You have a point! It’s a continual learning process for me though which I hope benefits viewers. God knows I’ve made enough mistakes in my time that people can learn from. 😀
Jeremy Clarkson admits he knows nothing about how a car works, but still makes a reasonable living out of talking about them!! So keep it up, we will let you know when you have reached James May levels of knowledge!!
I would rather see honest, real-life experiences and how the problems are navigated rather than youtube "experts" that actually know less but give misleading or vague advice.
James is an exceptional gentleman. His wife Kate is a wonderful person too. It has been our absolute pleasure to get Cleevely to service our ID.3 and we will keep on with them. The unfortunate thing is that our MoT is due on the last day of February and we don't have any undercover area for them to work on our car. I'm almost considering hiring a unit for the day just because I feel guilty at them having to work in perhaps the worst month of the year outdoors.
New tyres are never a waste of money. When you consider how little of the tyre is in contact with the road, it means that the best condition a tyre can be makes for a safer journey for you and your lovely family. Thank you for sharing.
Great video Andrew , and great to see you loving it as a general work horse. As James says a few back to back rapids from a low State of charge up to 80/90% will 'awake ' the battery up a little and improve the SOH of the pack. Long term dont leave at 100% charged to keep the pack happy too.
Agreed, our 2014 24kWh Leaf (6.6kW charger) was 5 years old when we got it in August 2019 but had only done 43 rapid charges, the battery health was 87.4% and after about a dozen rapid charges was up to 89.8% again. The real killers are leaving the battery for extended periods at either a very low or very high state of charge.
James did my last service and fixed a dropped door. And he is correct the odd Rapid charge and sprightly can improve battery health a little by breaking down any dendrites .
Love the idea of a inexpensive run about while still being electric. Thanks for sharing the service info, and for your honesty. I appreciate someone who doesn't pretend to know everything about cars. I grew up with a mechanic father, so I know more than most probably. Even so, there is a lot to know and keep up on. There is absolutely no reason to learn it all versus rely on the experts. Plus, sometimes it's nice to let someone else get their hands dirty.
People write off the early Leaf models because of their short range, but for many people that is absolutely fine. We've had our 24kWh model for 2 years now and done 18,000 miles in it (would have been much more without lockdown) and rapid charge it for battery health reasons more than necessity. Off to Birmingham and back this morning (62 miles) and could do it on a full charge, but there are some nice free chargers where we're going so we'll probably be back to 100% before we head back again.
Totally agree with comment about needing the odd rapid charge to improve battery. I had a leaf from 11,000 miles to 42,000 miles and found that you need to teach Leafspy the battery size as the SOH is just a best guess. I did this by running the car down to turtle mode once each quarter and then plugging in and allowing to charge to 100%. This with one rapid charge per week to 90% steadily changed the reported SOH from 89% to 95% over the first 6 months I owned the car. It then steadily dropped back down to 90% over about 3 years daily use. Liked the video, honest and real world. Most car owners don't know how to fix them but I don't think it means that you don't know anything about cars! I know what you mean though :-)
I think you have made some good choices about what to renew on the car. You go though each with good reasons why and a full cost analysis too. You do know a lot about EVs and your videos are clear and give a full description, so it makes them respectable. The mobile car service and fitting everything where you are is great. Keep up the good work and give us all yours and your wife's views as much as you can. Thanks
Glad I found you. I've been following James and Kate, Robert, Jonathon, and others for quite some time now. Guess you can tell I like electric cars. Wish I could afford one, even used. I'll keep buying lottery tickets.
Thanks, it will probably go on for many years. The school run and local trips will be fine, and many users would be very happy with the purchase price,and tyres and discs are normal, but regen usually means pads and discs last a long time, but it was an auction car, and you get what you pay for, but I think you did well.
Best EV video I've seen for some time. Really got me thinking as I thought of getting an EV 2 years ago but bought a new Honda Jazz instead. I could get one of these and do all the short stuff in it. Subscribed.
Au contraire, m. whittaker, I am impressed by a car user who knows something but not an anorak's knowledge of cars, who makes helpful comments for others with a similar lack of expertise. Fabiana's comments are likewise very influential. Keep with it, Andrew. I have a Leaf I bought at 4k miles in 2014, top spec but rented batteries. I have since bought the batteries. The car is as good now as then only with a few more body imperfections of my own making. I don't want to part with it and look forward to ridding ourselves of our ICE car and buying, in addition to the Leaf, a 300+ mile range BEV. My Leaf has still only done 30k with no apparent drop in battery capacity although that is from the car display, not the App you mention (best not to know too much?). I have twice conked the car out by depleting the 12v battery, the second time whilst using the radio for a prolonged period even though it was on 7kWh charge but apparently the 12v stops its charge when full and doesn't resume until plugged in again. Now I know, I simply won't use the 12v to power anything when the car is static.
I have sub'd BOTH channel's for a long time and LOVE the content !. James is a breath of fresh air when it comes to getting a real honest opinion of what you need and don't need, doing on your EV. If he say's it wants doing, trust me - its wants doing !. And like wise the other way around. Great job James !. Keep up the great service that you provide mate. We must be due another video real soon ?. Sorry Andrew - any reviews due from your wife, she makes me laugh ( in a nice way ). Thanks both !.
Those brake disks are typical for a lot of EV's and hybrids. Because of the regenning the brakes get under used. It helps to periodically apply the brakes deliberately and pretty hard. That keeps them reliably operational for longer. Important for that case you DO need them in an emergency situation. As for the Leaf, they have an aircooled battery pack, they are a bit prone to overheating so make sure to keep any air ducting to/from the battery pack FREE and CLEAN . And keep the charge between 10-80% to get the longest possible use out of the battery pack. About the 12V battery, it's there to power the onboard electronics. An ordinary 12V battery has a service life of between the 4-5 years. It's no different for ICE cars and hybrids. If that 12V battery fails the car can't 'boot up' as it were, even when your traction battery is charged. (Modern cars are basically computer systems anyway. So that's often the way to approach them when something fails.)
that car sure seemed to have a lot of rust ...I like to spray everything underneath with waxoil when I get a car ..I really like the way that stuff protects everything from rust.
Your mechanic friend might well have freed up the bonnet bowden cable but my experience over many years is that once such cables jam they're never right again. Before it jams completely and you can't open the bonnet replace it; a new part will be trivially cheap and probably pretty easy to fit.
Had news today that the company pool car will not be repaired. Somewhat sad about it, even though it didn't look great I liked taking it for a spin :) It didn't even have 100k km's on the odometer :( It was an first gen 24Kwh one. The white interior didn't look that fresh anymore after 9 years of abuse by many drivers. It ate 12V batteries, the interior plastic for opening the charging lid had also snapped. It was the failure of the electronic parking brake that sealed its fate. Bill was too high for the repair. So the drivetrain outlived the rest of the car ;) So my tip would be; Get one with the silly foot parking brake :D
I don't recommend registering for the car wings feature. It's been useful one or two times for monitoring the car and triggering remote charge control and climate control. It's the audio update notifications it gives every time we set off on, that annoy us greatly! Unless you or anyone else here knows how to stop them?
THanks for another great video Andrew.. I have been following james and kate for years. You just reminded me on how much I miss my 2015 Leaf. but i dont miss the black color!
I have a 2012 leaf it has not had any problems. I love James did your work. Kate is good too. I remember when they had a leaf and they made a UA-cam video kate fixes Leaf .
The majority of those issues you describe can and do happen to any car of a similar age / mileage, regardless of how it's powered. Having owned a Nissan Leaf some years ago I can relate to those quirks and features.
Rapid charging is not making the battery go bad, it's in which SOC you keep it in. For longer times keep it in between 50-80% and avoid 0-50% and 80-100%. Occasionally charge it up to 100% to level up the cells.
Loved the comment about the mess in the back.... "its in a state" I really thought it was a hatchback!!! Also would be nice to do a video on plugging the car in to the charger at home, everyone does them on fast changers. What you need to do to get faster speeds at home, what charger you use. If you want to charge up on sun power only.... give me a shout
I too have just ordered an Ioniq 5, I will be really interested to hear of your experiences with yours? Nice to see James in action again, I always find his servicing videos enthralling.
Our Leaf is a 2014 and it is still at 92.x % health, about 20 rapid charge and 4000+ slow charge. Had it for just a few months, will rapid charge a lot more often than previous owner.
The wear on the rotors is excessive for an EV! The pads have been dragging for a long time, which costs a lot in range at low speed. Another thing worth checking when getting a used EV is toe-in. I adjusted mine from -1.5mm to -0.5mm (Clueless mechanic used by previous owner pehaps) and my consumption dropped by 460W at 30 mph or around 12%! Edit: You did check alignment! Good!
13:25 You say it's not a very efficient car when compared to a newer ev, you think that should bother me? A used leaf is all I can afford. btw 12 bars of health on 60k miles is extremely good from what I've seen.
Thanks Andrew, I’ve booked my first Kia E Niro service with James so it’s good to hear your positive review.. Some say to always take a new car to the dealer (warranty, software etc). I’d much rather have an EV qualified, knowledgable and experienced technician servicing my car. And I install the infotainment software updates myself. Technical service bulletin firmware updates are free from the dealer during the warranty period - and Kia always include a free health check so I don’t mind taking it in once a year and waiting an hour!!
So Ellis does this not invalidate the Kia eNiro 7 year warranty? I ask this as somebody who plans to by a Kia either new or used in the coming months. Thanks
@@brucemurphy2735 EU law - converted to UK law - prohibits car manufacturers from limiting the maintenance and service of their vehicles for warranty purposes. You just need to use an appropriately qualified and VAT registered service agent. My experience - including with premium brands eg, BMW, Mercedes - is that the dealer seldom has technically strong service people. I always use a suitably qualified and experienced motor technician rather than the dealer. Better service, usually lower cost, more peace of mind. It appears to be even more the case with EVs. A large city Kia main dealer had ONLY one technician who could update the firmware on my E Niro and caused a wasted visit when they were on holiday! It will only impact the warranty if they do not use Kia approved parts when replacing them.
@@ellistreloar2047 that’s good to know Ellis. Thanks for clarifying it. I was wondering that as a piece of EU legislation it had passed the UK by or been revoked on the back of our exit
I live in a city in Germany, about the same size and age as Canterbury, also a big magnet for tourists, and we have 11 DC quick chargers. Granted, 4 of those are at a petrol station (Aral finally figured out that they will go out of business if they don't jump on board). Together with loads of 22kW chargers (free parking at those), it's doable to survive without charging at home. At least if you have a vehicle with decent range. The petrol station probably is your best bet if you NEED to charge, since it's very unlikely that all four are blocked. The others are a bit of a gamble. But yeah, more would be nice for sure. It would be great if Ionity would start building charge parks at strategic places away from the Autobahn...Then again, it's all much better than ONE. I feel your pain man.
It is nice to see that you still have 12 bars on the battery health after 60k miles. I will go for a ev leaf or ioniq just had a full service and mot on my Ford b max 449 pounds to high.
the thing that 12 bars are still there when the battery is at 85% does make no real sense how are the 12 bars broken up in to the % of the battery 12 / 100 = 8 so you should loss one bar every 8% this means that the other bars will go down faster as they are less % of the true battery life
Andrew, 4 new tyres and tracking ‘should’ give you the optimum rolling resistance. Additionally you now have the same make of tyre on each wheel which makes it much safer in the wet! Good move. I’m surprised that James didn’t tell you about the battery upgrade they do at Cleevely EV. I’m assuming it is a 24 Kwh battery, they can take your battery out, check all the cells for any potential duff ones and then add the Leaf option to make it a 40Kwh model with extra range! I forget the cost, but it wasn’t bank busting, about the cost of a fossil fuel replacement DMF flywheel and clutch. The Leaf is a very good car, well built in Sunderland! It is surprisingly spacious, and must make your Fiat 500e feel rather pokey inside? It is a family car whereas the Fiat is a single person car, something Flaviana eluded too? I met a Dutch family in one in France last year, full of camping gear and two (smallish admittedly) children. No-one was cramped and uncomfortable in the back. Oh and play with the regen to get better miles per Kw by the way!
I completely agree about tyres. I fit four new ones and then rotate them when the fronts are a bit more than half worn (put them on the back and the backs on the front) so they tend to wear out all at the same time and I do it all again. Never buy ditchfinders!
@@FFVoyager - you should always have tyres with deeper tread at the rear, it is a handling and safety issue - don't put tyres from the back to the front please!
@@Petelmrg If you really do know more than one of the premier tyre manufactures, then I look forward to reading your paper on the subject and the reading about a major tyre manufacture offering you a job. Could be a long wait mind you!
12.6 volts is a normal fully charged 12v battery with all 6 cells operating normally. If it’s down at 12.3 volts you may have a bad cell. IMO I would not recommend using the battery monitor as you are placing a parasitic load on the battery which could cause more problems than it solves. Most mechanic shops have a battery tester with a printer and this can diagnose a bad cell / battery in less than a minute. I hope this helps.
The first scratch on a new car is a very sad and sombre event. I know it’s a ridiculous First World problem, but the first scratch sends me into a temporary low depression - I can’t help myself.
Hi I been watching your videos , very interesting and well presented . We thinking of selling our Telsa model 3 & our other car is an egolf . We keep the egolf . My husband works from home so he not driving his Telsa very little , it’s just parked in our drive . My husband could drive egolf & if we sell model 3 we thought we could get an 2nd hand leaf as I only work 11 miles from home . As we have an little dog now , we don’t want my husband white sears ruin ! I only drive about 7000 miles an year so an leaf be fine for me . Can you pre heat an leaf ? , like we do on our egolf or Telsa . Is charging better done on home slow charging better than rapid ? I only used rapid an couple times in my egolf . Your man from car auctions in Scotland seems an helpful man to know . E V cars are amazing we had 3 electric cars now Christine
I’m looking for a little run about, maybe as Zoe or Leaf. Not sure which one. My brother bought a 2013 Zoe for 6k from a dealer four months ago, but to had to pay 1.1k on maintenance, recently he opted for a battery purchase from Renault at 1.8k. Good news is his battery is at 92%,maybe because its got a thermal management. Zoe is a bit more expensive and looks really cool but I prefer the Leaf inside.
Replacing all four tires is wise between 6-10 years old as rubber hardens and cracks. In the UK do your tires have a date code? Here in NA they have a DOT code where the last four characters are numbers representing the week and year of manufacture.
Here's info on Battery Monitor including an Amazon link (in the description): ua-cam.com/video/BcNR2Gs6oQI/v-deo.html I'll hopefully cover Leafspy on another video as I need to do more research. I want an OBD device I can use on all my EVs but Leafspy seems to favour one that's not compatible with apps like EV Notify. The search continues...
Toyota is very much ahead of other manufacturers with its hybrid vehicles no rang panic and bulletproof vehicles and more greener then full electric in my opinion for what it’s worth .With up to ten year warranty on mechanical and batteries if you have the vehicle serviced by Toyota
It’s a while back now but it’s just a case of wedging the bottom of the door with something (a strong foot did the job this time) and just lifting the door up a bit with a strong tug. The mechanic, James, made it look easy although I’d probably put my back out had I tried it!
@@MrEV I’m sure it will be a good decision. We had a deposit on one in NZ, then the pricing came out and 20% more than in the UK…so we are getting the MGSEV instead! Looks like you got a bargain on that car!
Your next car is an Ioniq 5? Nice looking but according to Bjorn's 1000 km test you'll be getting only around 2.7 miles/kWh!! Just to be clear, that's after he's reduced the consumption to allow for rain during his test. With rain it was 2.3 miles/kWh! Ooof! We're in France at the moment and have recently done 1000 km up and down mountains and achieved 4.6 miles/kWh in a Tesla Model 3 LR. Yes, the Ioniq is quick to charge but boy do your need it! And the Tesla M3 LR beat the Ioniq for total time taken in Bjorn's test.
Do you expect to spend anymore money on maintenance to get the MOT. Just to give a good overall cost of the cost for car. When are expecting the Ioniq 5 to arrive.
Have you looked at the cost of having the main power pack refurbished rather than replaced? Watch the UA-cam video of a 10 year old Leaf having it's battery pack refurbished at Cleveleys. The work took around 4 hours, and cost the owner about £600.......
No concrete announcement has been made regarding 2G being shut down in the UK although some networks are threatening it. So many devices (smart meters, eCall systems etc.) use it, I'd be surprised if it gets switched off for a long time yet.
Just so you know Rapid Charging a LEAF is not bad for the car. See the Robert Llewellyn video of his in a garden review on Fully Charged with his personal LEAF as to the reason behind this comment. I trust Fully Charged's assessment of the LEAF because they have yet to try to fool anyone with fluff or lies about what they offer their audience. As a side note having paid so little for that Nissan LEAF. You could seriously just replace the 24 kWh battery with a 40 kWh battery and give the car a whole new lease on it's life. Take it in to CleEVely to have it done.
Nothing personal Andrew.....but.....please please please include Flaviana in ALL your videos. She really make your videos less technical and more entertaining as she has such a honest and refreshing attitude and she is so funny to watch and hear her opinions. We love her candid opinions and absolute no B.S. Honestly without Flaviana the videos are boring. There are thousands of channels about ev's.... but there is no one like your cool wife. You guys can expand in other things that you guys are passionate about too
So if you are getting 3.2 miles per Kw, a regular energy company charges about 15/16p per Kw that makes it cost about 5p per mile if charging at home. Some of the public charging points charge 30p per Kw which makes it about 10p per mile. That's about the same as my diesel car and I'm paying about 58p per litre tax plus VAT at 20% on top of that, comes to nearly 70p! Where are the government going to get all that lost tax if the EV are the only type of car around?
I charge at 5p on a cheap tariff (Octopus Go). So it’s £1.20 to fill; about 1.5p per mile if my maths is correct! Government will need to work out a way of taxing EVs in the future. Some sort of price per mile is the most popular idea I think.
@@MrEV Nice tariff from Octopus, just hope your day rate doesn't increase because of the low night rate. Just watched Guy Martin program on EVs. He used an ultra fast charger that was 70p a Kw. Would mean your car is about 20p/mile. Twice that of my diesel. What does a large SUV type of car get to the Kw?
@@MrEV A system of road tolls is what's coming. The details are already being thrashed out between the Government and the AA, RAC and other involved parties...... It is alleged that the Head of the AA, Edmund King, has devised the bare bones of a workable road toll system, and it is thought that this may form the basis of what we'll eventually see........
I wouldn't hold my breath for Nissan GB to sort out the app. I am approaching the one-year anniversary of Nissan GB sending me weekly updates about my app not functioning with the same copy and paste text. 'Thank you for contacting Nissan Customer Services. The technical issue remains ongoing and remains under investigation by the technical team.'
We love our 2015 Techna but will not buy another Nissan simply because their refusal to sort the "Carwings" demonstrates lack of respect for their cuastomers.
Don't trickle charge an EV battery! Battery SOC of above 90% for a prolonged time is just as bad as rapid charging. 40% SOC is the ideal condition to keep the battery in when not used.
rear-view mirror a BIT loose? (then it falls off) too funny. Brake rotor rust/rot seemed very severe.Wonder how many miles the Leaf had, six years old then? Even in the U.K. dealer service is more expensive. (boo Capitalism)
£32 for wiper blades wow that's a lot of money i got 2 set of wipers for my car for £14. and i have an ev. renewing all 4 tyres does mean you have the same grip on wet roads with all the tyres with the same tread depth. i don't like the leaf the battery losing distance because no battery management is really the worst point about the leaf what ever car you get the leaf will always be the worse because of it. the car has to be cheap as a massive corner was cut that effects the car more than any other ev on the market . watching your range go down 1% = 1 mile is so bad for people who do 20 miles and that's it then its fine. but anyone else it would be a massive issue fast
"I don't know much about cars" is not really what we want to hear from someone making videos about cars.
You have a point! It’s a continual learning process for me though which I hope benefits viewers. God knows I’ve made enough mistakes in my time that people can learn from. 😀
Jeremy Clarkson admits he knows nothing about how a car works, but still makes a reasonable living out of talking about them!!
So keep it up, we will let you know when you have reached James May levels of knowledge!!
I would rather see honest, real-life experiences and how the problems are navigated rather than youtube "experts" that actually know less but give misleading or vague advice.
We? You don't speak for me.
@@MrEV I appreciate the videos Andrew.
James is an exceptional gentleman. His wife Kate is a wonderful person too.
It has been our absolute pleasure to get Cleevely to service our ID.3 and we will keep on with them.
The unfortunate thing is that our MoT is due on the last day of February and we don't have any undercover area for them to work on our car. I'm almost considering hiring a unit for the day just because I feel guilty at them having to work in perhaps the worst month of the year outdoors.
I couldn't agree more!
That's so funny I've got a 2016 leaf with 111000 miles on it and I still see it as my precious shiny new car :)
New tyres are never a waste of money. When you consider how little of the tyre is in contact with the road, it means that the best condition a tyre can be makes for a safer journey for you and your lovely family. Thank you for sharing.
Great video Andrew , and great to see you loving it as a general work horse. As James says a few back to back rapids from a low State of charge up to 80/90% will 'awake ' the battery up a little and improve the SOH of the pack.
Long term dont leave at 100% charged to keep the pack happy too.
Agreed, our 2014 24kWh Leaf (6.6kW charger) was 5 years old when we got it in August 2019 but had only done 43 rapid charges, the battery health was 87.4% and after about a dozen rapid charges was up to 89.8% again. The real killers are leaving the battery for extended periods at either a very low or very high state of charge.
James did my last service and fixed a dropped door. And he is correct the odd Rapid charge and sprightly can improve battery health a little by breaking down any dendrites .
James is great! Love his mobile servicing trips to Scotland
In the market for an EV and I’ve found your channel really helpful and informative. Thank you. New subscriber.
Love the idea of a inexpensive run about while still being electric. Thanks for sharing the service info, and for your honesty. I appreciate someone who doesn't pretend to know everything about cars. I grew up with a mechanic father, so I know more than most probably. Even so, there is a lot to know and keep up on. There is absolutely no reason to learn it all versus rely on the experts. Plus, sometimes it's nice to let someone else get their hands dirty.
A bargain! Johnathan and James are great guys
People write off the early Leaf models because of their short range, but for many people that is absolutely fine. We've had our 24kWh model for 2 years now and done 18,000 miles in it (would have been much more without lockdown) and rapid charge it for battery health reasons more than necessity.
Off to Birmingham and back this morning (62 miles) and could do it on a full charge, but there are some nice free chargers where we're going so we'll probably be back to 100% before we head back again.
There’s a lot of love ❤️ in the air!
Totally agree with comment about needing the odd rapid charge to improve battery. I had a leaf from 11,000 miles to 42,000 miles and found that you need to teach Leafspy the battery size as the SOH is just a best guess. I did this by running the car down to turtle mode once each quarter and then plugging in and allowing to charge to 100%. This with one rapid charge per week to 90% steadily changed the reported SOH from 89% to 95% over the first 6 months I owned the car. It then steadily dropped back down to 90% over about 3 years daily use. Liked the video, honest and real world. Most car owners don't know how to fix them but I don't think it means that you don't know anything about cars! I know what you mean though :-)
I think you have made some good choices about what to renew on the car. You go though each with good reasons why and a full cost analysis too. You do know a lot about EVs and your videos are clear and give a full description, so it makes them respectable. The mobile car service and fitting everything where you are is great. Keep up the good work and give us all yours and your wife's views as much as you can. Thanks
Glad I found you. I've been following James and Kate, Robert, Jonathon, and others for quite some time now. Guess you can tell I like electric cars. Wish I could afford one, even used. I'll keep buying lottery tickets.
I feel like the the Leaf is the Honda Civic of its time. Nothing too fancy, just quietly getting on doing exactly what it's needed for.
Exactly! Great comparison.
Thanks, it will probably go on for many years. The school run and local trips will be fine, and many users would be very happy with the purchase price,and tyres and discs are normal, but regen usually means pads and discs last a long time, but it was an auction car, and you get what you pay for, but I think you did well.
Best EV video I've seen for some time. Really got me thinking as I thought of getting an EV 2 years ago but bought a new Honda Jazz instead. I could get one of these and do all the short stuff in it. Subscribed.
Thanks very much Peter!
Au contraire, m. whittaker, I am impressed by a car user who knows something but not an anorak's knowledge of cars, who makes helpful comments for others with a similar lack of expertise. Fabiana's comments are likewise very influential. Keep with it, Andrew. I have a Leaf I bought at 4k miles in 2014, top spec but rented batteries. I have since bought the batteries. The car is as good now as then only with a few more body imperfections of my own making. I don't want to part with it and look forward to ridding ourselves of our ICE car and buying, in addition to the Leaf, a 300+ mile range BEV. My Leaf has still only done 30k with no apparent drop in battery capacity although that is from the car display, not the App you mention (best not to know too much?). I have twice conked the car out by depleting the 12v battery, the second time whilst using the radio for a prolonged period even though it was on 7kWh charge but apparently the 12v stops its charge when full and doesn't resume until plugged in again. Now I know, I simply won't use the 12v to power anything when the car is static.
I have sub'd BOTH channel's for a long time and LOVE the content !.
James is a breath of fresh air when it comes to getting a real honest opinion of what you need and don't need, doing on your EV.
If he say's it wants doing, trust me - its wants doing !.
And like wise the other way around.
Great job James !.
Keep up the great service that you provide mate.
We must be due another video real soon ?.
Sorry Andrew - any reviews due from your wife, she makes me laugh ( in a nice way ).
Thanks both !.
More vids featuring my wife coming soon!
Those brake disks are typical for a lot of EV's and hybrids. Because of the regenning the brakes get under used. It helps to periodically apply the brakes deliberately and pretty hard. That keeps them reliably operational for longer. Important for that case you DO need them in an emergency situation.
As for the Leaf, they have an aircooled battery pack, they are a bit prone to overheating so make sure to keep any air ducting to/from the battery pack FREE and CLEAN . And keep the charge between 10-80% to get the longest possible use out of the battery pack.
About the 12V battery, it's there to power the onboard electronics. An ordinary 12V battery has a service life of between the 4-5 years. It's no different for ICE cars and hybrids.
If that 12V battery fails the car can't 'boot up' as it were, even when your traction battery is charged.
(Modern cars are basically computer systems anyway. So that's often the way to approach them when something fails.)
that car sure seemed to have a lot of rust ...I like to spray everything underneath with waxoil when I get a car ..I really like the way that stuff protects everything from rust.
Your mechanic friend might well have freed up the bonnet bowden cable but my experience over many years is that once such cables jam they're never right again. Before it jams completely and you can't open the bonnet replace it; a new part will be trivially cheap and probably pretty easy to fit.
Good tip, thanks Tim!
Had news today that the company pool car will not be repaired. Somewhat sad about it, even though it didn't look great I liked taking it for a spin :) It didn't even have 100k km's on the odometer :( It was an first gen 24Kwh one. The white interior didn't look that fresh anymore after 9 years of abuse by many drivers. It ate 12V batteries, the interior plastic for opening the charging lid had also snapped. It was the failure of the electronic parking brake that sealed its fate. Bill was too high for the repair. So the drivetrain outlived the rest of the car ;) So my tip would be; Get one with the silly foot parking brake :D
I don't recommend registering for the car wings feature. It's been useful one or two times for monitoring the car and triggering remote charge control and climate control. It's the audio update notifications it gives every time we set off on, that annoy us greatly!
Unless you or anyone else here knows how to stop them?
THanks for another great video Andrew.. I have been following james and kate for years. You just reminded me on how much I miss my 2015 Leaf. but i dont miss the black color!
I have a 2012 leaf it has not had any problems. I love James did your work. Kate is good too. I remember when they had a leaf and they made a UA-cam video kate fixes Leaf .
The majority of those issues you describe can and do happen to any car of a similar age / mileage, regardless of how it's powered. Having owned a Nissan Leaf some years ago I can relate to those quirks and features.
Rapid charging is not making the battery go bad, it's in which SOC you keep it in. For longer times keep it in between 50-80% and avoid 0-50% and 80-100%. Occasionally charge it up to 100% to level up the cells.
Good tips - regarding that 100% charge, I've learnt that the hard way with the e-Niro!
@@MrEV Yeah, probably. Here's a good source to back it up: ua-cam.com/video/SfE3bTRe3v8/v-deo.html&ab_channel=PlugLifeTelevision
Loved the comment about the mess in the back.... "its in a state" I really thought it was a hatchback!!! Also would be nice to do a video on plugging the car in to the charger at home, everyone does them on fast changers. What you need to do to get faster speeds at home, what charger you use. If you want to charge up on sun power only.... give me a shout
I too have just ordered an Ioniq 5, I will be really interested to hear of your experiences with yours?
Nice to see James in action again, I always find his servicing videos enthralling.
Our Leaf is a 2014 and it is still at 92.x % health, about 20 rapid charge and 4000+ slow charge. Had it for just a few months, will rapid charge a lot more often than previous owner.
The wear on the rotors is excessive for an EV! The pads have been dragging for a long time, which costs a lot in range at low speed. Another thing worth checking when getting a used EV is toe-in. I adjusted mine from -1.5mm to -0.5mm (Clueless mechanic used by previous owner pehaps) and my consumption dropped by 460W at 30 mph or around 12%! Edit: You did check alignment! Good!
13:25 You say it's not a very efficient car when compared to a newer ev, you think that should bother me? A used leaf is all I can afford. btw 12 bars of health on 60k miles is extremely good from what I've seen.
It shouldn’t bother you. It’s still very cheap to run and a fantastic car.
Thanks Andrew, I’ve booked my first Kia E Niro service with James so it’s good to hear your positive review.. Some say to always take a new car to the dealer (warranty, software etc). I’d much rather have an EV qualified, knowledgable and experienced technician servicing my car. And I install the infotainment software updates myself. Technical service bulletin firmware updates are free from the dealer during the warranty period - and Kia always include a free health check so I don’t mind taking it in once a year and waiting an hour!!
So Ellis does this not invalidate the Kia eNiro 7 year warranty? I ask this as somebody who plans to by a Kia either new or used in the coming months. Thanks
@@brucemurphy2735 EU law - converted to UK law - prohibits car manufacturers from limiting the maintenance and service of their vehicles for warranty purposes. You just need to use an appropriately qualified and VAT registered service agent. My experience - including with premium brands eg, BMW, Mercedes - is that the dealer seldom has technically strong service people. I always use a suitably qualified and experienced motor technician rather than the dealer. Better service, usually lower cost, more peace of mind. It appears to be even more the case with EVs. A large city Kia main dealer had ONLY one technician who could update the firmware on my E Niro and caused a wasted visit when they were on holiday! It will only impact the warranty if they do not use Kia approved parts when replacing them.
@@ellistreloar2047 that’s good to know Ellis. Thanks for clarifying it. I was wondering that as a piece of EU legislation it had passed the UK by or been revoked on the back of our exit
I live in a city in Germany, about the same size and age as Canterbury, also a big magnet for tourists, and we have 11 DC quick chargers. Granted, 4 of those are at a petrol station (Aral finally figured out that they will go out of business if they don't jump on board). Together with loads of 22kW chargers (free parking at those), it's doable to survive without charging at home. At least if you have a vehicle with decent range. The petrol station probably is your best bet if you NEED to charge, since it's very unlikely that all four are blocked. The others are a bit of a gamble. But yeah, more would be nice for sure. It would be great if Ionity would start building charge parks at strategic places away from the Autobahn...Then again, it's all much better than ONE. I feel your pain man.
Great real world, day to day tips, thank you. Congratulations on 1m views on the channel too 👍
Thanks very much!
It is nice to see that you still have 12 bars on the battery health after 60k miles.
I will go for a ev leaf or ioniq just had a full service and mot on my Ford b max 449 pounds
to high.
the thing that 12 bars are still there when the battery is at 85% does make no real sense how are the 12 bars broken up in to the % of the battery 12 / 100 = 8 so you should loss one bar every 8% this means that the other bars will go down faster as they are less % of the true battery life
when i got my 2015 Leaf the SOH was 85.57% on Leafspy and had lost a bar, but had done 1026 rapid chargers and 1100 slow chargers
Andrew, 4 new tyres and tracking ‘should’ give you the optimum rolling resistance. Additionally you now have the same make of tyre on each wheel which makes it much safer in the wet! Good move. I’m surprised that James didn’t tell you about the battery upgrade they do at Cleevely EV. I’m assuming it is a 24 Kwh battery, they can take your battery out, check all the cells for any potential duff ones and then add the Leaf option to make it a 40Kwh model with extra range! I forget the cost, but it wasn’t bank busting, about the cost of a fossil fuel replacement DMF flywheel and clutch. The Leaf is a very good car, well built in Sunderland! It is surprisingly spacious, and must make your Fiat 500e feel rather pokey inside? It is a family car whereas the Fiat is a single person car, something Flaviana eluded too? I met a Dutch family in one in France last year, full of camping gear and two (smallish admittedly) children. No-one was cramped and uncomfortable in the back. Oh and play with the regen to get better miles per Kw by the way!
I completely agree about tyres. I fit four new ones and then rotate them when the fronts are a bit more than half worn (put them on the back and the backs on the front) so they tend to wear out all at the same time and I do it all again. Never buy ditchfinders!
@@FFVoyager - you should always have tyres with deeper tread at the rear, it is a handling and safety issue - don't put tyres from the back to the front please!
@@Petelmrg that's quite an old recommendation.
www.continental-tyres.co.uk/car/all-about-tyres/tyre-change-fitting/mixing-tyres
Tyre manufacturers still recommend you should always fit new tyres to the rear.
@@Petelmrg If you really do know more than one of the premier tyre manufactures, then I look forward to reading your paper on the subject and the reading about a major tyre manufacture offering you a job. Could be a long wait mind you!
12.6 volts is a normal fully charged 12v battery with all 6 cells operating normally. If it’s down at 12.3 volts you may have a bad cell. IMO I would not recommend using the battery monitor as you are placing a parasitic load on the battery which could cause more problems than it solves. Most mechanic shops have a battery tester with a printer and this can diagnose a bad cell / battery in less than a minute. I hope this helps.
Great video, bargain car and agree cant recomend james ane cleevly enough
I love my leaf - perfect ugly runabout as you say. Would be interesting to see a 'CarPlay' upgrade and what features might be lost (if any).
5:23: I’ll remember that😊
The first scratch on a new car is a very sad and sombre event. I know it’s a ridiculous First World problem, but the first scratch sends me into a temporary low depression - I can’t help myself.
Our Fiat 500e has a stone chip in the paintwork of the A pillar. Where's the whisky?! 😭
Ouch! Make it a double!
Hi
I been watching your videos , very interesting and well presented . We thinking of selling our Telsa model 3 & our other car is an egolf . We keep the egolf . My husband works from home so he not driving his Telsa very little , it’s just parked in our drive . My husband could drive egolf & if we sell model 3 we thought we could get an 2nd hand leaf as I only work 11 miles from home . As we have an little dog now , we don’t want my husband white sears ruin !
I only drive about 7000 miles an year so an leaf be fine for me .
Can you pre heat an leaf ? , like we do on our egolf or Telsa .
Is charging better done on home slow charging better than rapid ?
I only used rapid an couple times in my egolf . Your man from car auctions in Scotland seems an helpful man to know .
E V cars are amazing we had 3 electric cars now
Christine
I’m looking for a little run about, maybe as Zoe or Leaf. Not sure which one. My brother bought a 2013 Zoe for 6k from a dealer four months ago, but to had to pay 1.1k on maintenance, recently he opted for a battery purchase from Renault at 1.8k. Good news is his battery is at 92%,maybe because its got a thermal management. Zoe is a bit more expensive and looks really cool but I prefer the Leaf inside.
Have a look at my 2014 Leaf for sale on Autotrader at the moment. Black Acenta 31,000 miles excellent condition £6350 lol
Have you seen our Zoe review? We went through the same decision-making process. Both very good cars but LEAF wins for us as it's larger.
I'd be going the LEAF route, reliability at expensive of battery degradation.
The Tekna doesn't have parking sensors. It doesn't really need them because it has 360 degree cameras, which I prefer to parking sensors anyway.
Replacing all four tires is wise between 6-10 years old as rubber hardens and cracks. In the UK do your tires have a date code? Here in NA they have a DOT code where the last four characters are numbers representing the week and year of manufacture.
If possible could you advise me as to where to buy your battery monitor or what is called please & which OBD thing to buy for leaf
Cheers
Here's info on Battery Monitor including an Amazon link (in the description): ua-cam.com/video/BcNR2Gs6oQI/v-deo.html
I'll hopefully cover Leafspy on another video as I need to do more research. I want an OBD device I can use on all my EVs but Leafspy seems to favour one that's not compatible with apps like EV Notify. The search continues...
Assuming they were the original tyres just the pure age of them makes replacement a good idea, so money well spent in reality.
Have you thought about adding rear parking sensors and upgrading the head unit to one with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto?
Toyota is very much ahead of other manufacturers with its hybrid vehicles no rang panic and bulletproof vehicles and more greener then full electric in my opinion for what it’s worth .With up to ten year warranty on mechanical and batteries if you have the vehicle serviced by Toyota
Tell us about the door fix!
It’s a while back now but it’s just a case of wedging the bottom of the door with something (a strong foot did the job this time) and just lifting the door up a bit with a strong tug. The mechanic, James, made it look easy although I’d probably put my back out had I tried it!
What an honest review Andrew. Looking forward to your further reviews on your second hand Leaf.
Can I ask have you ordered a Indic 5?
Yes! It's due some time in August. I can't wait, although I'm a little scared about what Flaviana will think of it!
@@MrEV I’m sure it will be a good decision. We had a deposit on one in NZ, then the pricing came out and 20% more than in the UK…so we are getting the MGSEV instead!
Looks like you got a bargain on that car!
Your next car is an Ioniq 5? Nice looking but according to Bjorn's 1000 km test you'll be getting only around 2.7 miles/kWh!! Just to be clear, that's after he's reduced the consumption to allow for rain during his test. With rain it was 2.3 miles/kWh! Ooof!
We're in France at the moment and have recently done 1000 km up and down mountains and achieved 4.6 miles/kWh in a Tesla Model 3 LR.
Yes, the Ioniq is quick to charge but boy do your need it! And the Tesla M3 LR beat the Ioniq for total time taken in Bjorn's test.
wrong see asian petrolhead from full to empty in the dry at 18c got 280 miles.
@@seanholdom9739 OK thanks. Will take a look.
Isn’t rapid charge and draining the battery once in a while it’s good for the battery?
Do you expect to spend anymore money on maintenance to get the MOT. Just to give a good overall cost of the cost for car. When are expecting the Ioniq 5 to arrive.
No, it should pass with flying colours!
IONIQ 5 will be here some time in August although I may wait until September 1st for the 71 plate.
With regard to the bad back, try Yoga stretches mate, very good for lower back pain.
Whenever I feel a twinge, I have a couple of pilates stretches I start doing. Works a treat!
Have you looked into the cost of replacing the main power pack. ?
Several thousand. We really don’t need a better range as it is just a second car so I can’t justify it, otherwise I’d certainly be tempted!
Have you looked at the cost of having the main power pack refurbished rather than replaced? Watch the UA-cam video of a 10 year old Leaf having it's battery pack refurbished at Cleveleys. The work took around 4 hours, and cost the owner about £600.......
14:25 In North America some older Leafs are losing connectivity as the "2G" cell networks are closed down. Is that an issue in the UK?
No concrete announcement has been made regarding 2G being shut down in the UK although some networks are threatening it. So many devices (smart meters, eCall systems etc.) use it, I'd be surprised if it gets switched off for a long time yet.
get ovms working instead of car wings, but make sure your in control of your carwings account not the previous owner.👍
Just so you know Rapid Charging a LEAF is not bad for the car. See the Robert Llewellyn video of his in a garden review on Fully Charged with his personal LEAF as to the reason behind this comment. I trust Fully Charged's assessment of the LEAF because they have yet to try to fool anyone with fluff or lies about what they offer their audience.
As a side note having paid so little for that Nissan LEAF. You could seriously just replace the 24 kWh battery with a 40 kWh battery and give the car a whole new lease on it's life. Take it in to CleEVely to have it done.
Did you give him food like they do in Scotland ?
Lots of lemonade! He'd already had lunch otherwise I would have cooked up a pasta. 😀
So do you need an ionoq5?
Well, I don't *need* one but as an e-Niro replacement it should be great for long journeys.
When you uploading 500 review?
It’ll be next week I think. I still need to do a bit more filming.
You really bought the car without using leafspy? Damn on you!
Is that mustard? I can't focus on anything else 😁
Now you've said that, I can't focus on anything else either!
@@MrEV Sorry 🤣
Nothing personal Andrew.....but.....please please please include Flaviana in ALL your videos. She really make your videos less technical and more entertaining as she has such a honest and refreshing attitude and she is so funny to watch and hear her opinions.
We love her candid opinions and absolute no B.S.
Honestly without Flaviana the videos are boring.
There are thousands of channels about ev's.... but there is no one like your cool wife. You guys can expand in other things that you guys are passionate about too
Nah. Both together are hilarious but you can't drink fine wine every time and still appreciate it.
I'd recommend not watching the vids that don't have her in the thumbnail! We will be doing a few more vids together soon.
Clevely and James from James and Kate both deserve serious karma for how they are and what they do.
So if you are getting 3.2 miles per Kw, a regular energy company charges about 15/16p per Kw that makes it cost about 5p per mile if charging at home. Some of the public charging points charge 30p per Kw which makes it about 10p per mile. That's about the same as my diesel car and I'm paying about 58p per litre tax plus VAT at 20% on top of that, comes to nearly 70p! Where are the government going to get all that lost tax if the EV are the only type of car around?
I charge at 5p on a cheap tariff (Octopus Go). So it’s £1.20 to fill; about 1.5p per mile if my maths is correct!
Government will need to work out a way of taxing EVs in the future. Some sort of price per mile is the most popular idea I think.
We are getting a new type of government that lives within its means like we all have to.
@@MrEV Nice tariff from Octopus, just hope your day rate doesn't increase because of the low night rate. Just watched Guy Martin program on EVs. He used an ultra fast charger that was 70p a Kw. Would mean your car is about 20p/mile. Twice that of my diesel. What does a large SUV type of car get to the Kw?
@@MrEV A system of road tolls is what's coming. The details are already being thrashed out between the Government and the AA, RAC and other involved parties...... It is alleged that the Head of the AA, Edmund King, has devised the bare bones of a workable road toll system, and it is thought that this may form the basis of what we'll eventually see........
Hi Andrew, I sent you an email, not sure you got it. I've got a chrome kit you're welcome to have for your Leaf.
I wouldn't hold my breath for Nissan GB to sort out the app. I am approaching the one-year anniversary of Nissan GB sending me weekly updates about my app not functioning with the same copy and paste text. 'Thank you for contacting Nissan Customer Services.
The technical issue remains ongoing and remains under investigation by the technical team.'
We love our 2015 Techna but will not buy another Nissan simply because their refusal to sort the "Carwings" demonstrates lack of respect for their cuastomers.
Don't trickle charge an EV battery! Battery SOC of above 90% for a prolonged time is just as bad as rapid charging. 40% SOC is the ideal condition to keep the battery in when not used.
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You made me laugh.
somebody ,somewhere is buying their first car. Some good tips,leccy or not.
rear-view mirror a BIT loose? (then it falls off) too funny. Brake rotor rust/rot seemed very severe.Wonder how many miles the Leaf had, six years old then? Even in the U.K. dealer service is more expensive. (boo Capitalism)
....but be careful with cars with a large battery drain (Tesla) because it could be drawn empty....
Interesting video shows that you can run second hand ev
Naysayers obviously think you cannot so think this will educate some 🤣
Rapid charge it once a month or you will loose a bar very soon
He won't loose anything. He may lose it though.
£32 for wiper blades wow that's a lot of money i got 2 set of wipers for my car for £14. and i have an ev.
renewing all 4 tyres does mean you have the same grip on wet roads with all the tyres with the same tread depth.
i don't like the leaf the battery losing distance because no battery management is really the worst point about the leaf
what ever car you get the leaf will always be the worse because of it.
the car has to be cheap as a massive corner was cut that effects the car more than any other ev on the market
. watching your range go down 1% = 1 mile is so bad for people who do 20 miles and that's it then its fine. but anyone else it would be a massive issue fast
They were decent Bosch wipers! I agree things have certainly improved with EV battery management since the LEAF.
🤣