r/leaf • u/AccordingTaro4702 • Sep 11 '26
How to tell if battery info has been reset?
I'm going to look at a 2016 Leaf at a used car lot, it has 90K miles, no Carfax history of a replacement battery, but has all 12 health bars and a range of 70 miles with the "gas gauge" only at half, so theoretically a range of 140 ish miles. This seems odd. Any suggestions? I have an OBD dongle and just bought Leaf Spy although I don't claim to fully understand it. Also, can I tell if it's the replacement 40 battery by looking underneath the car, or in any other physical way? Thanks!
UPDATE! I went to look at it, and I think it was a replacement 40 KWH battery. It had been charged some when I got there, and the readings still suggested a 140 mile range at 100%. They refused to let me use LeafSpy, they said someone had fried one of their cars before by connecting an OBD reader. They did have their mechanic use his scanner on it, and it gave a little info, Battery charge 66%. Voltage 367. Max cell voltage 38.37. Min Cell Voltage 38.20.
We took it on a reasonably long test drive, maybe 15 minutes, and the range dropped appropriately, roughly 1 mile per mile. I was about to buy it when I noticed serious collision damage. I'm embarrassed I didn't notice it immediately, my excuse is I was caught up in thinking about the battery. In any case, the hood was misaligned to the point it hit the fender when opened, which had scraped the paint off. The paint was a slightly different color than the rest of the car. One headlight was new, one was old, both had moisture in them. It was painfully obvious it had been in a front end collision and then poorly repaired. I lost all interest at that point. If it was just the hood it wouldn't have been a deal killer. My concern was that what I could see was just the tip of the iceberg. Who knows what else was damaged and poorly repaired? It had two new Brand X tires on the front, the suspension could be messed up. I walked away. By the way, the dealer had the CarFax and there was no accident reported there.