[Leafychris]

Hi everyone, I recently purchased a Nissan lead 30 and had battery issues.
Thread here: Just purchased a Leaf - battery questionable?

I managed to get my money back and I am now looking for another leaf. I have to buy from a dealership and not private and probably I'll buy from a Nissan approved dealer...

I have leafspy so will be checking the battery but I wondered if there is anything else to look out for or any buying tips you could give?

thanks

chris

 

[Hitstirrer]

Speak to @jonathanporterfield50 via his website EcoCars. He will source a car within your wish list and budget for a finders fee. He has all the skills to check battery health and overall EV condition. This YT explains his service.

 

[DoctorSpludge]

Other more knowledgeable people will add better responses, but in my experience:

• Check the infotainment system has the SD card (it'll say on the screen or press the tilt button).
• Locking wheel nut
• Both charging cables (Type 1 to Type 2 for home charger or slow public chargers) and granny cable (Type 1 to 3 pin standard home plug).
• Ask about service history and if the battery warranty is valid.

Once you've decided which one to get, as soon as you put money down, get onto Nissan to remove the car from the previous owner and add the car to your account for Nissan Connect, they can be slow...

 

[dk6780]

Well done on successfully getting your money back. Not much else to go wrong other than normal deterioration of lower arm bushes (happens on all heavy FWD) and (rare on 30kWh cars) bent rear trailing arms which can be seen from high wear on the outside edge of a rear tyre.

 

[Drewby80]

Hi everyone, I recently purchased a Nissan lead 30 and had battery issues.
Thread here: Just purchased a Leaf - battery questionable?

I managed to get my money back and I am now looking for another leaf. I have to buy from a dealership and not private and probably I'll buy from a Nissan approved dealer...

I have leafspy so will be checking the battery but I wondered if there is anything else to look out for or any buying tips you could give?

thanks

chris

I’m sorry to hear you had a bad experience with your first LEAF but it’s good to hear you got your money back!

Make sure the battery mV reading on LeafSpy is somewhere close to 10 first and foremost.

The LEAF also has a known problem with the top of its suspension strut corroding due to it being dish shaped and gathering water / other general detritus (bits of rotting leaves etc) the drivers side suffers worst from this.

To check this open the bonnet, look near the scuttle and you will see a plastic inspection cover on either side.

Remove the cover and get in there with your phone torch and have a good look at the condition of these.

It should have at the most light surface rust, is it’s caked in crud and in a sorry state it’s £300 - £400 to get it sorted from a dealer so may be a bargaining chip.

You can buy covers that snap over these on eBay.

Mine was just starting to rust when I purchased it at 2 years old, so I cleaned it out sprayed it full of WD40 to displace the last bit of water and cleaned it all out with paper towel.

I then smeared it all with copper grease and snapped the cover on (did this both sides)

Job done!

 

[James Watson]

I can second the advice re Jonathan Porterfield at Eco cars. That’s me with Tim 40 seconds into the linked video getting my Soul EV handed over after delivery. Was a very easy purchase.

 

[Johnny Read]

have you researched new cars via PCH or PCP. Then you get the manufacturers warranty cover, so no worries about the battery or any other repair costs.

 

[Rory166]

My friend got his 30 from Grimsby, JDCleave as I remember. He gets good low mileage cars from Nissan and often asks better prices than private sellers.

 

[Drewby80]

Hi Chris,

I’ve now read the whole thread on here about the first Leaf you purchased which was quite eye opening.

When I purchased my 2018 40 Leaf in August it had only done 3700 miles in its first 2 years.

This does seem to cause low cells in the battery, when I first checked mine on LeafSpy it had a low cell pair with a figure of 93mV when fully charged.

Where mine differed from yours though is that when it was at low SOC that figure dropped to in the mid 30’s mV range.

Because of this and following advice on here from @donald to fully charge it / top balance every time for a while I decided to hold on to it.

Sure enough it worked, I drive quite a lot of miles so I have been able to charge it from below 50% SOC to 100% 6 times a week since September the cell pair has popped back up and is now and is down to 23mV I anticipate that by the end of February that it will be fully rebalanced.

This however will have taken 9000 miles to correct, so a low cell isn’t always a deal breaker if it doesn’t drop sharply at low SOC it could just be because the car hasn’t been used much lately and the cell is actually fine.

If you drive plenty of miles and top balance every time for a while it can work out ok.

 

[donald]

I agree that it 'may' be recoverable.

... which also means it might not be recoverable!

chris has already stated to dealer he is rejecting the goods (IIRC). That is the end of it. If you say 'I reject' it is not a discussion-opener. It is a discussion-closer. There is no more negotiation from that point. It is legally decisive. If you waver and toy with the idea of taking it back then your claim is lost, any court would say your initial rejection was never sincere.

 

[dk6780]

a low cell isn’t always a deal breaker if it doesn’t drop sharply at low SOC it could just be because the car hasn’t been used much lately and the cell is actually fine.

In @Leafychris case the cell was over 750mV out at the bottom end and caused the car to stop with an indicated 17% SoC remaining. That's not something that will balance out.

 

[Drewby80]

In @Leafychris case the cell was over 750mV out at the bottom end and caused the car to stop with an indicated 17% SoC remaining. That's not something that will balance out.

I completely agree that @Leafychris made the correct choice, anything over about 50mV is just not worth the chance.

IME a recoverable imbalance should be a much lower figure at a low SOC than the figure LeafSpy shows when fully charged, I was lucky that mine recovered.

Having read through that thread his cells dropped like a stone as the SOC dropped, if they had done the opposite then that would have been a much safer bet.

 

[Leafychris]

Hi guys.... so thanks for all of the amazing support you have given me. This group has kept me on the road to an EV car even though it’s been a nightmare.

so I am off on a 180 mile journey tomorrow to pick up a 2017 30kwh 6.6kw leaf. It looks good, it’s a Nissan dealer, it’s got 12 bar battery health and a full service and battery check and I am also armed with my leafspy.

wish me luck, I hope to report some good news here soon and hopefully be able to help and support others on this forum in the future with the experience gained so far.

 

[JonJ]

Hi guys.... so thanks for all of the amazing support you have given me. This group has kept me on the road to an EV car even though it’s been a nightmare.

so I am off on a 180 mile journey tomorrow to pick up a 2017 30kwh 6.6kw leaf. It looks good, it’s a Nissan dealer, it’s got 12 bar battery health and a full service and battery check and I am also armed with my leafspy.

wish me luck, I hope to report some good news here soon and hopefully be able to help and support others on this forum in the future with the experience gained so far.

Best of luck to you, stay safe and remember, Leafspy before you buy!

JJ

 

[Leafychris]

Is there anything else to look out for on leafspy?

ill be checking the cells and SOH

 

[dk6780]

so I am off on a 180 mile journey tomorrow to pick up a 2017 30kwh 6.6kw leaf. It looks good, it’s a Nissan dealer, it’s got 12 bar battery health and a full service and battery check and I am also armed with my leafspy.

wish me luck, I hope to report some good news here

Good luck! We look forward to hearing your News and hope that it's good this time.
Apologies for bringing up a bad memory, but don't forget that LEAFSpy tells you more about the battery at a low SoC. If it's not too late already, ask them not to charge it before you get to see it.
🤞
Look mainly at Hx, it's a better measure of health although an obscure calculation.
Any questions why not post the screen shots on here and you'll get a lot of opinions!
What time are you seeing it?

 

[cheryl ward]

Make sure before you travel they'll allow you to plug leafspy in.
Some dealers don't allow it.

 

[Drewby80]

Is there anything else to look out for on leafspy?

ill be checking the cells and SOH

The biggest issue with any EV battery seems to be it stood around doing nothing for a long time and stored at very high or low SOC.

Look at the mileage on the last services and make sure it not only done 1000 miles in the last 12 months.

Also look at how many L1/L2 charges / QC cycles it’s done it’s done (the lower the number of QC’s the better) really an EV should be discharged below 50% before recharging so divide its total mileage by the number of charges.

On a 30kW leaf personally I’d be looking for that figure ideally to be around 45 miles per time it’s been plugged in.

If it’s a lot less than this that shows that the battery has been kept at a very high or even 100% SOC and some well meaning previous owner may have left it plugged in every time they got home regardless of how many miles range they still had.

When I got my 40 Leaf it had only done 21 miles per time it had been plugged in and mine had a low cell pair, I learned this the hard way!

Fortunately my battery SOH was good and my cells have popped back up with my heavy use, but I could have come unstuck.

How many miles has your leaf done?

 

[dk6780]

Also look at how many L1/L2 charges / QC cycles it’s done it’s done (the lower the number of QC’s the better) really an EV should be discharged below 50% before recharging so divide its total mileage by the number of charges.

On a 30kW leaf personally I’d be looking for that figure ideally to be around 45 miles per time it’s been plugged in.

Generally good advice. Unfortunately there's a bug in the LEAF software that double counts L1/L2 charges when the car is charged via the on-board timer. So it's hard to to judge whether the car was charged too often or just via a timer.

 

[donald]

Hi guys.... so thanks for all of the amazing support you have given me. This group has kept me on the road to an EV car even though it’s been a nightmare.

so I am off on a 180 mile journey tomorrow to pick up a 2017 30kwh 6.6kw leaf. It looks good, it’s a Nissan dealer, it’s got 12 bar battery health and a full service and battery check and I am also armed with my leafspy.

wish me luck, I hope to report some good news here soon and hopefully be able to help and support others on this forum in the future with the experience gained so far.

I presume that means the rejection/cancellation was accepted in the end. Did you have to 'make a fuss', or did they 'come quietly' in the end?