Used Leaf - I don't know what I don't know! Help needed.

bren2002

Looking for a used Leaf as a 2nd car.

Have a petrol Octavia for longer journeys.

The car will only ever drive in a 25 km radius of the house - think kids activities, school runs, supermarket etc.

These leafs seem like good value to the novice.

I've seen things online about leased batteries and I can see there's a depth of knowledge people have about software and sub-varients that's difficult to come up the curve on.

A few examples - roast me and teach me how to find/know this stuff.

https://www.carsireland.ie/node/3420791

https://www.carsireland.ie/node/3508796

https://www.carsireland.ie/node/3384091

zg3409

Firstly do you own your own home, do you have an off street driveway where you can install a home charger? If you are a 2 car household do you block each other in, as in can both cars get out without moving one?

Leaf batteries are not leased (only Zoe and one or two others) .

Nearly an leaf with do 50km at any speed. However you may want something capable of a 200km range as they are not much more expensive and the cheapest Leafs are quite old now. Even getting to NCT centre can be a challenge depending on location etc.

Have you a specific car in mind, maybe link to done deal before buying. Get a home charger installed before buying.

slave1

Early Nissan Leaf had battery lease, these were called Battery FLEX, just got to get confirmation from seller is all

bren2002

Sorry, yes own home with private driveway

Traditional 3bed semi in Dublin. Single car on the drive, but plenty of space on the road to park another car. Most houses have 2 cars so one is always on the road. Still loads of space even with that

Everything is within a few kms of the house - dart, luas, NCT, Dunnes, school - it really is just a local run around that's needed

bren2002

Can you see the couple of links in the original message?

NIMAN

Try to go for a 142 onwards if you can. The battery chemistry changed around then, and it'll perform better.

Try to find out how many bars are left on the car you intend to buy. But the mileage you are doing isn't big, so most old Leafs will provide a service ok for you. But you'd like as much battery capacity as possible.

Try to buy the lowest mileage possible. Generally miles clocked up with correlate to less battery capacity.

And take promised range from sellers with a pinch of salt. They always over estimate.

Of the cars you listed, I'd probably go for the middle one. Although it's always nice to get most features such as cold packs, heated seats, heated steering wheel etc. Perhaps that doesn't bother you?

You'll qualify for a free charge point too.

KCross

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058290777/used-leaf-i-dont-know-what-i-dont-know-help-needed

The variants back then were XE, SV and SVE

XE is bare bones, no sat nav (so easy to spot in the pics), no app support and a bunch of other things missing but would probably be OK for a runaround but it would need to be a few grand less than others to jump for one of those.

SV (aka Acenta) is the most popular. Alot of them are "SV with cold pack". The optional cold pack added heated seats and heated steering wheel which are very useful. Get that if you can as it will help alot in winter.

SVE (aka Tekna) is the range topper and has the heated seats/steering by default and leather seats. Nicer alloys also. It has a few other extras too but cant remember them now.

If you are buying anything around 2013 make sure it does NOT have the electronic parking brake (button in the centre console) and/or DOES have the "Eco" button on the steering wheel. Around 2013 was the changeover from Japan built cars and Sunderland built cars and you should go for a Sunderland one so the above items show you its a Sunderland car.

Take a look at rear wheel tyre wear. Some of them wear badly. You can buy a shim kit to fix that but worth looking before buying as a bargaining chip if its off.

On the lease thing, I dont think you'll see too many of those. Very rare here on the Leaf and if there is one it should be advertised as "Flex" and it would have to be advertised as such.

...Ghost...

The new battery came out in the second half of 2013, so most 132 cars will have the new battery and no lease. Safer to go with 141+ though. I recommend going for the higher spec Tekna/SVE model, as it comes with the heated leather seats, BOSE sound system and 360 reverse camera, as well as the 17" Alloys.

I would look at something like This if you only need a run around second car.

You need to check the battery health. On the right side of the heads-up display, there is the battery State Of Charge (SOC) represented by long horizontal bars . The shorter bars on the right of those represent the State Of Health (SOH). This is what you need to note. 12 bars in total (iincluding the bottom 2 red ones. Anything with less than 10 bars, I would avoid personally, but if you really only need very short journeys, you could get a much better priced car with higher degradation. I have attached an image of the display for you below.

Also in that image, you will see 2 timers. Pressing the menu button to the right of the steering wheel will bring up this menu. If you see 2 timers, the car has the 6.6kW AC charging speed. Most Leafs only have the 1 timer and they charge more slowly.....not a deal breaker by any means though. Almost all Leafs will also have DC Fast Charging and will charge at up to 50kW speeds from 0-80% full.

bren2002

Brilliant advice - this is what the layman doesn't know

Fantana2

The easiest way to tell if it’s a 24kwh or a 30kwh is to check the weight plate in the driver's side door pillar. The 30kWh is heavier with rating of 1970kg. If the weight is 1945kg, the car is a 24kWh.

bren2002

Thoughts on this one?

https://www.donedeal.ie/cars-for-sale/2017-nissan-leaf-ev-30kw-auto-new-nct/33533358

creedp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120440717#Comment_120440717

Nice clean car and priced a little more competively compared to some of the rather crazy asking prices for a lot of similar cars.

Would like to see the battery SOH and kW remaining on leafspy. Add doesn't reference battery health and from the image provided I can't be sure if it has 11 or 10 bars remaining on the dash display, I know its a small thing but I hate to see Miles being quoted on these adds, presumably its to try and keep distance figure travelled under the psychological 100k km milestone. Personally I wouldn't pay more than €10/11k for a gen 1 leaf at this stage, mainly due to the relatively high degradation suffered by the battery leading to an already limited range which will continue to reduce year by year. Having said that they would make a great urban runaround as are comfortable, easy to drive and park, so long as the majority of you're daily journeys don't aggregate above 80 to 90kms.

...Ghost...

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120440717#Comment_120440717

It's 2 bars down and maybe a little overpriced for an SV spec. Try to buy with only 1 bar gone. Ask sellers for photo of the display. Maybe try this one (TOP SPEC) https://www.donedeal.ie/cars-for-sale/nissan-leaf-2016-30kw-tekna-massive-spec/33745376