I figure the early Leaf will come off lease soon and should be available, used, for a good price. I understand Nissan has a battery replacement program and I'm an adult. But I am most interested in the quality of the 'shop manual.' My understanding is the 'shop manual' is available via $20 download. I'm OK with that but as I've been Googling about, I'm not finding many comments about about the quality or any owner hacks. Perhaps I'm looking in the wrong places but is 'plug and go' pretty much the attitude in the Leaf community? My interest is to add a towed, range extender. Granted, it won't be terribly efficient but if the Volt owners can put up with what GM gave them, I'm OK with it too. Is there a Leaf experimental community that might be where I should look? Thanks, Bob Wilson
Can't speak on the manual, but someone has done the towable range extender. Perhaps this can give you some leads. 2012 Nissan Leaf Gets Unofficial Jet-Powered Range Extender, Quick Charger
Thanks! That is what I'm looking for. There are two types of battery management systems I'm aware of: voltage/current based - using the voltage under load to determine the battery level coulomb counter - tracks the charge and discharge to determine the battery charge level It sounds like some folks are 'cracking the code' about how the Leaf management works. I'll keep looking now that I have a pointer. Bob Wilson
I was casually thinking the same thing. We get a boom in used cars once the 3 years warranty is up. I might wait until the facelift leaf (2013?) is in car yards though. I like the idea of 200kg lighter and a proper heat pump.
Bob, have a look at mynissanleaf forum, particularly this section. My Nissan Leaf Forum • View forum - Leaf CANBus I bought a 2014 a few months ago. Had considered used, but as Emcguy points out there were a number of improvements made in the 2013 model. Great car, apart from range limitation.
