a given fact. You are likely better off running it into the ground than trying to trade it this early.

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I live 40 miles from work. My oldest used to live with her dad who is 35 miles away. We would sometimes make that trip twice a day to pick her up from school, come home, then take her back to her dad's house that night. I've driven the car well over 200 miles a day on many occasions. L2 charging on both ends of my commute, a decent number of L3 chargers around the city.
I've seen some listed for sale for about what I owe on it with a little lower mileage than I have. I think I can sell it for pretty close to what I owe.

If you want out of driving electric, then sell it. You won't find anything other than a minivan or full-size SUV that has significantly more room in the back seat. If you keep driving the LEAF, you will have saved way more in gas cost and reduced maintenance than the cost of a new battery from Nissan by the time you need one.

Good points Gerry

GerryAZ said:

If you want out of driving electric, then sell it. You won't find anything other than a minivan or full-size SUV that has significantly more room in the back seat. If you keep driving the LEAF, you will have saved way more in gas cost and reduced maintenance than the cost of a new battery from Nissan by the time you need one.

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A Prius has 5 more inches of legroom in the rear.
We have a mini van. I don't like driving it because it gets 25mpg if you drive really nice.
It isn't that I want out of driving electric, quite the opposite. I don't want the financial risk at this point. If I could just open it and change a few bad cells/modules, I'd be happy to keep it.
$8,000 is 67,000 miles worth of gas at $3/gallon and 25mpg so roughly 130,000 miles worth of fuel in a Prius. You also have to consider that my power bill went up $50/month so it's not straight savings. I was using $160/month in gas with no car payment. Now I'm paying $266 for the car and $50 in electricity. I do all my own maintenance. I just did the timing belt and water pump on my Odyssey for less than $300 in parts. That's a $1300 job if I were paying someone.

If I didn't have the $266 car payment, I wouldn't be so concerned about this. I could be saving money for when I need a battery. I can't have a $266 car payment and a car I can't use/a car that I'm forced to take out an $8000 loan on to get a new battery for.

Tsiah said:

.... I don't want the financial risk at this point...

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Sorry, as rogersleaf pointed out, you have already taken the financial risk. Selling it now locks in your loss. Driving it until it no longer works for you will reduce the risk, not increase it.

While you MAY need a new battery soon after the warrantee is up, that is not a given at all. You really don't have too much information at this point concerning the health of the battery. Downloading LeafSpy and buying a low cost adapter would give you more information about your battery and might help either tip the balance toward keeping or selling the car.

OTOH, if you are going to be continually worrying about it, then sell it. It is not worth being stressed out every time you get in the car.

If the van seats are that much better I would simply use the van when transporting those with back issues.
Just use the LEAF for yourself and reduce miles and keep the warranty for more time.

I strongly suggest you have those with bad backs sit in the back seat of a Prius before you buy one. The Prius may have more leg room, but it certainly has less headroom in the back.

Tsiah said:

I didn't know that refurbished battery deal was Japan only, I guess I missed that important detail.

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As for Japan-only, I've not seen any movement or updates (positive or negative) on US availability from these:
https://www.greencarreports.com/news/1116042_nissan-leaf-refurbished-batteries-offered-for-older-electric-cars-in-japan
https://www.greencarreports.com/news/1116722_nissan-begins-offering-rebuilt-leaf-battery-packs

I did stumble across https://www.rematec.com/news/news-articles/turning-over-a-new-leaf/ from Sept 2018. This isn't surprising since I suspect many Leafs in Japan haven't lost 4 capacity bars within the capacity warranty due to climate reasons. I know of one that did which was used on a V2H system. And, I suspect the rest get dumped by the owner and exported outside Japan due their "shaken" inspection system before it gets too risky/costly to continue to own.

Tsiah said:

I think it's time to sell while I can still say "it has 60,000 miles and 6 years left of the battery warranty." and before there's a significant noticeable loss in battery capacity. Leafspy says I'm at 91.5% (25.5kWh) now.

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How low can the battery capacity go and still serve your needs ? If for example you can get 100k miles from the car then it works out to under ~ 17 cents per mile for combined fuel+capitalization cost. You are not going to come anywhere near that low a cost in an ICE.

The other problem is that my kids have both grown enough in the last 14 months that they aren't very comfortable in the back seat anymore.

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Your call, but it sounds like a rationalization

If you already have an Odyssey, you might as well try just using that everyday and sell the Leaf.
It sounds like you have found enough reasons to sell the Leaf.

Two years ago, I had to put $6,000 in repairs into my Odyssey. I didn't even have the transmission fail. The transmission repair on an Odyssey alone is over $5,000.

If you can do your own repairs, an ICE will be much much cheaper than normal. for those of us who can't or don't have the time to do our own repairs, the repair cost of an ICE is significant.

New cars are expensive, period. Used cars cost less to operate. If you can do your own repairs, used cars are insanely cheaper than new. Comparing costs of a used Prius that you fix yourself to a new Leaf may not put the Leaf in a favorable light. I paid $5500 for my Leaf, and you won't beat that with an ICE. But I will have to get another cheap Leaf or battery soon, depending on my driving range.

Leafs don't have transmissions, spark plugs, wires, starter motors, alternators, oil changes, timing belts, or head gaskets. They do have inverters, DCDC converters, and a battery.

Honestly, I'd stop worrying about the battery cost and just drive the car. $100/mth in a savings account will pay for the battery in 6 years, though the battery will likely last longer. If you're doing 35k mi/yr and paying $50 mth in electric, you're saving $125/mth in gas at $3/gal. You can put $100 into savings from that. Yes, gas is $2/gal right now, but it'll probably go back to $3+ soon.

Alternatively, sell the car at a loss and buy a Prius or other car, if the math works.

If your family has health issues and hurts in the car, then NOTHING above matters. If you can afford it, ditch the car ASAP for one that doesn't hurt.

Lothsahn said:

Leafs don't have transmissions, spark plugs, wires, starter motors, alternators, oil changes, timing belts, or head gaskets. They do have inverters, DCDC converters, and a battery.

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FWIW, since you brought up Prius, Prius doesn't have a starter motor, alternator nor timing belt. It doesn't have a traditional transmission, but rather a power split device. Oil change intervals starting with gen 3 (model years 2010 to 2015) got extended to once every 10K miles w/the use of synthetic oil. I believe that's still true on gen 4.

Lothsahn said:

Yes, gas is $2/gal right now, but it'll probably go back to $3+ soon.

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Gas prices are highly regional. I think I've seen gas at below $3/gal once in the past few weeks (wasn't at first sure if it was in a dream). This is a first in over 6 months, maybe even a year. A check of my local gasbuddy.com page in the lowest prices section shows a range from $2.95 to $3.09/gal for regular. Even Arco and Rotten Robbie that I semi-frequently pass are currently at $3.39/gal for regular.

I just checked gas price charts for the above page and for my region, looking at the average retail price of regular in the past 12 months, the lowest was $3.08/gal for regular which was a year ago. Current average here for that is ~$3.46/gal. One has to select the 18 month chart to see averages below $3/gal here.

If curious about regional prices, see https://gasprices.aaa.com/ (formerly fuelgaugereport).

Gas prices dropping here in the south.. normally this is not good news for overall economy. But I'm sure it will all rebound.

GerryAZ said:

I strongly suggest you have those with bad backs sit in the back seat of a Prius before you buy one. The Prius may have more leg room, but it certainly has less headroom in the back.

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That's the plan.

stjohnh said:

Tsiah said:

.... I don't want the financial risk at this point...

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Sorry, as rogersleaf pointed out, you have already taken the financial risk. Selling it now locks in your loss. Driving it until it no longer works for you will reduce the risk, not increase it.

While you MAY need a new battery soon after the warrantee is up, that is not a given at all. You really don't have too much information at this point concerning the health of the battery. Downloading LeafSpy and buying a low cost adapter would give you more information about your battery and might help either tip the balance toward keeping or selling the car.

OTOH, if you are going to be continually worrying about it, then sell it. It is not worth being stressed out every time you get in the car.

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I have leafspy. I'm down to 91.5% SOH, 25.5kWh.
How am I at a loss if I sell the car for what I owe on it?
My total loan was a little over $18,000 for taxes and registration, if I sell for the $16,000 left on the loan that leaves me with a about $2,200 operating cost (sans electricity) for 14 months.

Lothsahn said:

Two years ago, I had to put $6,000 in repairs into my Odyssey. I didn't even have the transmission fail. The transmission repair on an Odyssey alone is over $5,000.

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I know. That's why I specifically looked for one outside of the affected years. I replaced a few of those transmissions while I worked for Honda and it's definitely not a job you can do at home.

Lothsahn said:

eafs don't have transmissions, spark plugs, wires, starter motors, alternators, oil changes, timing belts, or head gaskets. They do have inverters, DCDC converters, and a battery.

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Yep, and I'm not really worried about any of that going bad except the battery.