Looking to buy a 2nd Leaf - How Old Should We Go?

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Falcon73

Well-known member
Joined
Dec 28, 2021
Messages
49
Location
Mission Viejo, CA USA
We have a 2018 Leaf SL in SoCal and it's been great for us, but we are thinking of getting a 2nd one for our WA home.

The '18 was from Mesa, AZ, so its battery did get a little fried out there (82% SoH when we bought it 3 months ago) but coastal SoCal should be a fair amount easier on the batteries. Still, we might move this one up to WA, depending on what we can find.

I recall reading to avoid the 1st model year of 2011, but what year started seeing the 30kWh battery packs? Some battery packs have been replaced so those could be worthwhile.

I'm looking at a 2012, but it only shows 37 miles as the fully charged range, which seems quite *bad* even for a 24kWh.

Thank you for any suggestions to help narrow the search range.
 
https://mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=57&t=26662

Hot climates are murder on Leaf batteries, esp. batteries from before 4/2013 builds. There's a nutty guy in LA who's driving around an '11 Leaf with 3 capacity bars left (yes, 9 gone). https://web.archive.org/web/20170825181222/http://www.electricvehiclewiki.com/Battery#Battery_Capacity_Behavior was a mapping of capacity bars vs. remaining capacity from the '11 service manual. It went away from later service manuals and I'm not sure if it ever came back.
 
I wouldn't even consider anything older than a 2015, with a minimum trim level of SV + charge package.

Here's one such example, from the Seattle area:

https://www.autotrader.com/cars-for-sale/vehicledetails.xhtml?listingId=642514142
 
Please read my used Leaf buying guide, which Cwerdna linked. Actually, you don't really want a 30kwh Leaf: many of those batteries aged too rapidly, and while this can qualify the car for a free 40kwh battery, if you want minimal hassle, the 24kwh Leafs with the "Lizard pack", made from 2015 through 2016 (just the 24kwh Leaf S) are a good deal - IF they weren't driven in a Hot climate. The same is true of the 4/2013 - 2014 "Wolf pack" (named by me) but they resist heat even less than the Lizard packs. Confused? Read the buying guide.
 
Falcon73 said:
but what year started seeing the 30kWh battery packs?
Began with '16 SV and '16 SL: https://usa.nissannews.com/en-US/releases/release-bc61419969d1446daf58c4f84915aad3-us-2016-nissan-leaf-press-kit. You can click on the Specs tab.

Then near the end of '16, there became the '16 "S 30": https://www.greencarreports.com/news/1106593_nissan-leaf-s-quietly-gets-30-kwh-battery-upgrade-higher-price. Original '16 S was only 24 kWh.

All '17 are 30 kWh.
 
Falcon73 said:
We have a 2018 Leaf SL in SoCal and it's been great for us, but we are thinking of getting a 2nd one for our WA home.

The '18 was from Mesa, AZ, so its battery did get a little fried out there (82% SoH when we bought it 3 months ago) but coastal SoCal should be a fair amount easier on the batteries. Still, we might move this one up to WA, depending on what we can find.

I recall reading to avoid the 1st model year of 2011, but what year started seeing the 30kWh battery packs? Some battery packs have been replaced so those could be worthwhile.

I'm looking at a 2012, but it only shows 37 miles as the fully charged range, which seems quite *bad* even for a 24kWh.

Thank you for any suggestions to help narrow the search range.

Slightly off the main topic, but your 2018 is one of the lowest SOH I've heard (for 2018s). Do you have full battery bars, or is it missing a battery bar?

As of this AM my 2018 was at 85.89% SOH but I do still have full battery bars.
 
danrjones said:
Slightly off the main topic, but your 2018 is one of the lowest SOH I've heard (for 2018s). Do you have full battery bars, or is it missing a battery bar?

As of this AM my 2018 was at 85.89% SOH but I do still have full battery bars.

Yeah, I know. I wasn't kidding when I said the battery got fried with the prior owners in the Arizona Desert. However, it had all 12 bars when I got it, but 11 now.

Actually it's slipped just under 80% recently (79.76%, I think). The resistance number is in the mid 50% range as well. Yeah, another reason I want to move it to Washington state. I probably should do another thread on this to see what my options are down the road.
 
Falcon73 said:
danrjones said:
Slightly off the main topic, but your 2018 is one of the lowest SOH I've heard (for 2018s). Do you have full battery bars, or is it missing a battery bar?

As of this AM my 2018 was at 85.89% SOH but I do still have full battery bars.

Yeah, I know. I wasn't kidding when I said the battery got fried with the prior owners in the Arizona Desert. However, it had all 12 bars when I got it, but 11 now.

Actually it's slipped just under 80% recently (79.76%, I think). The resistance number is in the mid 50% range as well. Yeah, another reason I want to move it to Washington state. I probably should do another thread on this to see what my options are down the road.

Do you remember what SOH was when you lost the battery bar?
 
Falcon73 said:
No, but probably just below 80.5%

Ok, well if that's the case, then I have a ways yet to go before loosing the first battery bar.

Speaking of HX, I always thought a lower resistance was better - but your vehicle seems to show a low HX being a symptom of a bad or degraded battery (assuming your low HX is connected to the degradation)
 
danrjones said:
Falcon73 said:
No, but probably just below 80.5%

Ok, well if that's the case, then I have a ways yet to go before loosing the first battery bar.

Speaking of HX, I always thought a lower resistance was better - but your vehicle seems to show a low HX being a symptom of a bad or degraded battery (assuming your low HX is connected to the degradation)

Why do you think Gen 2 Hx is a resistance value? Based on the Gen 1 data, Hx data infer a battery conductance,
i.e. extensive Gen 1 sample data indicate such. What's being called Hx for Gen 2 vehicles may represent a parameter
unrelated to either resistance or conductance.
 
Previous discussions somewhere on here, and that was speculation, as 2018 HX appeared to behave very differently than it did for the older models. Last I had read nobody seemed to REALLY know what HX actually was for 2018's and beyond.

My HX has always jumped up after fast charging (which I haven't done much of) so it "seemed" like that could be connected, as in, a jump up being a negative impact of the fast charging. Overall my HX is fairly low though, right now around 95.
 
danrjones said:
Previous discussions somewhere on here, and that was speculation, as 2018 HX appeared to behave very differently than it did for the older models. Last I had read nobody seemed to REALLY know what HX actually was for 2018's and beyond.

My HX has always jumped up after fast charging (which I haven't done much of) so it "seemed" like that could be connected, as in, a jump up being a negative impact of the fast charging. Overall my HX is fairly low though, right now around 95.

Correct. Only with more longitudinal data, e.g. correlation with SOH/Ahr, can one possibly explain what Hx might represent.
 
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