is there any way to tell in Leafspy if the car had been sitting around for months at a time with no battery charge?

My Nissan Leaf Forum

Help Support My Nissan Leaf Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

leafamiga

Active member
Joined
Dec 8, 2021
Messages
25
Question about buying a super low-mileage Leaf.

Just bought a used Leaf for my wife and now I'm looking for me.

I have found a 2016 with only 7,000 miles. It has 12 battery bars.

I've read the articles on here, including that great large document, and I have Leafspy Pro. My question is this:

With such low mileage, is there any way to tell in Leafspy if the car had been sitting around for months at a time with no battery charge ? My understanding is that that is bad for the battery. (Even voids the battery warranty on a Taycan !)

Thanks !
 
leafamiga said:
is there any way to tell in Leafspy if the car had been sitting around for months at a time with no battery charge ?

No

But if the battery is in provably good condition *today*, you should not care less about its history, or its odometer reading, or whatever. Haven't we been over this already in your thread ? Are you trying to come up with goofy arguments why the price should be dropped ?
 
SageBrush said:
leafamiga said:
is there any way to tell in Leafspy if the car had been sitting around for months at a time with no battery charge ?

No

But if the battery is in provably good condition *today*, you should not care less about its history, or its odometer reading, or whatever. Haven't we been over this already in your thread ? Are you trying to come up with goofy arguments why the price should be dropped ?


A lower price would be great, but it's not the driver of my question. Just wondering if a battery that has been sitting a long time uncharged could somehow end up in a condition where it shows really good, but drops unusually fast. As I mentioned, I saw someone post that Porsche's battery warranty can apparently be voided by leaving the battery at a state of zero for a certain number of constant weeks. If that post was accurate, I would think there's a valid reason for it. (I just did a quick google search and couldn't find the post I'm referring to) They could have different battery chemistry, and it will be out of warranty anyway, but still made me want to ask a valid question.
 
Take the car for a test drive to do a capacity test. (Miles driven) / (% SOC used) should give you a good idea of the state of the battery. IMO, after that, you just have to take your chances. It's always possible battery degradation will show up later but if it's good today, I'd guess it's fine.
 
A lower price would be great, but it's not the driver of my question. Just wondering if a battery that has been sitting a long time uncharged could somehow end up in a condition where it shows really good, but drops unusually fast. As I mentioned, I saw someone post that Porsche's battery warranty can apparently be voided by leaving the battery at a state of zero for a certain number of constant weeks. If that post was accurate, I would think there's a valid reason for it. (I just did a quick google search and couldn't find the post I'm referring to) They could have different battery chemistry, and it will be out of warranty anyway, but still made me want to ask a valid question.

The short answer, which has been given already, is that if the battery isn't exhibiting signs of damage now, then it wasn't damaged by being drained and left. That would leave tell-tail signs like reduced capacity, cell voltages, and range.
 
I bought a 2016 S a month ago. 24kwh battery, 40K miles on it. Almost like new, we love it. Paid $12,200 for it. Try finding one anywhere near that price now, from the northeast where this one lived.
LeafSpy shows shows 86.2% SOH (State of Health), I've seen as high as 92 miles on the Guess-O-Meter but I'm getting a good 75-80 miles per full charge. 12 bars. 40,000 miles!
I would say with confidence if you're showing 12 bars and 7K miles, your SOH is probably in the mid-90s.
Enjoy and don't worry, you are likely just fine.
 
leafamiga said:
A lower price would be great, but it's not the driver of my question. Just wondering if a battery that has been sitting a long time uncharged could somehow end up in a condition where it shows really good, but drops unusually fast. As I mentioned, I saw someone post that Porsche's battery warranty can apparently be voided by leaving the battery at a state of zero for a certain number of constant weeks.

Your first question was what if the car had gone a long time without being charged.

Your second question is what if it sits at zero state of charge for a long time.

Two very different questions.
Not being put on charge for an extended period is of little consequence as long as the battery is at say 50% SOC.
Being at zero state of charge is bad bad bad, even for relatively short periods of time.
 
Thanks all, and My apologies for lack of clarity. I want to 'like' your posts, but looks like this forum doesn't use that function.

Yes, my concern with this particular car-for-sale is specifically that having only 7,000 miles at five years old it seems like there is a chance that it went weeks at a time without being driven, and if so, was the person likely to keep it charged, or let it drain down to zero. (Of course, there a chance that it was driven almost every day, just a few miles to work and back.)

@jpwhite - You say sitting at zero is bad, bad, bad, which is what I also had heard. Does that mean that I would see the effect of that in the SOH reading in Leafspy, you think ?

I’m gonna talk to the seller and get a vibe, but I'm just wondering / thinking that maybe I would be better served finding onw with say 30,000 miles for a lower price, because it was more likely that it was driven, and charged, on a regular basis.
 
When I turned in my 2013 SV after 5 years, it had about 7600 miles on it. I did none of the above things. I understand your concern, but it is one that applies much, much more to internal combustion vehicles than to EVs.
 
LeafSpy will also tell you how many charge sessions the car has gone through. That might help shed some light on the car's usage patterns.
 
LeafSpy will also tell you how many high speed vs slower charges were done. For instance my car shows only 12 high capacity charges (chademo level 3) and over a thousand slower charges in its lifetime so far.
 
leafamiga said:
@jpwhite - You say sitting at zero is bad, bad, bad, which is what I also had heard. Does that mean that I would see the effect of that in the SOH reading in Leafspy, you think ?
State of Health is just that. The higher the number the better. There is no way to determine how it got to the number it is at.

You said the car had twelve battery bars. If so the SOH should be pretty good. Good SOH good car.
 
Leafman7 said:
LeafSpy will also tell you how many high speed vs slower charges were done. For instance my car shows only 12 high capacity charges (chademo level 3) and over a thousand slower charges in its lifetime so far.

Yeah, I definitely looked at how many QCs were done when I went to look at the Leaf I bought last week, and I'll do the same when I look at this one with 7,000 miles today.

Thanks !
 
JPWhite said:
leafamiga said:
@jpwhite - You say sitting at zero is bad, bad, bad, which is what I also had heard. Does that mean that I would see the effect of that in the SOH reading in Leafspy, you think ?
State of Health is just that. The higher the number the better. There is no way to determine how it got to the number it is at.

You said the car had twelve battery bars. If so the SOH should be pretty good. Good SOH good car.


Thanks. Based on the great document that is posted in the beginning of this thread, I'm a bit leery of old leafs with 12 bars due to possible 'resets', but with only 7,000 miles, and if the SOH and condition of the car seem to support that, then you're probably right.

And of course when I searched today, a newly listed 2017 came up and it is several thousand dollars lower than other 2017s, because it's been in a 'side swipe' accident, which has since been fixed. I wanna check it out for sure.
 
Back
Top