New owner 2012 SV & couple of questions

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DARaynor

New member
Joined
Jul 16, 2019
Messages
2
Picked up a 41k miles SV (with a dent) for $4,800 as our 3rd car with teen sometimes driver. Needs tires, I am scouring the forums. I did not see how much an alignment should cost? Very uneven tread ware so must align after getting probably Bridgestone Ecopia EP422 plus tires from Discount Tire using their price match from Costco...

We plan to mostly charge at home 120v yet our neighborhood restaurant has a free 120v charger! So at least a couple hours per week there lol.

Anyone have any type of solar dash protector type of thing that would trickle charge during the day? Our Leaf will always sit outside.

The front 'engine' compartment is filthy, can I safely pressure wash it?

Last question - how can I find where there are free chargers? I have Googled and get the same several sites that say free but when you arrive it is not free...

Thanks and I am learning a lot here.
 
It is generally safe to use a car wash nozzle - at a distance - on Leaf motor compartments, but there is always the chance of bad luck.

Ditto on the solar battery charger - forget it. 120 volt charging works, but is slow. Plan on the car usually being plugged in when not in use, and make sure it's on a good, otherwise un-loaded 15 amp circuit.
 
Look on android or apple apps for electric car charging apps. Also it's really cheap to charge my leaf, maybe a $1 or $2 a day if I need it and running errands after work (I'm 32-34 miles from work). I roughly use $40 or less on my electric bill at home a month for trickle charging my car at night when I get home, mon-friday. My car is only in the sun on weekends, or it's in a parking structure at work all day. I have read that leaving it in the sun all day every day is bad for the battery, don't quote me look around here.

On tires, I buy mine as cheaply as I can and I run my car on eco mode, or I go through tires too fast, Leafs are super fast off and I can squeal my tires often without it being eco.
 
My car is only in the sun on weekends, or it's in a parking structure at work all day. I have read that leaving it in the sun all day every day is bad for the battery, don't quote me look around here.

The sunshine itself isn't the issue, it's the temp of the air around and under the car, and especially the battery temperature. So full sunshine in cool weather is fine, and even full shade isn't good if the air temp is 100+F. Full sun on asphalt in hot weather tends to create a very hot micro-climate under the car, and that heats the battery.
 
https://www.plugshare.com/
I use the app version on my phone to find stations.
You get feedback from users so you know which are really free or broken and out of service.
120v will probably work for you, but I upgraded to a 240 level 2 charger so I can charge faster and only when the TOU electricity rate is cheapest at home.
 
A few observations from 3 years experience buying a used 2012 Leaf - with a replacement Lizard battery:
1. Solar charging of the "traction" battery requires a substantial PV array. To get about 10 miles/day additional (on a good sunny day) requires a couple of the largest, most efficient XL panels that are each 3-1/2 ft by 6 ft.
2. In the Houston, TX area, almost all the "free" chargers were either not working or not free anymore.
3. Leaf Spy is an absolute necessity for me to estimate trips around Houston. 30-50 mile trips are usually a no-brainer if I plan ahead and charge to 80% charging. 65 miles plus, I need to plan on a charge station stop - even with an overnight 100% charge. Of course, this changes over time with fairly rapid battery degradation.
4. I bought a replacement set of tires over a year ago. Bought the cheapest I could find at Discount tire on their Labor Day special. Quite happy with them. If you search this blog, you will find many good recommendations. IMO, any tire Discount sells is likely Ok for the type of commuter driving I do. Just need to keep the pressure at the max allowable.
5. The dirty front compartment seems unusual. I've looked at many used Leafs and they were all very clean - probably because there is not oily fumes, spills, etc. Maybe a dusty environment? If that is the case, it would seem that a careful spray of simple green/soap solution and light application of rinse would clean it up?
6. Any good alignment shop should resolve that issue - although I've never had any issue with uneven wear.
 
The dirty front compartment seems unusual. I've looked at many used Leafs and they were all very clean - probably because there is not oily fumes, spills, etc. Maybe a dusty environment? If that is the case, it would seem that a careful spray of simple green/soap solution and light application of rinse would clean it up?

My 2013 SV, which was always parked outside, got fairly dirty under the hood, and I washed the area at the car wash a couple of times a year. No problems.
 
Congratulations on becoming an EV owner...you may be driving the car more than you think.

I would suggest NOT pressure washing the front compartment...too much to potentially go wrong. That said a more gentle wash such as done by detail shops with limited amounts of liquid is fine...I do it probably annually using a spray bottle and garden hose to rinse. I set the hose to a slow small flow, just enough to do the rinse job. Needless to say, don’t tug on any orange wiring.
 
At the risk of beating a dead horse, I would not wash or introduce water into the "engine" compartment in any way. There's just too much electrical equipment (mine still looks about as clean as it did when new).
You can get (free) alignment checks at places like NTB.
 
I live in a four season climate so we chose snow rated all season tyres (the 3 peak designation.) I would not recommend S+M tyres if you have snow or ice or your roads for even one day during the year. Appropriate tyres are hands down the cheapest insurance possible for the car and the best risk reduction strategy to avoid personal injury.

We ended up buying 4 Goodyear Assurance WeatherReady for $400 installed, and then I paid ~ $80 for an alignment.

I also had very uneven tyre tread wear on my OEM tyres so I'm hoping that between the alignment and a strict rotation schedule every 5,000 miles this set will wear more evenly. If I get 30k miles on the set, that should take us to end of life for the car.

----
Second,
Trying to rely on free charging is a fool's errand for a couple of reasons:
1. The money you spend waiting for charging away from home is more than you save in electric charges.
2. A 240v connection at home has the convenience and speed your driver will want to find the LEAF a positive experience.
 
SageBrush said:
I live in a four season climate so we chose snow rated all season tyres (the 3 peak designation.) I would not recommend S+M tyres if you have snow or ice or your roads for even one day during the year. Appropriate tyres are hands down the cheapest insurance possible for the car and the best risk reduction strategy to avoid personal injury.

We ended up buying 4 Goodyear Assurance WeatherReady for $400 installed, and then I paid ~ $80 for an alignment.

I also had very uneven tyre tread wear on my OEM tyres so I'm hoping that between the alignment and a strict rotation schedule every 5,000 miles this set will wear more evenly. If I get 30k miles on the set, that should take us to end of life for the car.

----
Second,
Trying to rely on free charging is a fool's errand for a couple of reasons:
1. The money you spend waiting for charging away from home is more than you save in electric charges.
2. A 240v connection at home has the convenience and speed your driver will want to find the LEAF a positive experience.
Agreed :)
Your $400/4 tires installed seems like an excellent deal, for my '13S I ended up paying closer to $500 at Costco(mounted and balanced) for Ecopia +'s, do you know how yours compare to the Ecopia +'s, in snow traction, wear and efficiency? My other Leaf, a California native '12SL came with almost new summer tires that are CRAP! in the snow. In one of the first snows this winter my daughter was driving it down a moderate hill with a stop sign at the bottom and ended up sliding through the intersection and running into a curb/island on the other side of the road, causing almost $800 damage to the Leafs front end(the "A" looking piece that supports the bottom of the tire, ended up getting bent) :( I'm in a quandary what to do. The summer tires have probably 40%?? wear left and one option would be to purchase winter tires like Micheline X-ICE that would probably give excellent traction(I've never used modern snow tires) but then I'd have to play the game of switching them in the spring and fall for my summer tires(I believe Costco would do the switch for $40 for all tires if I purchased the snow tires from them). The other option would be to just purchase a decent set of S+M tires like the Ecopia's or your Goodyear Assurance and simply let Costco keep my summer tires, I believe Hemisphere?? brand. What would you do in my case? Living in CO I'd have to think your climate might be similar to mine, more snow in yours and colder weather in mine. I also wonder just how much better traction my daughter might get with real snow tires compared to the M+S variety I'm used to.
 
We have Toyo Celsius 4 season snow tires on the Prius, and they seem fine - except that on the Prius they largely cancel the self-centering of the front wheels. You have to turn the steering wheel to get them back centered. I don't know if it's a tire issue or an alignment issue, but it's my housemate's car and she doesn't mind. They were cheap, too: less than $400, IIRC.
 
jjeff said:
What would you do in my case? Living in CO I'd have to think your climate might be similar to mine, more snow in yours and colder weather in mine. I also wonder just how much better traction my daughter might get with real snow tires compared to the M+S variety I'm used to.

Your details differ from mine but here are the considerations we used ...

We have two EVs, a LEAF and a Model 3 and most of the time only one car is being used. It would be distinctly unusual for us to be forced to use both cars at the same time. Also (to mention the obvious,) the Model 3 can be used for any task while the LEAF is our city car. With that in mind I decided to outfit the LEAF with tyres that could handle most but not all of our winter days.

I have two sets of tyres+wheels for the Model 3: the OEM that came with the car which are NOT a good choice for winter driving, and X-ICE for the winter season. I'm not bothered by the seasonal swap since it needs to be done anyway for tyre rotation and we have the room and tools needed at home. My decision to buy another wheel set for the Tesla was based on a presumption that we would keep the Model 3 for a long time. Break-even costs are after ~ 3 years based on $180 per year ($90*2) to mount and balance.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1KoSGo5lRQgRLzpizpX1OCem6rN75fIKLHYA0euzgmeU/edit?usp=sharing

Our LEAF works out to one tyre rotation a year for tread wear reasons. Regarding efficiency, I decided to make that a lower priority for the LEAF tyres since the car is only driven about 4,000 miles a year. So far the miles/kwh has stayed steady at 4.9 so they seem OK.

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One other thing to mention: Cold (less than say 25F) should be viewed the same as ice and snow on the road. 3-peak rated tyres stay supple and continue to provide grip while that cannot be relied upon in tyres not rated 3-peak.

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In your shoes ..... hmmm.
My first thought would be that the LEAF will not be around long enough to invest in two sets of tyres (let alone wheels) and the car is not going to pile on a lot of miles so treadwear rating can be ignored. So this comes down to buying ONE tyre set that get rotated every 5,000 miles or so to reduce uneven wear. I would look for a very good (not quite as good as a dedicated snow) 3-peak tyre with decent (it will not be the best) rolling resistance. You might be tempted to just use a dedicated winter tyre and with good reason, but you are constrained by the LEAF's range. American retailers do not typically report rolling resistance so I rely on the European tyre label. The names are different but you can find the American twins by matching the tread pattern.

This review
https://www.tirerack.com/tires/tests/testDisplay.jsp?ttid=231
is not bad

Here is the Michelin crossclimate
https://mb.cision.com/Public/55/9770600/b55333ae60143382.pdf
it gets a C rating for rolling resistance on the European scale.

I'm not quite sure why but I trust this crossclimate more than the weatherReady for MN. Take with a grain of salt.
 
Winter driving in CO is quite different than MN. To illustrate, the DOT doesn't really use salt on the roads here since the snow usually disappears on its own after a few days. There are exceptions at stop lights, etc but the amount of salt (mag cloride here) on the road is negligible compared to MN since the sun and the dryness make the snow disappear fairly soon.

With that in mind, I would think you would get better traction on the ice that is common on MN roads with true snow tires. The rubber is supposed to be 'softer' to provide a better grip on slippery surfaces at the cost of reduced life. I've seen this in action since my wife insists on snow tires for her car in the winter and they tend to only last about 2 seasons before the treads are low enough that they begin to lose traction. Studs are allowed in CO and those certainly improve stopping power although I imagine the range hit would be substantial and I'm not sure they are allowed in MN.

Also, the Leaf is a heavy car and has more inertia than a regular ICE car its size so stopping distances need to be adjusted accordingly.
 
jjeff said:
The other option would be to just purchase a decent set of S+M tires like the Ecopia's or your Goodyear Assurance
M+S (or is it S+M ?) is NOT equivalent to 3-peak rated tyres for winter conditions. Believe it or not, the M+S designation is at the complete discretion of the manufacturer and has NO required winter performance testing. It is just marketing labeling.


This is what you want:
uc
 
Thanks guys, I'll look for that 3 peak with the snowflake.
Your right sagebrush, we only put 5-6k miles/year on the '12 Leaf, with it's meager 50-60 mile(summer) range(30-40 winter :( ) it's hard to put on much more. Maybe I'll try and keep en eye out on Craigslist for a decent set of winter tires although I'm guessing Costco won't do the $40(for a set of 4 tire swap, removing tires from rims, installing other tires and balancing) unless I purchase new tires from them and I'll have to check around to see how much other shops would charge to remove, mount and balance a set of 4 tires.
Goldbrick, yes we use tons and tons of salt in the winter, the roads are white with salt much of the winter, the problem is we can go months with the temps below freezing, weeks below zero but when it's that cold it usually doesn't snow.
As my daughter is going to be driving it daily 25-30 miles per day for school I going to have to do something, either scrap her summer tires and go with a set of the 3-peak all-season tires or again dedicated snows and use her summer tires just for spring/summer/fall........
 
Thanks so much everyone for the answers and discussion. I thought I was dreaming about the Solar and free charging yet thought to ask... I know the power requirements and the use. Our Leaf will sit outside in direct sun most of its life, and be used for errands I am guessing 1-3 times a week. I am enjoying it and our 17-year-old thinks it is kind of cool now that we have it. ECO makes a big difference when he drive it, not so much with me.

Other than alignment and inspection (DONE!), cabin air filter, tire rotation at ~5k miles, tire inflation, what else should I be doing to or for the Leaf?
 
DARaynor said:
Thanks so much everyone for the answers and discussion. I thought I was dreaming about the Solar and free charging yet thought to ask... I know the power requirements and the use. Our Leaf will sit outside in direct sun most of its life, and be used for errands I am guessing 1-3 times a week. I am enjoying it and our 17-year-old thinks it is kind of cool now that we have it. ECO makes a big difference when he drive it, not so much with me.

Other than alignment and inspection (DONE!), cabin air filter, tire rotation at ~5k miles, tire inflation, what else should I be doing to or for the Leaf?

Brake fluid and gearbox reduction oil change. I forget the schedule but I think its like every 3 years. The gearbox is essentially the transmission.

I use a set of continental pro contacts all year long and was very happy with them. I think a separate set of tires is overkill unless you live in a very snowy area. Even in Michigan I've always used very high quality all seasons without problems. The Ecopias (OEM) tires are NOT good in snow/ice. The Leaf is a heavy car with a low CG, so it handles very very well.

Finally, I'd strongly recommend parking it a garage of at all possible. First, it'll keep the batter much cooler, which will make it last far longer. Second, having the car always charged and ready to go is a super convenience item. It takes ~12 hours to charge the car with 110... You really don't want to only be charging at the local restaurant.
 
DARaynor said:
Other than alignment and inspection (DONE!), cabin air filter, tire rotation at ~5k miles, tire inflation, what else should I be doing to or for the Leaf?
Other than above:
1- windshield and rear wiper blades as needed. They will wear faster in continuous sunshine outside.
2- An OBDII dongle and a license for LeafSpyPro. There are several threads out here explain why these are just necessary...get them.
 
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