Bargain Leaf. Yes, Please

goz83

I had a look at the "this weeks bargain" thread earlier today/yesterday. There was a 2012 blue Acenta for sale at €5,500. I thought there must be something wrong with it.....besides, i'm not buying a second EV until next year.

Had a chat with the wife and a few hours later I drive my Leaf to Kildare and I am viewing the car. Exterior was looking very good. Only damage was a cracked mirror case on passenger side. Easily replaced. I sit into it....the light cloth interior looked like it needed a clean. I power her up and it's got 47k miles (under 80k klms). I test drive and have a chat with the guy. His wife is getting a 30kw Leaf he says. He bought up north 6 months ago for about 6500. Car had both charge cables. I paid 5k and drove away with a smile. FSH...nct til Jan 2019. I reckon I've done very well there. Seems it has LED headlights too

So, we are now a 2 EV house and the Zafira will be getting sold on.








I changed odo into klms when I got home with it.

Atlantic Dawn

Looks like a great deal, good luck with it.

I'm looking at a possible EV as my next motor, based on my mileage I recon not even 5% of my journeys within the last year would even require me to factor in recharging as part of the journey.

Nice one, how many battery capacity bars ?

You can always get a current 24 Kwh battery for 5,500 installed at current prices .

goz83

Deleted User wrote: »

Nice one, how many battery capacity bars ?

You can always get a current 24 Kwh battery for 5,500 installed at current prices .

She's only down 1 bar . Not a chance I would pay 5.5k for a new battery...I would have just got a 1.5 Gen from the outset if spending that money.

Ah yeah I see now that you uploaded pics, that's not too bad for 76K .

At today's cost it's 5,500 but when you need one it could be half that and you might even get greater capacity.

I'm just about to turn 70,000 Kms on my 151. :eek:

Evd-Burner

Deleted User wrote: »

I'm just about to turn 70,000 Kms on my 151. :eek:

I've put 8500km on mine in 4 months!

BoatMad

Deleted User wrote: »

I'm just about to turn 70,000 Kms on my 151. :eek:

66,000Km , on my march 161 30 kWh

colm_mcm

Thats some value!

Does this do fast charging etc?

goz83

colm_mcm wrote: »

Thats some value!

Does this do fast charging etc?

It does indeed. I fast charging at Naas Tesco on the way home. Wasn't necessary, but we decided to get some McD's while we waited for the other Leaf to top-up.

While charging, some lad came over asking about electric cars, as he was seriously thinking of getting one. Was kinda funny that we had two parked up beside the FCP and I told him that we are fully converted....pointing out that only a half hour earlier, we had bought the second one.

NIMAN

Congratulations Goz, wish you plenty of safe miles of motoring in her.

I'd say you would be among the few all-EV households in the country.

n97 mini

Nice. We'll wear!

Gumbo

Best of luck Goz.

Shefwedfan

crap, I was looking for one of them for my mum"!!! must keep a track of that thread

goz83

Shefwedfan wrote: »

crap, I was looking for one of them for my mum"!!! must keep a track of that thread

It would have been sold by today anyway if I hadn't bought it. The €500 I got off it was unnecessary, but if you don't haggle, you don't swaggle.

If looking for a bargain, the ads need to be checked everyday. This one was pure chance for me though.

colm_c

Well wear.

On a side note isn't that savage depreciation?

80% in 5 years! Or maybe it's just my lack of knowledge of the 2nd hand/2nd hand EV market.

goz83

colm_c wrote: »

Well wear.

On a side note isn't that savage depreciation?

80% in 5 years! Or maybe it's just my lack of knowledge of the 2nd hand/2nd hand EV market.

Well, it's not the normal depreciation, even though the real value of teh vehicle shows high depreciation. The chap I bought it from got a really good deal and paid around 6500 at the start of the year. That's when loads of Leafs were coming off PCP and drove prices down in general.

He knew it was the cheapest one on the market. So rather than trying to sell for 7500 (the normal price range for this Gen/Year) he opted to sell quickly at 5500. I just squeezed another 500 off the price...being pure cheeky.

I've had a few spins in it now and she is running like a dream. Looks like she is running LEDS in the headlights too. I will upgrade the side lights and DRLs, because it suits the car so much more. The rear tyres will need changing soon. Passenger one seems a bit more worn on the outside, so I hope that's not a premature wear issue. Driver side tyre is a bit perished. I am looking to replace the passenger side mirror too, which has cracked casing. After doing all that and getting a years tax, I will have spent the advertised amount.

ELM327

Well wear, that's a great deal, possibly the best I've seen for a real EV.

I'm in a similar boat to where you said you were before buying a second EV. I'm trying to convince SWMBO to move to a 2 car EV household. Currently we are a 1 ev one diesel household, and the diesel is declared off the road for tax purposes it hasn't been driven at all for months. The plan is to wait until the next gen of ZE40/Ioniq become available second hand (~12months?) and keep my leaf as a second car.

unkel

ELM327 wrote:

I'm in a similar boat to where you said you were before buying a second EV. I'm trying to convince SWMBO to move to a 2 car EV household. Currently we are a 1 ev one diesel household, and the diesel is declared off the road for tax purposes it hasn't been driven at all for months. The plan is to wait until the next gen of ZE40/Ioniq become available second hand (~12months?) and keep my leaf as a second car.

Unless your diesel is a worthless banger, would you not sell it now? It's depreciating every day and sitting up is bad for any car

I'd love to be a 2 EV household but it can't be done. We're looking to change the Cee'd estate soon with 208,000 Kms. I was looking at Prius 7 seater but fear it might be under powered fully laden.

Perhaps one of the suv type 7 seaters, they're all going to be diesel and the Prius is hard to find. Unfortunately no such EV exists.

unkel

Buy your leaf for cheap when your rental is up. Keep it for many years and Save lots of rental money over the next 2 years or so and then replace the diseasul car with a, 7 seater ev,?

I want a longer range EV to be honest and don't want to put more money into the leaf which was the purpose of leasing in the first place.

Now what happens in 2018 is anyone's guess but my guess is that there won't be a 7 seater ev or suv type until after 2020, my guess is 2025 at least because they'd be massively expensive, the Galaxy is 45K for a half decent spec which is mental, you'd get the same in the U.S for 25K. Yeah I know we pay tax and all but that's a ridiculous price.

Nissan were first there with electrics and they should have got the finger out and made more electrics, now they moan about having to sell their share in AESC because economics of scale didn't take effect to reduce battery costs, they thought they'd sell a alot more electrics, but yet they only have one ev for sale, if their entire fleet was EV then they'd sal far more batteries. Their deal with LG Chem fell through which only reinforces the 40 Kwh only leaf II speculation. So they're probably going to have to keep AESC and continue to make their own batteries.

unkel

Nobody knows what's going to happen but my gut feeling is change will be swift

Deleted User wrote:

I don't want to put more money into the leaf which was the purpose of leasing in the first place.

Renting / hiring / leasing is always more expensive than buying. Why almost nobody seems to understand this basic principle of economics is beyond me.

unkel

unkel wrote: »

Nobody knows what's going to happen but my gut feeling is change will be swift



Renting / hiring / leasing is always more expensive than buying. Why almost nobody seems to understand this basic principle of economics is beyond me.

No it's not, because I'm not paying the total cost of the car.

unkel

Sure. Millions of Irish people go PCP. It must be the best and cheapest option there is. ;}

Sure you can buy 2nd hand , obviously , but if not intending to buy the car, bar paying cash, leasing is probably one of the cheaper routes , especially for people doing less mileage.

unkel

Trust me. Nothing is cheaper than buying

Well no, it you don't intend to buy the car then PCP is the cheapest option, unless the interest is mental.

Orebro

Fantastic bargain - well done!

ELM327

unkel wrote: »

Unless your diesel is a worthless banger, would you not sell it now? It's depreciating every day and sitting up is bad for any car

Worthless banger unfortunately, 2002 VW sharan with 200k+ miles.

goz83

I picked up a replacement mirror unit (from some on adverts) yesterday. The existing unit is cracked and was reassembled with what looks like Tech7. It works fine, but it's an eye-sore.

The one I picked up yesterday was missing the mirror glass. There was no mention of this when I asked about the condition of the unit, so I have had to order the glass separately from ebay.

grogi

goz83 wrote: »

I picked up a replacement mirror unit (from some on adverts) yesterday. The existing unit is cracked and was reassembled with what looks like Tech7. It works fine, but it's an eye-sore.

The one I picked up yesterday was missing the mirror glass. There was no mention of this when I asked about the condition of the unit, so I have had to order the glass separately from ebay.

Why wouldn't you swap them?

goz83

grogi wrote: »

Why wouldn't you swap them?

The mirror glass on the existing unit is bonded with tech7 and can't be removed.

goz83

So, I changed both mirror units. The driver one was a bit noisy...maybe motor needs some lubricant. The passenger one was the damaged one. All working fine.

For anyone who needs to change a mirror, Nissan have said it is necessary to fully remove the door card. It isn't. You only need to remove the bolt behind the inner door handle, release 3 holding clips on the front of the front end of the door card (gentle/firm pull) and pull the top of the door car up and toward the the inside of the car. This gives enough roof to disconnect the mirror wire which is about 6 inches in from the door card and in the middle area (bottom clip).

With door fully ajar, pull the hard rubber inner cover protecting the mirror fixing points and remove the 3 nuts with a size 10 spanner. Mirror unit will come off. It is tricky to feed and retrieve the replacement wire, but the whole thing is a 15 minute job......25 for both mirrors.

Note: The door clips are a 2 piece clip. Sometime when the clips are pulled, the clip separates, leaving one part stuck in the door. If this happens, carefully remove the piece from the metal part of the door and reconnect with the piece still on the door card. Otherwise, the door card will be loose.

Door Card Removal
https://www.dropbox.com/s/stuxmh68577scto/Front%20Door%20Finisher.pdf?dl=0

Mirror Removal
https://www.dropbox.com/s/lrnh91xj9q9yfjb/Door%20Mirror%20and%20Window%20Switch.pdf?dl=0

goz83

I had the local Atlas put the new tyres on the rear today. I also happened to receive the new LED lights and so I asked them to put the DRLs in, because they are a bit awkward get at.

A few minutes later, the lad installing the lights comes out and tells me that I got the wrong bulbs. He hands me bulbs he removed from the car and compared to the LEDs I gave him. I was a bit confused, because I ordered the same bulbs from the same ebay listing and was getting them installed at the same garage....so they must be the wrong bulbs, right? Wrong!

I drove home and planned to check them out myself. I had left the original bulbs out and when I got out of the car, I realised the DRLs were on. How could this be, when I had the bulbs in my pocket? It hit me.....they were trying to change the wrong bulbs :pac: He was at the fogs.

I went back down and the chap was on lunch, so I explained it to one of the more enlightened staff members and he sorted the issue out and reinstalled the fog bulbs. On a positive note, there was no charge because of the mess up. Fair play :cool:

I got home and changed the side lights and the reg lights. No blown bulbs this time. I also finally did the reg lights on the tekna. For the record, the LEDs they sent out are a bit different from the ones I got in March. The DRLs are the same, but the others are different.

Gumbo

Such a simple but very effective mod

ei9go

unkel wrote: »

Sure. Millions of Irish people go PCP. It must be the best and cheapest option there is. ;}

I don't know what a tracker mortgage is

goz83

I got the OBD connector this morning and downloaded leafspy lite onto a spare android pad I have. I was wondering if it's possible to just have the SOC displayed and nothing else? Anyway, here is the reading. I don't know if my pad can screen shots, so excuse the photo quality.

[IMG][/img]




And an quick pic of the new led DRLs

[IMG][/img]

The battery looks pretty healthy with no weak cells (i.e. no mad voltage differences between the modules). 82 percent SOH means that the car only quite recently lost the 1st capacity bar. See if you get it balanced even better by letting it charge 4 times in a row to 100% and wait until the three indicators go out.

And the car looks great. Well wear!

ELM327

What is the significance of the red vs blue columns above?
I have only recently got an elm327 that works (finally) but all i can make sense of currently is the SOC and SOH figures, the rest may as well be in chinese to me.

The red and blue bars are shunts active and inactive, the Leaf balances while charging and cells that are too high or low get omitted from charging until their voltage goes up or down to the desired level, this speeds up balancing.

goz83

goz83 wrote: »

I got the OBD connector this morning and downloaded leafspy lite onto a spare android pad I have. I was wondering if it's possible to just have the SOC displayed and nothing else? Anyway, here is the reading. I don't know if my pad can screen shots, so excuse the photo quality.




And an quick pic of the new led DRLs

I work the range out at about 90 odd Kms at 18.5 Kwh/100 kms, and less at motorway speeds.

Though without the heat pump heater could be less. I'd say allow 80 Kms at 100 Kph and less in cold, windy and wet weather. Definitely preheat on the mains when possible.

goz83

samih wrote: »

The battery looks pretty healthy with no weak cells (i.e. no mad voltage differences between the modules). 82 percent SOH means that the car only quite recently lost the 1st capacity bar. See if you get it balanced even better by letting it charge 4 times in a row to 100% and wait until the three indicators go out.

And the car looks great. Well wear!

Usually I charge overnight and there is plenty of balancing time. Last night however, we took both Leafs to the airport to collect family members and flight was delayed, so we plugged in the Tekna (grey) from 50-80% and then the acenta (blue car in this thread) from 50-100%. I disconnected when all blue lights were on and not flashing. I then reconnected the Tekna til 100%.

Nobody else arrived to charge in the 2 hours we were waiting.

So I will check the Leafspy again after 4 full charges? I assume it doesn't need to be full charges and that I can charge from about 70 to 100?

Deleted User wrote: »

I work the range out at about 90 odd Kms at 18.5 Kwh/100 kms, and less at motorway speeds.

Though without the heat pump heater could be less. I'd say allow 80 Kms at 100 Kph and less in cold, windy and wet weather. Definitely preheat on the mains when possible.

I will have to check the preheat, but will only have it activate when plugged in. It makes very little difference, but I thought the range would be around 100klm (excluding motorway).

unkel

Deleted User wrote: »

I work the range out at about 90 odd Kms at 18.5 Kwh/100 kms, and less at motorway speeds.

So 90km/100km * 18.5kWh = 16.65kWh left in battery so

16.65/24 = only 69% of battery capacity left?

How many bars are gone then, 4 out of 12? Or the 4th about to go? Or are these bars not an accurate reflection of the battery condition and can only Leaf Spy be trusted?

goz83

unkel wrote: »

So 90km/100km * 18.5kWh = 16.65kWh left in battery so

16.65/24 = only 69% of battery capacity left?

How many bars are gone then, 4 out of 12? Or the 4th about to go? Or are these bars not an accurate reflection of the battery condition and can only Leaf Spy be trusted?

Only 1 bar is gone from the dash.

Based on the screen shot and 21 Kwh usable when new I worked it out as having 17.2 now available . Ro just about 90-92 Kms range and that's to empty.

I know the Current gen leaf hides 7% below about 35%. and as far as I'm aware the Ioniq doesn't, when you got 5% in the Ioniq you got 5%.

Anyway, the current 24 Kwh leaf leafspy data varies by as much as 7-8%, I don't think this is the case and it certainly doesn't look like it. The leaf spy data seems to match the missing capacity bar.

So at 100% charge which is now 82% of the original capacity but will still show 100% charge %, should give you an average of 90 kms at 100 Kph and possibly less without the heat pump in the height of winter but slower speeds will always help but it's no used giving you summer range figures at 20 Deg C.

And remember those are distance to empty figures, you'll want to leave 10-20% for safety, if a charge point is down or there are none close by but if there are charge points close by you should be ok. Even a 10 min top up on a fast charger will make a difference.

NIMAN

So when a Leaf tells you you have 10% left on the battery, you likely have up to 17%, is that right?

I know its a safety mechanism for not running out of power, but surely it would be better to tell you the actual figure like you say the Ioniq does?

NIMAN

So when a Leaf tells you you have 10% left on the battery, you likely have up to 17%, is that right?

I know its a safety mechanism for not running out of power, but surely it would be better to tell you the actual figure like you say the Ioniq does?

goz83

Here's a comparison from the Tekna. SOH 89% and only 62 Quick Charges. I reckon half/most of those are from me. The previous owner seems to have charged every night on slow charge. Oddly the SOC says 86% but reads 92% on the dash.

[IMG][/img]

It's always useful to get the leaf with the highest battery capacity, depending on price and having leaf spy is a great tool to have, if only such a tool existed for ICE cars.

The SOC the leaf spy reports differs from what the car reports as it includes the top and bottom buffers that Nissan keeps reserved (24 kWh vs. 21 kWh usable). For some reason the battery pack of your Tekna is quite unbalanced, again it's best to let it to fully balance sometime soon and then take a new readings then. Apparently the bms of the newer battery packs is better in balancing the cells than the old one but in case of your cars the older pack is in somewhat better state of balance. Was the Tekna at least once fully slow charged (LEDs out) after the latest quick charge?

Yes, shunts allow draining of charge from one cell to another to stop some (weaker or unbalanced) cells charging up to too high voltage. Balancing works the best the slower the charge rate is so in theory using the granny charger will lead to the best balanced pack.
PS. I have never seen the Leaf readout to keep any spare capacity. The turtle mode in our '15 24 kWh kicks in after about 10 km from the very low battery charge warning which I would expect for about 8 percent of battery left. When the turtle mode kicks is there is still some juice left but once the weakest cell hits what Nissan determines is the lowest acceptable voltage the car will shut down. At that stage the difference between the best and worst modules can be 200 mV or more.