
A Year and a Half With a Nissan Leaf (Part 1): The Acquisition - koblenski
http://sam-koblenski.blogspot.com/2013/08/a-year-and-half-with-nissan-leaf-part-1.html
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wmeredith
So it's a pretty good product hamstrung by a shoddy dealer network/deployment
plan(incompetence, arbitrary rules for purchase). This seems to be a trend...

A couple weeks ago, after months of research, I decided to buy a Jeep Wrangler
Unlimited Rubicon. I went to my local Jeep dealer and took a test drive. The
sales guy was fine. It's always kind of annoying when you know more about the
vehicle than the person assisting you, but this is mostly par for the course,
and he was polite enough. So then we get back to the dealership and it's
instantly good cop/bad cop time.

I was accosted by a close talker with a fake tan and gold jewelry giving me a
hard sell and telling me that he could definitely work something out for me
today, while the other guy apologized for him interrupting us. This is a
$40,000 vehicle. It's not an impulsive purchase and I was there for a test
drive, which they knew. There was zero chance of me buying a car that day for
circumstances that had nothing to do with me or them.

Anyway, it was a stereotypical scene from there. After 10 minutes of being
polite, but firm. I had to physically walk out of the place while they were
still talking to me, trying to make a sale. I felt rude, but what else could I
have done. I'd still be there if I hadn't.

How is this good business? It must be, because I've purchased 5 vehicles
(different brands, different geographic areas) in my life and this experience
has been about the same for 4 of them. The 5th was a great experience I had
with a VW salesman. Even so, his finance guy was rude and tried to screw me
over with nonsensical add-ons and a hidden fee that he himself was "surprised"
to see in the paperwork when I pointed them out. WTF? The conversation was
also full of obsequious fawning BS like, "Wow, I've never seen one go for this
low before!" It was very strange.

I've been following the Tesla fight against the regulatory capture that car
dealerships have implemented. I hope the dealers get buried. Why can't I go
online and order the Jeep (or whatever else) I want and have it delivered or
pick it up from a non-jackass?

Anyway. I'll be buying a used, low mileage Jeep from Carmax. They have fixed
pricing and I can view their entire nationwide inventory in detail on their
websites. I wish the car manufacturers would get with it. (This is not an ad
for Carmax. They are the least of many evils in this situation.)

~~~
ericabiz
It's a trend with certain dealerships. In my experience, the low-end car
companies tend to do this more often. As a hobby, I help friends buy/negotiate
cars, so I've had experience with several dealerships. Here's my list from
memory:

Chrysler/Jeep/Dodge: Horrendous. I have never found a dealership I like in
this chain.

Nissan: Hit or miss. One dealership was fantastic (San Diego) and one I went
to was the awful "hard sell" place.

Mazda: Every one I've been to has been good save for one (unfortunately, that
one is the closest to where I now live in Austin, TX.) If you live in Austin
and want a Mazda, go to the dealership on the south side. They will literally
throw you the keys and let you test-drive any of their cars.

Acura: Good overall, though have not been impressed with the salespeople
themselves.

BMW/Mini, Lexus, Mercedes/Smart, Porsche: Have always had good experiences
with these dealerships. One caveat: My fiance has a BMW and we bought it
certified used, and it didn't come with a manual. A year later, despite
multiple requests, we still don't have a manual. The sales experience was
good, however.

Of all of the above, Lexus has been the most consistently awesome. I've been
to 4 different dealerships and all were extremely pleasant.

Of note: Two dealerships have offered me jobs as a car saleswoman after I
negotiated with them for friends.

~~~
sliverstorm
I've had pretty good experiences with Toyota, which jives with your
experiences with Lexus, as they are part of Toyota.

~~~
MartinCron
I've even had good experiences with Scion. Their whole "no haggling" business
works for me.

The car itself on the other hand... a little bit of buyer's remorse.

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Amadou
What I took away from the blogpost was that when you have a well-defined
deployment plan, part of that should include a way to handle exceptions.

In this case, he clearly was very enthusiastic about buying a Leaf. That's the
kind of customer you want for a new product. How many others like him weren't
even within 100 mile radius of any eligible dealers?

If Nissan had a process to bump such customers up to a person who handled such
purchases as a kind of promotion, who could get a Leaf prepped at a vetted
dealer and then flat-bedded to the customer, maybe the goodwill and PR
opportunities would have helped them reach their sales targets.

[http://www.thedetroitbureau.com/2012/11/nissan-will-miss-
lea...](http://www.thedetroitbureau.com/2012/11/nissan-will-miss-leaf-sales-
targets-says-ghosn/)

~~~
koblenski
Well said! On top of that, Madison already had over a dozen charging stations
that popped up on the Leaf's navigation system when I first got back home.
Nissan should have especially planned for particularly green cities close to
their original roll-out states.

Now it's not really an issue. We've got two dealerships in the city, and
they're both selling 2-4 Leafs per month. I just couldn't wait for mine.

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IanDrake
Leaf=21K, Accent=14K, Commute=11 Miles.

It doesn't make economical sense to pay 7K more for a car who's primary
feature is low cost per mile, then hardly put miles on the car. Maybe that's
just me.

~~~
MikeCapone
This argument is made constantly with hybrids and electric vehicles. Yet it is
not made for any other vehicle that isn't the most economical option, so it
sounds like a double standard to me.

I mean, if you look at what's on the road, you'll see a lot of cars that are
more expensive than what could do the same job. Some people even pay extra for
fancy wheels, sunroofs, bigger engines (which cost more in fuel), cosmetic
modifications, etc.

So either we need to judge all vehicles purely on economics, or we should
admit that car buyers are looking for other things than purely functional
transportation at the lowest cost.

~~~
benajnim
Having worked in deep in the marketing machinery on behalf of big car
companies, my take-away is automobile buying decisions are one of the most
irrational decisions a person can make. So often, people will purchase a car
to address "edge use cases" (e.g. pulling a boat) and most of the time a more
economical car combined with renting a vehicle for those edge cases is
cheaper.

Oh and each model of vehicle has a target demographic, and you may notice the
marketing of any given model targets the lifestyle of the buyer. Young, hip
and urban? Hard-working man's man? Eco-concious? A car for every lifestyle.

~~~
nobodysfool
I hear you. I pointed out a nissan leaf to my wife and she was like 'what if
we want to go on a vacation?' 'what if we have two more kids?' we wouldn't be
able to fit our luggage or go farther than 100 miles away from home! I did
mention that in those times which would be rare, we could rent a vehicle with
enough space, but she was not having it.

------
fkn
I think you fit the profile that Nissan was pursuing. Your commute isn't too
far and you own another car for the longer trips.

I can't see anyone buying a Nissan Leaf as their only car. The range is a big
inconvenience.

I am curious to see how the battery will handle the cold winters in the long
term.

~~~
hahainternet
> I can't see anyone buying a Nissan Leaf as their only car. The range is a
> big inconvenience.

Remember that for some, it's no problem. I live in the UK, I have no intention
of ever driving more than 100 miles in one go, and if I really need to travel
long distances, trains, buses, trams, planes are relatively cheap and
available.

I doubt a Leaf is what I would buy, but given that Tesla want to allow free
charging, so ostensibly free fuel, I can see that as very attractive in the
near future.

~~~
robin_reala
If you’re with Ecotricity in the UK (who peg their electricity prices to match
the big 6) then you get free access to their network of chargers:
[http://www.ecotricity.co.uk/for-the-road](http://www.ecotricity.co.uk/for-
the-road)

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mikestew
Summary: the author's experience doesn't surprise me, as it mirrors mine in
many respects.

It's unfortunate that Nissan did so poorly with the deployment of the initial
Leafs. I love ours, and would buy another one, except that every aspect of the
buying experience has put me off ever buying another Nissan ever again. I'll
repeat: I'll never buy another Nissan.

Pre-ordering one was easy enough. After that, the experience went downhill.
There were some production delays due to the tsunami, but they were going to
have delays anyway, tsunami or not. I'll let that slide, it's a radically
different car, things didn't go as planned; whatever. Finally the cars are
being delivered. Months go by, and despite having pre-ordered on the first
day, no Leaf in my driveway. Then I find out via online forums that people who
ordered months after I did are picking up their car. That's completely
unacceptable, but whatever, it's just a car.

Eighteen months after I entered the initial pre-order, the car arrives and
we're off to the dealership. That was probably the final straw for any future
Nissan purchases. Despite having arranged a time to pick it up, and having
waited eighteen months for the car, we shake hands with the salesman
and...wait. After nearly an hour of standing around the dealership drooling
over the GT, we are finally deemed worthy of the privilege of receiving the
car. After the usual BS with the finance guy, we drive off.

I'll reiterate that the car itself is great. It exceeded expectations, and
after two years and 16K miles we've had zero trouble with it. But I'm not
going to purchase another car from a company that fails at every step to
delivery.

------
hnriot
EVs are way too expensive currently with such awful range that for all but a
few early-adopter wealthy people with short commutes they are impractical.
It's great that people are buying them so we can climb the adopter curve, but
until they are competitively priced it's just not worth it. Ironically, for
those wealthy short commute early adopters the savings over the next couple
years are very small. Cars save money on short commutes, but savings also
proportional to commute length, therefore savings are low, but price is much
higher. Unless you're convinced these things are actually less destructive to
the environment and you have a pile of cash to burn on something other than
gas, wait a couple years until battery technology is improved.

For me, the only useful advantage is slightly reducing the dependence on the
middle east, but the number of EVs on the road vs everything else makes even
that so infinitesimally small it's not worth bothering.

~~~
oostevo
I get your larger point about reducing dependence on foreign oil, but ...

We actually get more oil from Canada than from the Middle East[1]. We do
import the most from all of OPEC combined, but OPEC includes places like
Venezuela, from where we get an awful lot of oil, Ecuador, Nigeria, and other
countries that aren't in the Middle East.

Sorry for being a pedant.

[1]
[http://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=727&t=6](http://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=727&t=6)

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jonstjohn
I'm in a very similar situation to the OP, minus the new job with a longer
commute. My wife and I have shared a car for quite a few years, and even with
a 3-year old who goes to school everybody, we make it work. My job is a short
2.5 mile bike ride, and our day-to-day life fits into a relativelly small
radius.

I had thought that the leaf combined with a all wheel drive vehicle would be
perfect for our situation. We live in an area that gets snow in winter and
close to the mountains, so AWD would be ideal. The leaf would be great for the
day-to-day, which usually involves < 20 miles or driving.

We too have an aging corolla, which is a fantastic car for the $$$ and the gas
mileage.

------
cake
Sounds an awful lot like a free ad for the leaf.

~~~
koblenski
I'm not quite sure how I should take that. If you mean I would highly
recommend buying one if it fits your driving habits, then you're definitely
right. If you mean I'm just a shill for Nissan, then I can assure you that the
only connection I have to Nissan is being a Leaf owner and finding it awesome.

~~~
cake
No offence intended but I don't see the value of your experience buying a
Leaf. To me it lacks a critical opinion, thus looking more like free
advertising.

~~~
koblenski
None taken, but can my experience only add value if I critique the
shortcomings? I did relate the troubles I had and how they were overcome. To
someone else thinking about buying a Leaf, it could be valuable to know more
about how environmental aspects and road conditions affect the range of the
car, and how you have to plan for more than just distance.

I was intent on buying a Leaf, and I wasn't going to let this initial ordeal
sour my opinion of the car because it had more to do with the dealership. I
knew going into it that getting the car back to Madison was going to be a
stretch, and then events conspired to make it a bit more difficult. I think
the fact that I made it back in spite of that was actually a point in the
Leaf's favor.

~~~
cake
_but can my experience only add value if I critique the shortcomings_

Not necessarily only the shortcomings, I was thinking critical as in
"analytical", I would have love to read about how the EV experience translated
driving out of the dealership for example. It may not be new to you but I've
never driven one and would have "extracted value" out of your post if you did
describe it ;-)

~~~
koblenski
I think what you're looking for will be in my next post.

