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Now, A Whole Bunch of Leafs Available at a Dealer Near You!

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I don't know if what I said in the naming of this thread is true, but here's what made me say it:
Late last summer I was thinking I would not do what is necessary to buy a Model S so I was looking at the Leaf. Drove a new one, liked it, looked at used ones through CarMax, found one, had it shipped to my city, drove it, decided to get a Model S. (Hmmm...) When I was looking at that point, let's say half a year ago or so, there were not many and the prices ranged quite a bit at CarMax. For fun, I looked at used Leafs yesterday at CarMax: at least three times as many, many of them older (2012s), and significantly lower priced.
More used Leafs are hitting the market?
Many leases are running out?
Thoughts?
 
Any of those older Leafs that have lived where it's warm will have little range remaining. I don't know if the free battery replacement program is applicable to the second owner. If it is, then that's okay.
 
I've kept my eyes out for used Leafs in So Cal but most are around $13 to $14k and are only 2011. Some Nissan dealers have bargains on new ones. For instance the Nissan dealer in Petaluma, CA often has new 2915 Leaf S with charge package at only $17k after $7500 fed and $2500 state rebates. In this case, new, makes more sense.
 
A few thousand used Leafs have made their way to Norway from the US. They often have a bar missing, but the degradation almost stops here in the colder weather, so there's many years left to get out of the battery. The cheapest used US 2011 Leaf I can find right now is priced at 18.5k USD, so there's certainly a profit to be made.
 
No one can answer that with certainty.

And there are reports of dealers putting bars back on the range display.

I guess this has not been made a crime yet similar to altering odometers.

But I would definitely not get a LEAF from Arizona-New Mexico- Texas.

I'd add southern California and Florida to that list to watch but also add some caveats.

If you can get a 3 or 4 bar loser with less than 59,000 miles on it and you are willing to do the battery swap dance you get a free battery when it loses the 4th bar before 60,000 miles. I've seen 3 bar losers with 30,000 miles on them for $12,000 lately. Done right that can be a $12,000 car with a new battery for free.

I've also seen some 0 bar or 1 bar losers with 15,000 miles on them around $13,000. If that car doesn't come from the warm states and you don't want to do the battery swap dance (time is money to you) then paying a few extra dollars to avoid the free battery from warranty replacement is a valid trade off.

either way if you plan to try and take advantage of the warranty or not you need to have a phone/tablet that can run leafspy pro and be sure you know how to check the battery status in terms other than bars on the dash. And if you think you might want a free battery you better make sure the car is OK in that it does NOT have the b0133 code on the dealer printout if you check with Nissan. My Nissan Leaf Forum View topic - B0133 NO BATT CAPACITY WARRANTY

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Given all that I'm planning on selling my worst ICE vehicle this year and getting a cheap Leaf to replace it because even a 3 bar loser Leaf is nicer than the old 90s beater we use for short haul trips around here. Better AC, better radio, better seats, traction control/ABS, more airbags, rear disc brakes, auto dimming rear view mirror, better everything except for heat and the Leaf even steps up over that if you find one with heated driver seat / heated steering wheel. Oh and it will be one less car to change the oil/spark plugs/brake pads/etcetera.

Yeah I'm happy gas prices are low and people are dumping Leafs super cheap. I'll take one at $10,000 and if they keep dropping in price, I might consider getting a second one and selling my Prius later on. Though I really doubt they'll get that cheap.
 
Wait, what? How do they do that?

there is a diagnostic reset that has to be performed any time a major component fails or is replaced / swapped. The dealer can reset the system to have no data and it defaults to 12 bars showing then relearns the real state of the battery over the next few weeks/months. It'll go back to the correct value eventually but an unsuspecting buyer could get swindled.

Essentially it requires a Consult+ or similar dealer tool to send the wipe / reset command so your shadetree mechanic can't do it and tiny lot used car dealers aren't likely to do it either. But an unscrupulous Nissan dealer can do it and then sell the car at auction and it can end up anywhere in the world in two weeks time so you don't have any assurance that a random used leaf hasn't had that done if it came from a hot area unless you get out the android / leafspy pro and check the battery status or do a proper real world range test.

Just sitting around not driving the bars won't relearn. The car needs to be driven or at least discharged by heater then recharged many times for the BMS to learn the state of the battery. And there is a delay for showing the new state on the dash, it takes a few days / trips for a bar to drop even if the BMS knows things are going south.
 
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there is a diagnostic reset that has to be performed any time a major component fails or is replaced / swapped. The dealer can reset the system to have no data and it defaults to 12 bars showing then relearns the real state of the battery over the next few weeks/months. It'll go back to the correct value eventually but an unsuspecting buyer could get swindled.

Which helps the dealer in two ways: They sell the car, and confidence is reduced in electric cars. When the irate customer complains, the salesperson just says, "Well, I tried to get you to purchase something else".
 
No one can answer that with certainty.

And there are reports of dealers putting bars back on the range display.

I guess this has not been made a crime yet similar to altering odometers.

But I would definitely not get a LEAF from Arizona-New Mexico- Texas.
I would add Nevada and Utah to that (at least southern), along with California with the heat waves they've had of late.
 
This is what you want to plug into the OBD II port on the Leaf to see at least what it says the battery stats are:

Clever and potentially profitable: Search results for obd

And you want an Android phone (tablets probably work too) to read it. You can use any cheap Android and you don't need phone service. So the $30 cheapies for Tracphone/Verizon will work.

It will show among other things: DC and L2 charge counts, battery health, battery capacity, fault codes, etc. etc. I got the Leaf Spy Pro version for $15.

If the BMS is reset, YMMV on what capacities and health that might be shown but you could get an idea with charge counts, especially DC counts, and where the Leaf came from.

I bought mine with 8100 miles and 10 bars and lost 13% over 19000 miles of driving in Houston. Just over a year.

It's gotten pretty slow to lose health count, but summer is coming and I have another 14 months or so to lose the next two bars. I EXPECT to get a new battery. 7% to go, roughly, and judgin by the Ah capacity drop lately, I expect I'm at 72% soon.
 
And you want an Android phone (tablets probably work too) to read it. You can use any cheap Android and you don't need phone service. So the $30 cheapies for Tracphone/Verizon will work.

I used a Kyocera Event as a cheapo but it didn't last 3 months.

I'd recommend LG Optimus F3 (4.0" screen), LG Optimus F7 (4.7" screen), or LG Tribute (4.5" screen). Get whichever is cheapest on Amazon if you don't plan on using the Cell service. I've seen some of these at or below $40 in the last few months so there isn't much reason to cheap out and get something less reliable.
 
Interesting thread - resetting a degraded battery to 12 bars should certainly be a crime. If it isn't (yet), that's a good example of the tech always being out in front of the "rules" that we apply.

FYI of the 2 "big boy" Nissan dealers in the SLC market, one is fully onboard, mainly due to the presence of one enthusiastic EV salesman. He hosts our biggest National Plug-in Day event at the dealership :smile: They have LOTS of LEAFs (new)
The other seems to be somewhat lukewarm to the whole idea. They'll sell you a LEAF, but only because they want to sell you a CAR.

and a data point: we have LEAF #2407, a 2011. We only just recently lost our first bar, at 28,000 miles. ML
 
...it's one of the advantages of buying through the dealer network...:rolleyes:

there is a diagnostic reset that has to be performed any time a major component fails or is replaced / swapped. The dealer can reset the system to have no data and it defaults to 12 bars showing then relearns the real state of the battery over the next few weeks/months. It'll go back to the correct value eventually but an unsuspecting buyer could get swindled.

Essentially it requires a Consult+ or similar dealer tool to send the wipe / reset command so your shadetree mechanic can't do it and tiny lot used car dealers aren't likely to do it either. But an unscrupulous Nissan dealer can do it and then sell the car at auction and it can end up anywhere in the world in two weeks time so you don't have any assurance that a random used leaf hasn't had that done if it came from a hot area unless you get out the android / leafspy pro and check the battery status or do a proper real world range test.

Just sitting around not driving the bars won't relearn. The car needs to be driven or at least discharged by heater then recharged many times for the BMS to learn the state of the battery. And there is a delay for showing the new state on the dash, it takes a few days / trips for a bar to drop even if the BMS knows things are going south.
 
I haven't heard of anyone having issues with battery reset here in Norway. My guess is that they might be able to get away with resetting from 11 to 12 bars, because then they could argue that it must have degraded enough to lose a bar right after they bought the car. If they reset from 8-10 to 12, I think most people would realize that something is fishy, and complain. Our consumer laws allows for demanding a replacement or a repair up to 5 years after buying a new or used car from a dealer, provided the car was in worse condition than one could reasonably expect, so there's not much profit in resetting the bars here, I think.

A bigger issue here is that you have some shady small businesses importing US Leafs with salvage titles to Norway through countries like Lithuania (where they will get a clean title), and then selling them without informing the buyers that the cars have previously been totaled in the US. I know several Leafs totaled in Sandy made their way to Norway.
 
There is likely a better reason so many used Leafs are ending up in MN. One of our local dealers is actually very bullish about EVs and is aggressively buying all the used Leafs he can get his hands on. He currently has over 20 used Leafs in stock starting as low as $12k.