Good afternoon. I'm Maria's parent, and am helping guide her through her first car purchase. We appreciate the responses and I just wanted to jump in and help provide some additional information.
LeftieBiker said:
I suggest that you read my used leaf buying guide. I'll link it below. Also tell us your range needs. At worst you will be better prepared to look at the car yourself.
https://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=26662&p=538030
This is great information Leftie. We had found this guide this morning and read through it. It answered a question that I've been wondering since we started our search: namely how to judge battery health and what to expect of future battery performance.
Range needs are mostly to school and back; 27 miles each way. The school can offer at least a 120v outlet, and we spoke to someone who heads maintenance that said they'd be open to installing a 220 outlet (probably a NEMA 14-50). So even in deep winter we expect range to be fine with a 30kw battery. We rejected the 24kw 2016s as too limited.
cwerdna said:
+1 on what Leftie said.
Why a Leaf from so far away?
We have a few on our shortlist. The leading candidate was from Carvana, which would make the whole buying experience so easy. However, especially after you add Carvana's delivery fee, this one that we found in CO has far less miles, is slightly cheaper, and looks like it likely has better battery health. The Carvana one also has a few dings and blemishes, and I had a mediocre experience with my own Carvana purchase experience. Given all that, it seems like a distance sale may be worth it...if we can find a way over all the obvious hurdles.
The dealership has a vested interest in selling the car so I don't trust anything they say about subjective metrics, like paint quality or interior condition. I suggested to Maria that maybe a fellow Leaf enthusiast in the area could help. I bought my Camaro and my Tesla from a distance, and in both cases I had fellow community members help by checking the prospective cars out. And I've done the same for a few Pittsburgh cars. I figured it was worth a shot in this case as well.
goldbrick said:
I don't see anything on the local CL in Loveland, FWIW, although not all dealers advertise there of course.
We found it on Autotrader, and the person I spoke with Friday said that it was still available. The same car was not on Cars.com, so maybe this dealership doesn't advertise them real well. It's possible they sold it over the weekend; we're hoping it's still available Monday so we can move on it quickly.