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Leafspy and used car dealers

4419 Views 22 Replies 10 Participants Last post by  dk6780, 
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'Most dealers will scan the batteries and show the results if you ask" says a website.

Have members of the forum tried this when buying a second hand Leaf?
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Rei
It's much easier to buy a OBD-II to Bluetooth dongle and use the free version of LeafSpy to do it yourself. Leafspy gives you much more information than the dealer will. Most don't seem to mind the car being checked.
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dk6780
Northeastman said:
'Most dealers will scan the batteries and show the results if you ask" says a website.

Have members of the forum tried this when buying a second hand Leaf?
Click to expand...
Most dealers don't know anything about the cars that they sell, and if they do will rarely give you the samples that you need. As @Rei says buy it for yourself and take the readings on as low a battery SoC as you can - certainly below 20% to be sure to show individual issues unless the SoH is very good.
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dk6780 said:
Most dealers don't know anything about the cars that they sell, and if they do will rarely give you the samples that you need. As @Rei says buy it for yourself and take the readings on as low a battery SoC as you can - certainly below 20% to be sure to show individual issues unless the SoH is very good.
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I went as far as emailing a dealer this morning. I asked how many bars were remaining on the battery out of 12. They said 7. Do Leafs go that low and still get put on offer or did they give me the state of charge of the battery. The car was only 4 years old.
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J
How much ££ are they asking for that car? 7 bars on a leaf30 = 60miles of range? What are you going to be using the car for, and what range do you need?

For the dongle checking follow the advice of @Rei. If @Sputnik72 is online, I think they may have done some checking of cars using leafspy while checking out cars.
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Rei
Northeastman said:
I went as far as emailing a dealer this morning. I asked how many bars were remaining on the battery out of 12. They said 7. Do Leafs go that low and still get put on offer or did they give me the state of charge of the battery. The car was only 4 years old.
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I did that once and they were not counting the bars at the bottom so when they said 10 it was actually 12.

Still in your case that means 9 at best, pretty bad. Unless it's very cheap I'd give it a miss.
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GOSPORT DAVE
It is not an exact science but roughly, the LEAF looses it's first bar at 85% battery SOH (State of Health) and then looses a bar at every 7% SOH there on. So if a LEAF has lost 5 bars (if my maths is correct) then you are looking at potentially 58% SOH remaining, which in a 24Kwh LEAF is about 35 miles winter range.

Remembering that NISSAN warranty the battery's for 8 year (5years for the 24Kwh) to 70% SOH then having a potential 58% is well approaching where the viability of the vehicle for practical usage against financial cost of the vehicle is basically not worth it.

Unless you get the vehicle very cheap then in reality a battery with 5 bars missing is only good for a solar power bank or similar.

If you see a vehicle with potential, if you post your local area, then they may be somebody on the forum with LeafSpy and a dongle, that might be happy to check the vehicle for you, always worth a try.
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Johnny Read said:
How much ££ are they asking for that car? 7 bars on a leaf30 = 60miles of range? What are you going to be using the car for, and what range do you need?

For the dongle checking follow the advice of @Rei. If @Sputnik72 is online, I think they may have done some checking of cars using leafspy while checking out cars.
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It was a 40. Just pottering around really with a longer trip every now and then.
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GOSPORT DAVE
To me, a 40Kwh (it's only 4 years old max) with 5 bars missing would be very worrying, could be duff cells, but if under 100K miles would be still under warranty. I assume higher miles otherwise it would have been sorted out and suggests an ex taxi.

The LEAF 40 had 37.5Kwh battery when new - so at 58% would have 24Kwh battery left and about 80 miles winter range. which is still useful at the right price.
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J
How much is the car?
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Johnny Read said:
How much is the car?
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Auto Trader UK - New and Used Cars For Sale

Find your next car with Auto Trader UK, the official #1 site to buy and sell new and used cars. Over 400,000 cars online. Simple, easy, quick!
www.autotrader.co.uk www.autotrader.co.uk
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J
GOSPORT DAVE said:
The LEAF 40 had 37.5Kwh battery when new - so at 58% would have 24Kwh battery left and about 80 miles winter range. which is still useful at the right price.
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Asking price on the advert is £17,198

Interesting. The autotrader part-ex price for that comes back at £13930. Quite a difference to the asking price? There seems quite a few leaf30 online for a lower price.
there's a red one, private sale in Luton. Says 12 bars and they are asking £10k. The vehicle check service says they've owned it since July20. Good location context in photos of car too.
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Johnny Read said:
Asking price on the advert is £17,198

Interesting. The autotrader part-ex price for that comes back at £13930. Quite a difference to the asking price? There seems quite a few leaf30 online for a lower price.
there's a red one, private sale in Luton. Says 12 bars and they are asking £10k. The vehicle check service says they've owned it since July20. Good location context in photos of car too.
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If I buy a 30kw I want one with 7kw charge capability.
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Sputnik72
Northeastman said:
It was a 40. Just pottering around really with a longer trip every now and then.
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This was the one I used on the Leaf 24/30, it's a Bluetooth LE dongle, although pretty sure it was only about £17 when I got it..

www.amazon.co.uk

LELink Bluetooth Low Energy BLE OBD-II OBD2 Car Diagnostic Tool for iPhone/iPod/iPad and Android. New: Configurable Auto On/Off : Amazon.co.uk: Automotive

Buy LELink Bluetooth Low Energy BLE OBD-II OBD2 Car Diagnostic Tool for iPhone/iPod/iPad and Android. New: Configurable Auto On/Off at Amazon UK. Free delivery on eligible orders.
www.amazon.co.uk
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Astolat
If they’ve said 7 bars it can’t be the state of charge, because the 40 reports that solely as a percentage, there are no bars on the battery icon. On the other hand, 5 bars lost is a heck of a lot in 4 years, even with 70,000 miles.

I suppose the obvious answer is taxi and a lot of rapid charging, but I don’t suppose someone has misread the dots on the side of the display that indicate which screen you are on as if they are the battery bars? I could just about imagine someone who didn’t know the car getting a garbled explanation based on the old 30 display and thinking they were.

The other thought is that you could say you would buy it but want the warranty repair to 70% battery health done first. Even then, though, I’d want a lower price. Admittedly my 68 plate 40 has been driven very little for a combination of reasons, so only has 13,000 miles, but I’ve got all the bars still, and no noticeable reduction in range yet.
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Astolat said:
If they’ve said 7 bars it can’t be the state of charge, because the 40 reports that solely as a percentage, there are no bars on the battery icon. On the other hand, 5 bars lost is a heck of a lot in 4 years, even with 70,000 miles.

I suppose the obvious answer is taxi and a lot of rapid charging, but I don’t suppose someone has misread the dots on the side of the display that indicate which screen you are on as if they are the battery bars? I could just about imagine someone who didn’t know the car getting a garbled explanation based on the old 30 display and thinking they were.

The other thought is that you could say you would buy it but want the warranty repair to 70% battery health done first. Even then, though, I’d want a lower price. Admittedly my 68 plate 40 has been driven very little for a combination of reasons, so only has 13,000 miles, but I’ve got all the bars still, and no noticeable reduction in range yet.
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There is a SOH gauge on the Leaf 2. I think it has 12 horizontal bands and is viewable on one of the EV screens.

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Scrooge
Northeastman said:
If I buy a 30kw I want one with 7kw charge capability.
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Definitely, or you simply cannot fill the battery on the likes of Go/Go Faster tariffs. Cheers!
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Sputnik72
Northeastman said:

Auto Trader UK - New and Used Cars For Sale

Find your next car with Auto Trader UK, the official #1 site to buy and sell new and used cars. Over 400,000 cars online. Simple, easy, quick!
www.autotrader.co.uk www.autotrader.co.uk
Click to expand...
Surely they're getting mixed up? There's nothing in those pictures showing the battery health. It's showing 44 miles on 26% charge... which seems to be fine (44/26 x 100 = 169 miles). As long as it's been serviced, it still has 4 years / 40k miles left on the warranty, I wouldn't be worrying.
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Sputnik72 said:
Surely they're getting mixed up? There's nothing in those pictures showing the battery health. It's showing 44 miles on 26% charge... which seems to be fine (44/26 x 100 = 169 miles). As long as it's been serviced, it still has 4 years / 40k miles left on the warranty, I wouldn't be worrying.
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In the Autotrader title it says the car is a 24kw Leaf.
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Northeastman said:
In the Autotrader title it says the car is a 24kw Leaf.
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The Leaf 2 is either 40kw as this one is or 62.
Probably best not to deal with a motor trader who doesn't even know what they are selling.....
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