Used Leaf buying rant

Halycon

I have been looking for a used Leaf for a while and it can be really frustrating. When you search online you get a load of unnecessary nfo like bluetooth, Satnav etc, but often missing is the crucial info :24 or 30 kW model and 3.3 or 6.6kw charger. It's as fundamental as petrol or diesel in a normal car.

I rang a guy and asked if his was a 6.6Kw and he said all Leaf 30 are 6.6kw (Which is incorrect) .
There is no way to tell visually from the outside if it is or not so I requested nicely that he check the settings and he got in a huff!

Donedeal, carzone etc should have some mandatory options to display this info. Autotrader in the UK does at least.

Does anyone have any tips to make the search easier?

KCross

No tips. It is exactly as you have described. You have to get photo evidence as you cannot trust anything on the ads or the sellers as alot of them havent a clue.

You just have to persevere I'm afraid and maybe give them example pictures of what you want to see.

The two main ones are
- a pic of the dash readout showing the 6.6kW charge time (which will also double up as a way to see the 12 SOH bars).
- a pic of the plate inside the drivers door.... that will confirm if its a 24kWh or a 30kWh via the weight values.

Gumbo

Halycon wrote: »

I have been looking for a used Leaf for a while and it can be really frustrating. When you search online you get a load of unnecessary nfo like bluetooth, Satnav etc, but often missing is the crucial info :24 or 30 kW model and 3.3 or 6.6kw charger. It's as fundamental as petrol or diesel in a normal car.

I rang a guy and asked if his was a 6.6Kw and he said all Leaf 30 are 6.6kw (Which is incorrect) .
There is no way to tell visually from the outside if it is or not so I requested nicely that he check the settings and he got in a huff!

Donedeal, carzone etc should have some mandatory options to display this info. Autotrader in the UK does at least.

Does anyone have any tips to make the search easier?

Its the same for ICE over the years.

Back in the VW days, was it a red I or a red TDI etc, and you couldn't tell by pics as people replaced the badges. You needed to check the plate in the boot.

KCross

For posterity....

To see if its an L24(1945kg) or an L30 (1970kg) look at the weight plate on the pillar inside the drivers door.


There have been some very rare instances where an L24 got an L30 weight plate but I think the chances of you hitting that issue are pretty slim.

L30's only came out in 2016 (a few rare examples from Dec 2015) so thats another filter to help narrow it down but there are 2016 L24's as well so you still need to double check.


To see if it has the 6.6kW charger you need to press the dash display button( 4 button cluster to the right of the steering wheel) multiple times until you get to the charging time screen. If you see 6kW it has the dual charger. If it only shows 3kW it doesnt have it.


I believe all 2018+ Leaf's have the 6.6kW charger.

Halycon

Thanks Kcross,
I knew about the dashboard method, didn't know about the weight plate. Very useful.

slave1

You can also slide your hand down on one side of the motor and it will have a plate stating the 3.3 or 6.6kw charger but you need to snap a photo with your phone as it's not visible from standing over it.
As other's have said, it's frustrating but simply the way it is at present, lots of dealers still clueless on EVs so just go through all the ads and phone up.
Another way is to look up the reg on the UK tax website as (from memory) they distinguish between L24 and L30 (but not on-board charger).
Keep the head up, the search will be worth it

zilog_jones

Halycon wrote: »

I rang a guy and asked if his was a 6.6Kw and he said all Leaf 30 are 6.6kw (Which is incorrect) .

Is that incorrect? I thought it was standard on the 30's?

slave1

zilog_jones wrote: »

Is that incorrect? I thought it was standard on the 30's?

L30 have both, the 6.6 option was over a grand sterling in the UK so quite rare.
We've a 3.3 and charge at night so there really is no difference to us, certainly not worth any premium pricing from our perspective

enfant terrible

Would it be a long drive bringing a 24kw from the North to Limerick.

Are all 24kw versions limited to 3.3kw public charging?

samih

Most (check this to make sure, if the car doesn't have it walk away) have 50 kW capable chademo port. Limerick won't be a problem.

FYI: The battery capacity is expressed as kWh and the charging rate at kW. On a chademo charger the 24 kWh car charges from 10-80 percent in 20 minutes unless the battery is stone cold when it takes a bit longer. Doing multiple charges a day won't be an issue. I think I did at least 6 in a row sometimes.

enfant terrible

samih wrote: »

Most (check this to make sure, if the car doesn't have it walk away) have 50 kW capable chademo port. Limerick won't be a problem.

FYI: The battery capacity is expressed as kWh and the charging rate at kW. On a chademo charger the 24 kWh car charges from 10-80 percent in 20 minutes unless the battery is stone cold when it takes a bit longer. Doing multiple charges a day won't be an issue. I think I did at least 6 in a row sometimes.

So as long as it has the 50kw port you can use the public fast chargers?

So could make it to Limerick stopping maybe twice charging fully, even with the 24kw model.

159conor

The think that most annoys me about an ad is when they mix up kWh and kw. It seams that its wrong more often than its right.

quietsailor

enfant terrible wrote: »

So as long as it has the 50kw port you can use the public fast chargers?

So could make it to Limerick stopping maybe twice charging fully, even with the 24kw model.

If it has the Type1 or 2 port you can also use the public chargers, they will be a lot slower though

enfant terrible

quietsailor wrote: »

If it has the Type1 or 2 port you can also use the public chargers, they will be a lot slower though

How long would it take to charge with the slow type?

Gumbo

enfant terrible wrote: »

How long would it take to charge with the slow type?

24/3.3
Or
24/6.6

Simplified but gives you an idea. You wouldn’t be using a SCO on a long journey. They are meant to be used as destination chargers.

samih

enfant terrible wrote: »

How long would it take to charge with the slow type?

Depending on whether is 3.3 or 6.6 kW charger onboard on that particular car. 6.6 can pretty much fully charge in 3 hours as you never arrive at the charger with fully depleted battery while 3.3 takes twice the time (6.6 kW * 3 = 19.X kWh and the battery on LEAF 24 kWh is about 21 kWh net when it's in good condition.

You definitely want the CHAdeMO port for the public fast=rapid chargers. L24 as it's called here can do about 90-100 km at 100 km indicated on the motorway so coming from say Lisburn you'd need to charge at Castebellingham, Lusk, JCT14, Nenagh so about 1:15 of charging time required to make it to Limerick. Even on a 6.6 kW charger the same would take 12 hours while the 3.3 would take cool 24 hours of charging plus the driving time :-)

As you can see the lack of CHAdeMO would condemn a cross country capable LEAF as a local runabout. DO NOT BUY ONE WITHOUT CHADEMO UNLESS YOU KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING AND IT'S DIRT CHEAP!!! :-)

enfant terrible

samih wrote: »

Depending on whether is 3.3 or 6.6 kW charger onboard on that particular car. 6.6 can pretty much fully charge in 3 hours as you never arrive at the charger with fully depleted battery while 3.3 takes twice the time (6.6 kW * 3 = 19.X kWh and the battery on LEAF 24 kWh is about 21 kWh net when it's in good condition.

You definitely want the CHAdeMO port for the public fast=rapid chargers. L24 as it's called here can do about 90-100 km at 100 km indicated on the motorway so coming from say Lisburn you'd need to charge at Castebellingham, Lusk, JCT14, Nenagh so about 1:15 of charging time required to make it to Limerick. Even on a 6.6 kW charger the same would take 12 hours while the 3.3 would take cool 24 hours of charging plus the driving time :-)

As you can see the lack of CHAdeMO would condemn a cross country capable LEAF as a local runabout. DO NOT BUY ONE WITHOUT CHADEMO UNLESS YOU KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING AND IT'S DIRT CHEAP!!! :-)

Great information there.

Yes I'm looking for a local runabout in and out to work.

Would many 24kw leafs have CHADEMO charging?

NIMAN

I have considered going up a few years in my EV.

Any idea how much I could fetch for my Leaf?

2014 Leaf Tekna
77,000 kms
6.6Kw charger/Chademo
All 12 bars still available.

Gumbo

enfant terrible wrote: »

Great information there.

Yes I'm looking for a local runabout in and out to work.

Would many 24kw leafs have CHADEMO charging?

All the newer ones yes, but I believe the very first release ones, chademo was an option.

Kramer

NIMAN wrote: »

Any idea how much I could fetch for my Leaf?

2014 Leaf Tekna

unkel wrote: »

I feel something like a 141 Leaf for about €9k is a good value for money deal.

unkel wrote: »

You can get a 141 Leaf from about €9k.

If it's any use, I think unkel reckons approximately €9k.

Gumbo

NIMAN wrote: »

I have considered going up a few years in my EV.

Any idea how much I could fetch for my Leaf?

2014 Leaf Tekna
77,000 kms
6.6Kw charger/Chademo
All 12 bars still available.

Sold my 141 Tekna with 3.3 OBC, chrome pack and solar panel last month for €11k.
It had 75k km, white.

Kramer

samih wrote: »

Doing multiple charges a day won't be an issue. I think I did at least 6 in a row sometimes.

Unless you rock up to a few chargers with Konas, PHEVs or multiple EVs ququeing - IMO it's gotten especially bad since the 191 plates arrived, I mean, there were 4 Ioniqs queueing at a rapid charger in Limerick a few days ago!

That said, I'd go for it if I wasn't in any hurry.

NIMAN

kceire wrote: »

Sold my 141 Tekna with 3.3 OBC, chrome pack and solar panel last month for €11k.
It had 75k km, white.

Very similar to mine so, except mine has 6.6 charger.

To be honest, I would hold on to it rather than let it go for 9k.

unkel

I said from about €9k. That's base spec model or even mid spec model

If I had a top spec model (Tekna) I wouldn't sell it for €9k either, worth a good bit more than that

Kramer

NIMAN wrote: »

To be honest, I would hold on to it rather than let it go for 9k.

Agree totally, wouldn't countenance changing it at just €9k.

samih

Kramer wrote: »

Unless you rock up to a few chargers with Konas, PHEVs or multiple EVs ququeing - IMO it's gotten especially bad since the 191 plates arrived, I mean, there were 4 Ioniqs queueing at a rapid charger in Limerick a few days ago!

That said, I'd go for it if I wasn't in any hurry.

I meant from just from technical point of view there's no issues with multiple rapif charges in a row on L24.

We have gone from about 1000 relatively quickly charging cars back in 2015 when it was a bliss to do such a trip to almost 10k cars, some of which can take quite some time to charge.

Charging for charging and the additional charges will stop the current madness. Might be a good idea to time the Limerick trip to happen late at night perhaps.

Stealthirl

Kramer wrote: »

Agree totally, wouldn't countenance changing it at just €9k.

I'd be hoping to change my 142 Tekna with the solar and 6.6 in 12 months time with likely under 40K miles and i have a figure of €10-11K in mind. Likely switch to a 2018 L40 Tekna/SVE that im hoping will be in the low €20K range by then. Maybe im being optimistic ?

unkel

Cost to change up of around EUR10k? Sounds pretty realistic to me. But none of us know what's going to happen. The aggressive moves from Tesla in the last few days alone, impact on the values of all EVs.

Gumbo

Stealthirl wrote: »

I'd be hoping to change my 142 Tekna with the solar and 6.6 in 12 months time with likely under 40K miles and i have a figure of €10-11K in mind. Likely switch to a 2018 L40 Tekna/SVE that im hoping will be in the low €20K range by then. Maybe im being optimistic ?

I think 10ish is a good value for next year on your car.
Budget for that and any extra is a bonus.

Halycon

I went to look at a used Leaf Saturday, there were 6 others interested in it. It was bought before I could even sit into it

2016 L30 6.6Kw, Cold pack, went for 15K.

The 24KW ones seem to be a less attractive for the average punter though.

slave1

Halycon wrote: »

I went to look at a used Leaf Saturday, there were 6 others interested in it. It was bought before I could even sit into it

2016 L30 6.6Kw, Cold pack, went for 15K.

The 24KW ones seem to be a less attractive for the average punter though.

€15k was a great buyers price, would have thought they could have held for more perhaps