Nissan Leaf Buyer Remorse
I’ve had just over one week of using my new 2019 Nissan Leaf, and I have to say I have regretted my decision. Unfortunately, there is no return policy on new cars.
Rebate Issues
The story is that I was up sold into buying a fully loaded Nissan Leaf SL (not the Plus with higher range) for $34,000 (including a dealer discount), instead of the Leaf Plus S base model, mostly because I thought I was going to get a separate $3500 rebate in addition to a dealer discount they offered. Turns out Nissan won’t honor that separate rebate stating that by accepting the dealer discount, the rebate was no longer valid. This was never disclosed to me at the time of purchase. I am disappointed to say the least. I could have bought the Leaf Plus or the Tesla Model 3 for just a thousand more than what I paid currently for the 2019 Nissan Leaf SL. The only reason I bought this version was because I was expecting the rebate would be honored. Not sure how I will deal with this now. The only thing I can do now is that I would never recommend a Nissan vehicle to anyone ever again.
Range Anxiety Issues Persist
I went on a longer trip this past weekend. I logged about 200 miles going from Rochester to Minneapolis and back. I started the trip at 97% charge. I ended up in Minneapolis at 20% charge remaining. I used up 77% to go 90 miles. This means on highway going average of 65 MPH in 40 degree F weather, I would only be able to go 117 miles on a full charge. Far less than the advertised 150 miles range. I made the mistake of only recharging back up to 82% before heading back to Rochester. The fast charger didn’t take long to reach 80%, but the extra 2% took 15 minutes, as opposed to taking only 15 minutes going from 20% to 80%. I didn’t want to wait that long to get to 90%. I came back home with only 3% charge remaining. Talk about range anxiety. This tells me that my decision to not go with the Leaf Plus was a huge mistake.
Originally published at thomasyung.com on March 27, 2019.
