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2016 Leaf...

I recently bought a used Nissan Leaf, 2016 SL. The place that sold it was a dealership, but not a Nissan one. When I saw it, it had 10 out of 12 bars on the battery. The site included free CarFax which indicated that the battery was given a maintenance notice of the battery firmware needing an update, but that never happened. The leaf was 3 years old now, so the 30kWh battery had 5 years left of its 100k battery warranty, with the leaf being at 36k miles.

I did end up purchasing the leaf from this dealership, which itself is a story for another day. When I was considering the purchased, I had figured that the battery would go one of two ways. One options was that after the firmware was updated, and the battery would be at 11 bars. The second option was the battery would be basically unchanged, and hopefully I get a free battery once it hit 8 bars, as long as I was in the warranty window.

It took two and a half hours to upgrade the firmware at a real Nissan dealership. Once done, the car was at 12 bars with 107 mile range. The tech said I must be happy, and that I was. It was a good gamble. I should point out that I paid a total of 15.5k for this leaf, including sales tax and license. I was pretty sure the leaf would be fine. But it was a gamble; one that paid off.

While I was waiting for the firmware upgrade, after hour two had passed, I started getting anxious and paced a bit in the waiting room. This room had a TV, bunch of comfortable chairs, as you would expect. But in the corner was an upscale office chair with a professional desk you’d also find in an office, with an older man behind it, late 60s if not 70s. We got to talking and I realized he was the owner. Probably spending his days here while the dealership made him money.

He asked if I was getting my oil changed. I explained, no, in fact I was upgrading the battery of the leaf. He was visibly confused… though I was talking about the lead-acid battery in most car. I assume he was more knowledgeable with Nissan’s inventory that used gas engines… the majority of Nissan products. But it was clear the leaf was not one he understood. After talking more, I mentioned that I probably wouldn’t buy a combustible engine again; at least if I could help it. He looked at me, paused, and said “Well, thank you for your business.”

I didn’t have the heart to tell him I bought the car elsewhere.

This post is licensed under CC BY 4.0 by the author.
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