Nissan Leaf

the 12 th man

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122479738#Comment_122479738

About 140 Euro if you don't get tyres or brakes or anything,just the bare minimum.

zg3409

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122475602#Comment_122475602

Take the diesel. Not worth the hassle and the cost will be similar. There are lots of different providers besides ESB. If you didn't have the whole family it could be an adventure but 40 minutes stops are not fun if you just want to get to destination. Ideally only stop at places with 2+ Chademo chargers and stop early and often to avoid anxiety. If chargers are in use make a decision quickly to move on or queue. Plugshare app lists all chargers, filter by chademo and avoid sites with only one unit. You probably want to be stopping at around 20% battery left or every 150km. That way you have range to make another site. Lowering top speed from 120km to 100km really increases range if you have patience.

g0g

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122491502#Comment_122491502

Thanks for the replies. Decided to go with Leaf for the adventure. Set the CC to 105km/h and made it non stop Bray to Belfast with 11% left! 2 adults, 3 children and luggage. L40. Yeah the slower speed (and traffic today!) added some time, but I reckon less than a charging stop. Got a bit of charge while in Titanic Museum and can slow charge another day while here.

...Ghost...

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122492356#Comment_122492356

That's what I would have suggested. My journey would be similar and I did it in a 24kWh Leaf a couple of times with a topup on the way, full charge there and topup on way home. Would do it non stop in L40 no bother with a charge at destination. Better than taking the diesel.

creedp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122492887#Comment_122492887

Did an overnight recently in NI and did a good bit of driving while there, approx 500km. Wife vetoed taking the Model 3 as we had no destination charging and didn't want to waste time charging when time was short. So didn't argue and went in diesel smax. 5 passengers so those in rear had plenty of room. No issue with diesel, comfortable cruiser with benefit of manual on back roads. Thoroughly enjoyable drive imo. Each to their own of course but no way in hell would I opt for an L24 or even an L40 for that type of journey

ELM327

My leaf actuator is starting to annoy me now
https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058358080/what-happens-when-a-cheap-used-ev-goes-wrong#latest

Thanks Nissan for planned obsolences in what is actually a great EV for the time!

mr chips

Posted this in the bargains thread, but given that I'm half considering it then maybe it's more appropriate for in here.

Idly toying with the idea of this one for a local runaround -

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202406241086534?sort=price-asc&fuel-type=Electric&include-delivery-option=on&postcode=bt16ed&price-to=6000&radius=90&advertising-location=at_cars&fromsra

It could be a handy second motor for going shopping etc in places no more than 60km of a round trip away, so even with 103000 miles on the clock (165k km), wouldn't that be doable on a single charge? If so, that would mean it would only ever have to be charged from solar at home. Car is located less than half an hour from me in NI, so no issues in terms of importing etc. The ad has been up for a couple of weeks at least - probably wouldn't be interested at the asking price, but might £3k sterling be a reasonable offer?

Also - it looks like there are 3 bars missing, so would it be too much to expect it to cover 50 miles/80km on a cold wet day at safe motorway speeds, i.e. no less than 60mph/100kmh?

It's one of the cheapest 30kWh Leafs I've seen that's within reasonable distance from me - no doubt because of the high mileage, but it's still a 2017 car in Tekna spec.

creedp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122494471#Comment_122494471

Looks OK. The only issue I noticed on quick insepection of ad is that it only has 3.3kw on board charger and I find the 6.6kW charger is handy if you want to top up quickly during the day at home or at a destination charger to extend your range. Of no relevance if you intend to mainly charge overnight.

Also it's only showing 82km range at 100% which is very low as the GOM is notoriously optimistic. So unless it was driven quite hard prior to charging its likely the real range is a good bit less than 80km atm

Just to let you know I have a 2016 L30 with 190k odd kms and battery at 61%soh. On a warm dry day I'd get approx 90km range and approx 70km in the winter. However the GOM always shows above 110km, often around the 115km mark, in the summer and approx 100km in winter. Worth noting though that the range is extremely speed sensitive so I'd want to keep speed under 80kmph to achieve max figures.

For example, I do a regular 30km journey and if the weather is fine and I really Leaf speed it the car might only use 30% of battery in summer and 40% during winter. However if I pushed on a little more the car has used up to 50% of battery for same journey even in the summer. Consequently I rarely hit 90kmh any more as it just kills the already very limited range

Having said that it's a grand local run around for shopping and school runs. Its very reliable and the only issue I have is every few weeks over the last while I get the problem with the abs acting up making it undriveable until I disconnect the 12v battery for a few minutes and all is well when reconnected. Not a big deal for me but my other half would be stranded if it happenned when I was away. Other than that she loves it's as very easy to drive and park.

Sigma101

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122496311#Comment_122496311

I think the GOM might be in miles, so around 132km. That's certainly optimistic for 9 bars but it should be safe enough for a good while for a max round trip of 60km.

Jofspring

Have a leaf 30 showing 8 bars. At the moment I'm getting between 130km and 140km range in the warm weather. That's with max speeds around 80kmph and I'm light enough footed. Last winter it had 9 bars and I usually saw around 110km range. I drive approx 30km a day. Car has 104,000km on the clock.

mr chips

Thanks folks. Yes, the car is in Ballymena in Co. Antrim, so will be displaying range in miles rather than kilometres - i.e. supposedly a range of over 130km. Although the car is just 7 years old, the high mileage on the clock did make me wonder if that was realistic. Even if it's (probably) not, in winter I'd want it to be capable of at least 70km at normal speeds - i.e. 100kmh for most of that - without having to descend into range anxiety, for a couple of years at least.

I work from home, so charging this off the solar during the day would be the norm for most of the year. As a second car, it would be doing pretty minimal mileage, maybe 3000 miles/5000km a year at most, so the main contributor to any further degradation would be its age.

I've very little spare time these days, but hopefully I'll get the chance to look at it this weekend and take it for a reasonable spin to see how it behaves. 12-15 miles up & down the dual carriageway should give me an idea how quickly the range might drop.

slave1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122497000#Comment_122497000

Financially, you are better off exporting your PV during the day and charging the car at the wee hours on cheaper tariff

JPA

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122496761#Comment_122496761

What year is this car? Outside of warranty?

Jofspring

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122497448#Comment_122497448

171, warranty is up in January.

mr chips

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122497206#Comment_122497206

I think that might not be true for us, as we're in a different jurisdiction with a different setup. Here in NI, because our solar array went in under a previous incentive regime, we get about £550 p.a. just for producing renewable energy, regardless of how much or how little we export, but the actual export tariff we get on top of that is pretty paltry - about 4p for every unit we return to the grid (which ain't much, but it's better than the big fat zero that somebody putting in solar today would get).

The cheapest EV rate I've found so far is 14p per kWh. So for us, it makes more financial sense to use all available production during the day and lose out on that 4p per unit of export tariff, rather than export any surplus and then import from the grid at night at 14p per unit. We get paid a little over £50 a year for what we export, which means we export between 1200-1300 units a year (obviously with the majority of that going out in the brightest 4 or 5 months). So during that time, it would effectively cost us 10p per unit more to charge up an EV on night rate than to charge off the solar during the day when I'm at home most of the time anyway.

Next year, I'm actually hoping to increase the size of our solar array with some cheaper second-hand panels, so that when we eventually become a 2 EV household there'll still be enough to charge both from the sun for most of the year. There are a couple of other factors specific to our setup which I'll have to work out before I commit to that, though.

JPA

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122497804#Comment_122497804

Ok, does 8 bars not put you in the 'fix under warranty' category for battery degradation?

creedp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122496403#Comment_122496403

My bad, that makes sense or course🙈 In that case you should easily get 60km in the depth of winter unless you drive like a hooligan. Absolutely fine to do it occasionally btw, when range not needed😆

Jofspring

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122497947#Comment_122497947

Ya in the process of trying to get it sorted. Going by the Leaf owners page and a guy I talked to recently who was in the same boat I haven't a hope of them touching it. They are not honouring the warranties and will use any excuse not to do the job.

I have someone involved in the Nissan brand looking into it for me so hopefully it can be sorted. The car is actually functioning well, the range isn't bad at all but the fact it's showing only 8 bars even seems off. Even if it's a software issue and that can be sorted I'd be happy.

creedp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122496761#Comment_122496761

I've a 2016 with 191k km and the Gom rarely exceeds 120km at this stage so your car's battery is obviously in better nick even though both cars have 8 bars.

Having said that I brought my car to Nissan dealer before it hit the 160k km warranty limit to investigate why its range was so poor and why the % remaining figure would drop like a stone if climbing a hill with a few passengers on board, to the point of hitting turtle mode, and recover once reaching the hill summit. Dealer didn't want to know and said I would have to go to Nissan HQ and fight it out with them but unlikely with any success. I was busy and caught up with other issues so didn't pursue the matter unfortunately. So my battery probably has a fault which reduces the useful range below what would be expected from its SOH

slave1

Be careful, a couple of Euro and anyone can reset the SOH to 100% on that era Leaf and depending on how often it is driven and how it is driven will take a while before re-establishing back to the correct SOH

JPA

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122498036#Comment_122498036

Hopefully you get sorted. 🤞 I wouldn't let it go.

mr chips

Can anyone recommend an Android-compatible OBD II reader I can use with LeafSpy please?

creedp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122498036#Comment_122498036

My understanding is that it's not simply the number of bars but the actual % SOH which can only be verified by Nissan themselves. So be prepared for battle. I hadnt the stomach for it at the time so best of luck.

Sigma101

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122509508#Comment_122509508

I bought this one recently after I lost my old one, based on a recommendation from someone on this thread. Works fine. You'll need LeafSpy Pro (the paid version) if you're using Android.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B011NSX27A/ref%3Dppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

mr chips

Cheers - will keep that in the back pocket for now, but if there's one that works with the free version of LeafSpy that'd be handier. 😉

(Or do you mean that only the paid-for version of LeafSpy will work with an Android device??)

Sigma101

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122509741#Comment_122509741

It's the latter I'm afraid. LeafSpy Lite is not compatible with newer Android versions I believe, and is not available in the Play Store.

mr chips

Ah ok, gotcha. Not the end of the world! 😀

...Ghost...

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122509936#Comment_122509936

Paid version is worth it. I've had it years.

mr chips

Thanks folks. I was asking because we're looking at going back to being a 2-car household after a couple of years of sharing one car between us. My other half is hoping/expecting the powers-that-be to finally get the finger out and commence a long-anticipated salary sacrifice scheme this autumn (supposedly by the end of September), enabling her to lease the likes of a used Model 3/Ioniq 6 etc which would become our main car for long trips. But we're also looking to buy a cheapo Leaf to use as a local runaround - generally for a variety of round trips anywhere between 30-80 km, but I'd want it to be able to do so at or very close to the prevailing speed limit most/all the time as I don't want to have to crawl along holding up other traffic. Hence the wish to check battery health - I'm just looking for the cheapest one available that's capable of doing what we need it to and isn't an absolute dog.

I've seen a high-mile 30kWh not too far from me in NI at an asking price of £3750stg, plus a couple of other 24kWh versions from 2015 asking around £3000stg. Despite the miles, I'd be happy enough with the high-miler if I can see what the battery health is like. However I think I'd read before that some of the later 24kWh cars weren't prone to as severe degradation as the 30kWh variants - is that true, or am I misremembering?

...Ghost...

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122510690#Comment_122510690

You read correctly. There's very little extra value in a 30kWh Leaf. If you are looking for a pre face-lift Leaf, you should be OK with anything under 100k klms. I sold a 2014 a few months ago with 120ish on the clock and it could easily manage your requirement. Look for 10 or more bars.