I think I found my car, advice please!

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jake14mw

Well-known member
Joined
Nov 12, 2017
Messages
180
Location
Connecticut, USA
Hi All,

Been looking around for a couple of weeks and I think I found a Leaf that I'm ready to buy. It's a 2014 SL. I went to see it, and test drove it, everything seems great. It is from a Nissan dealer in the Northeast. 35,000 miles, 12 bars. They showed me the history report, not Carfax, some other company, two owners, both in the Northeast. Not a true certified purchase, warranty is just 3 months 3500 miles.

Normally, when I have bought used cars in the past, I have brought it to a dealer to have it checked out. Since this is electric and it is at a Nissan dealer, I'm wondering if that is necessary? What should I be looking for/checking? It looks great, I'm just worried about anything unseen that might be wrong with it. Thanks for any advice.
 
Price? Also, check the in-service date so you know when the battery warranty will expire.

To give you a benchmark, I purchased a CPO '14 SL with premium ~34k miles on it 12 bars for $11k before tax/ title. I knew that 12th bar was gonna drop any day based on my research. It did, about 2 weeks later.

Without LeafSpy, it's impossible to get an accurate reading on battery health, but if your car was in the NE for its lifespan and it still has 12 bars, the battery has at leas 80% of its health left.
 
That would be 85% capacity left. If you can't run LeafSpy, assume that it will soon be an 11 bar car. The battery capacity warranty is moot here, but you want to know when the powertrain warranty will expire, along with the original factory warranty.
 
The service date is 02/2014 I believe, so the full warranty is up and the powertrain warranty will be good through 02/2019 or 60,000 miles?

What other things should i check closely on the car? Are there any common problems that I should check for?
 
Make sure that the heater works. Make sure that it charges when connected to an L-2 charging station. Make sure it comes with the SD card in the Nav unit, and has two key fobs.
 
LeftieBiker said:
Make sure that the heater works. Make sure that it charges when connected to an L-2 charging station. Make sure it comes with the SD card in the Nav unit, and has two key fobs.

Thanks for the suggestions! I know the heater works and the seat heaters and steering wheel heaters work, our test drive was unusually long to the salesman getting us lost :D . He did say is has two key fobs. The Nav system seemed to be functioning. We would be getting an error message on the screen if it was not in, right?

Oh, what about the 2G vs. 3G for the app connectivity? How can I verify it was updated to 3G?
 
The Nav system wouldn't work if the card were missing. As for the telematics unit, others here will know more about how to tell easily if it was updated.
 
Any other last minute suggestions anyone? It is $9700 for the 2014 SL. Well, really $10,000 because they added some bogus $300 documentation fee. It was definitely under the market price of others in the area.
 
If the origin of the car was an auction, try to get them to guarantee that it will still have at least 11 capacity bars for 90 days - in writing. That would protect against a BMS reset.
 
Nissan dealer seems like it would be legit. Certainly better than a used car lot. The first Leaf I nearly bought was from a Nissan dealer. A nice 2015 S for $9500, 16K miles. I offered $9000 but no go, so I left. As I was driving home, they sold it for $9K to someone! But they got an identical car a day later, which also sold for $9K. It appeared to me that they were flipping them regularly as they came off lease, so I waited for another one. And waited. And waited. Never came. :(

See if the dealer will do a battery test and show you the results. Annual battery checks are required to keep the battery under warranty, so they should be willing to do this.
 
A 12 bar 2014 isn't going to qualify for a new pack ever, and the annual battery check doesn't seem to actually be required for a new pack anyway. I wouldn't worry about that.

Nissan dealer seems like it would be legit. Certainly better than a used car lot.

Some BMS resets are done at the auction, to raise the value. The dealer can be a victim along with the eventual buyer. But unless it was from Arizona or someplace similar, the pack likely does have at least barely 12 bars.
 
If you decide to buy, stipulate in the purchase contract that the dealer either update or verify update of telematics unit to latest version and guarantee connectivity through EV Connect. The annual battery test does not provide any real battery information to the driver beyond the number of capacity bars which you can see on the dashboard display. The manufacture date is shown on a decal on the driver door frame as a month and year. The in service date will be a month, day, and year that defines the exact start (and end) of the factory warranties--make sure you get accurate information. You should be able to verify the condition of the resistance heater and the heat pump system by displaying the energy use on the navigation unit and watching climate control power consumption when running the heat. If the ambient temperature is not really cold (0 degrees F or colder), the heat pump will supply the heat if the desired temperature (set point) is only a few degrees warmer than ambient so the energy consumption will be relatively low (less than 3 kW). If you then raise the set point to 90 degrees F, the resistance heater will come on and the energy consumption should jump to 5 or 6 kW. Try to confirm that both are working properly because repairs are expensive.
 
If the ambient temperature is not really cold (0 degrees F or colder), the heat pump will supply the heat if the desired temperature (set point) is only a few degrees warmer than ambient so the energy consumption will be relatively low (less than 3 kW).

That should read 0 degrees C or colder, not F. The heatpump doesn't run at all at 0F and doesn't do the heavy lifting at even 15F.
 
You need to get leaf spy and check the SOH and HX. Also see how many millivolts difference in the battery pack.

You also want to see how many quick charges have occured.

Check to see that the heat pump works.

Ask dealer if you can run leaf spy on the car before you buy it. If they say no, do not buy that car and do not.buy any other from that dealer.

When you look at the car fax, see how long the car sat between owners. If it sat a very long time between owners, the battery pack may be degraded due to being stored at too high or too low of a charge for too long.

A two owner car would make me a bit apprehensive as the previous owner may have given up on the car because there was some issue with it.

Try to find someone who owns a leaf and knows a lot about the car and the battery.

Also try to read everything you can find about the Nissan leaf and how it works.

Lastly, how many miles a day are you planning to drive the car. If you only dive 40 miles a day, then you can be nice and toasty warm in the winter and sufficiently cool in the summer. If you drive more than 60 or 70 miles a day, you may have to bake or freeze in the summer or winter. You also may need to figure out your charging time into you day if you plan to drive many miles a day.

When people comment about being warm enough or cool enough in the leaf during summer or winter, pay attention to where they live. California hot and cold weather is a bit different than than your city's hot and cold.


Ask a lot of questions from other leaf owners.

It's a great car if you get a good one.
 
If it sat a very long time between owners, the battery pack may be degraded due to being stored at too high or too low of a charge for too long.

We know of no cases in which a low storage SOC resulted in degradation. Generally it's dealerships where cars are stored at 100% charge. It can also happen with private owners, but is less likely. Anyone looking at a 12 bar car who can't use LeafSpy on it should assume that it's really 11 bars, and decide if that is enough.
 
Nissan's owners manual says not to leave the battery at low or zero charge for more than 14 days. That's on page EV-24 of the 2014 owners manual.

Though not probable, it could be possible that a car could have been driven to turtle and then left uncharged for 6 months or so. I don't know what happens to a leaf at an auction site, but I can imagine it could happen.

I don't know if a leaf battery could be so deeply discharged that the battery pack could reverse polarity, but I do know that some types of rechargable batteries can reverse polarity if left totally discharged.

Perhaps this is more of a hypothetical issue than real issue or maybe it's like winning the PowerBall but in reverse. :D

On a different note, my battery SOH has increased from 85% in April to 89% now. HX has increased from 83.22% to 88.65% over the same period of time.

I charge it on an L1 evse to 100% every night and drive it about 40 to 50 miles a day. I pretty much just make sure I drive it every day or unplug it if I'm not going to drive on a specific day.

It's a 2014 SV, and the price was really good.

if I can get 6 years out of it before the battery pack is toasted or one of our chuck holes breaks (aka road canyons) break something too expensive to fix, I'll be really happy with the car.

It will be interesting to see how the battery pack holds up over time.
 
Thanks very much for all the advice everyone. I signed the papers today, and will pick it up on Friday. The car looks immaculate and I loved driving it. I don't generally like owning white cars, but I think the leaf looks good in pearl white. The wheels go well with it. I bought Leafspy and the dongle and brought it with me, but it would not connect with the app. The red light on the dongle lit up, but Leafspy never connected to it. I just hope the battery is good. It shows 12 bars, but one thing that worries me is that fully charged, the range showed 87 miles. Isn't that the brand new range? I would think that with almost 40,000 miles the range would be lower.

I'm really looking forward to picking it up on Friday! Can anyone point me to a thread that shows little know features of the car? Not the simple stuff, I've watched a ton of videos, so I think I know well about basic operation. Thanks again for everyone's help.
 
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