Advice on buying a used 2015 Spark Ev

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Squeg

Member
Joined
Jul 23, 2018
Messages
5
I am looking at a 2015 Spark EV. Are there any things I should be looking for? Is there a way to check battery condition or is that an issue? What is the safety rating of the 2015? The one I am looking at is dealer certified LT1 with quick charge option and 22,000 miles. How is a price of $9400? I'm hoping to talk them down if I decide I want it :D
 
Good luck with the haggling.
Remember, if their lips are moving.........

You won't be sorry.

Has there ever been a case of a Spark EV pack degrading prematurely?
 
NORTON said:
Good luck with the haggling.
Remember, if their lips are moving.........

You won't be sorry.

Has there ever been a case of a Spark EV pack degrading prematurely?
After 3 years of driving our leased 2015 spark EV, we turned it in at the end of May. The car had 28k miles on the ODO when it was turned in and the car performed great for three years. We did encounter one problem with a charging module that was replaced under warranty.

Battery capacity is another matter. My calculated battery capacity averaged about 17.7 kWh until Dec 2017 when the module failed. Then the capacity dropped to about 15.8 and continued to drop to around 15.3 - 15.5. Replacing the module did not fix this problem. Personally, I think a few cells in the HV battery may have degraded. A friend of mine who also leased a 2015 Spark EV complained about his range diminishing. When I used TorquePro to measure his vehicle's HV battery capacity, it read 14.8 kWh. He had about 30k miles ODO. At least one other posting on this forum expressed a drop in capacity too.

Does the 2015 Spark EV have a HV battery problem? I would like to see a lot more TorquePro data to give me confidence in the HV battery for the 2015 Spark EV. I would definitely suggest Squeg find someone to measure the HV battery capacity for the 2015 Spark EV in which he has an interest. Given a choice between a 2015 or 2016 Spark EV, I would choose the 2016. I bought my 2016 Spark EV last August with 6500 miles on the ODO. Today I have 12k on the ODO and my measured battery capacity is 16.8 kWh.

I should add that the 15.3 kWh HV battery capacity in my leased 2015 Spark EV did not cause me any driving range concerns. At 5 mi/kWh, 15.3 kWh still gives me a range of 76 miles which is more than enough for my normal daily driving. Normally, my kWh / mi was closer to 6.0. I was actually sorry to have to turn in the car at the end of the lease.
 
Apart from regular inspection of the car condition, you can get a rough estimate of the current battery usable capacity by driving the car until it has more than 50% of the battery used, then taking note of the Battery percentage used and kWh used in the energy screen (press the leaf button on the dashboard).

Total the three percentage values, then divide the kWh number by the percentage.
For example if the total percentage is 68% and the kWh is 11.2kWh The estimated usable capacity of the battery will be 11.2/.68=16.47kWh


When brand new the usable capacity is estimated to be around 18.5/19 kWh, there will be degradation with time. I am at 60k miles, and my battery capacity is around 15.5kWh.


When I was driving 40% highway and 60% city, I was getting 5.4 miles /kWh. Since we moved and I am driving 80% highway (75 mph) and 20% city, I get 4.6 miles / kwh.

For 22k miles and DFC the price sounds reasonable, but it does not hurt to try and negotiate it down :)
 
Had to turn in the Red 2LT on 21 July as the residual on the lease was over $14k @ 31k miles. (+ no DCFC) Wife & I had decided on a White 2LT to replace the departed Red Spark.

We had stopped by our local EV-only dealer (Greg Platt @ Platt Auto Group) in mid-July to tell him what we were after and were willing to pay (under 24k miles & no more than $9k). Left our contact info & he said he'd call if he came across anything that fit our profile. Called him last Friday afternoon as I was getting tired of walking to the bus stop to get to / from work. He said the timing was perfect - they had just finished unloading a load of Sparks from the transporter about 90 minutes ago, was finishing up the paperwork to get them into his inventory system before giving us a call.

He told us to come on down that evening as he'd be there late. They had 5 2015 Sparks & 3 of those were white. Mileage on the 3 were 10K, 22k and 23k. We ruled out the one w/ 23k as it was apparent the previous owner had spilled a mocha or hot chocolate into the driver's side front speaker (Greg said the cars had only been cleaned up for the dealer auction - they still had the sticker on the windows - he hadn't had a chance to send them out for final detailing).

We checked the battery on the two remaining white ones w/ OBD II & TorquePro.
10k miles was manufactured 06/2015 w/ battery capacity of 16.40kW
22k miles was manufactured 01/2015 w/ battery capacity of 15.53kW

The 10k vehicle was listed at $10.4k and the 22k vehicle was listed at $9.3k. I had our loan pre-approval letter in hand and offered $9k out the door and said we'd take the car as it sat - no need to do any additional detailing or prep work. He pondered that for a moment, said "Sure!" and we were on our way in 45 minutes. Added bonus was we felt the 22k car was in better, cleaner condition - obviously stored in a garage. The slightly lower capacity won't matter for us - we hardly ever get the battery SOC into the yellow range on any of the other vehicles.

The deal worked out to be ~$8.7k for the vehicle & $300 for title / tags / transfers.

GOM nominal range after overnight full charge is 82 miles @ 5.2mi/kW = battery capacity of 15.77 kW
Battery capacity calculation from the energy usage screen works out to = 16.13 kW

Need to borrow the OBD II again to see if capacity value changes at full SOC. I haven't heard of any methods to regain lost capacity - once it's gone, it's gone.
 
GladstoneCoach said:
We checked the battery on the two remaining white ones w/ OBD II & TorquePro.

22k miles was manufactured 01/2015 w/ battery capacity of 15.53kW

GOM nominal range after overnight full charge is 82 miles @ 5.2mi/kW = battery capacity of 15.77 kW
Battery capacity calculation from the energy usage screen works out to = 16.13 kW

Interesting info, torque measures your battery capacity 0.6kwh lower than the Energy Usage screen. While capacity jumps around a little bit on the energy usage screen (note: I've seen "charge full" anywhere from 97-100% on torque pro, so that can account for a 3% difference), mine has recently displayed 15.7kwh, and torque reports 15.1kwh capacity.
 
I noticed the same thing with my recently acquired 2015 - when I calculate the capacity via the charge screen numbers I get 16.2, but Torque pro reports 15.8. Either way, I hope that I can take better care of the battery than the previous owner and slow down the degradation rate. Who knows...
 
hishnika said:
I noticed the same thing with my recently acquired 2015 - when I calculate the capacity via the charge screen numbers I get 16.2, but Torque pro reports 15.8. Either way, I hope that I can take better care of the battery than the previous owner and slow down the degradation rate. Who knows...
While I no longer have my 2015 Spark EV, I have noticed that, from postings on this forum and one other 2015 I tested, a 2015 Spark EV with approximately 30k miles on the ODO seems to have a battery capacity around 15 kWh.

It would be interesting to know the battery capacities drivers of 2014 and 2016 Spark EVs are seeing with 30k or more miles on the ODO.
 
I bought a 2014 spark with 52k miles, at that time I estimated the usable capacity to be 16 kWh
I now have 62k miles and the estimated capacity is down to 15 kWh.
I plot it every month and it is a steady decline.
 
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