TLDR: would you buy a ten year old Focus Electric or a ten year old Nissan Leaf for the same money?
I’ve been looking for a cheap second car under $5k which in the electric space means ten year old Nissan Leaf is the bulk of options, but I did find a Focus Electric under budget with a fender bender on its Carfax. I’m really excited about this because I like the Focus a lot better but I have reservations about out of warranty repair costs.
With an early gen EV this old I’m a bit concerned about aftermarket support since dealers repair out of warning have a reputation of being prohibitively expensive. Like, $20,000 to get a replacement battery expensive!
In my area (PNW) I've heard there’s a couple shops that cater to replacing Leaf batteries specifically and have gotten replacement battery costs down close to $5k. I think it works as a business model because of the volume of Leafs sold but I haven’t heard of anything similar for out of warranty Focus Electrics which are much more rare.
Is this something to be concerned about? I don’t want to greet stuck with a brick that I can’t afford to fix.
I’ve been looking for a cheap second car under $5k which in the electric space means ten year old Nissan Leaf is the bulk of options, but I did find a Focus Electric under budget with a fender bender on its Carfax. I’m really excited about this because I like the Focus a lot better but I have reservations about out of warranty repair costs.
With an early gen EV this old I’m a bit concerned about aftermarket support since dealers repair out of warning have a reputation of being prohibitively expensive. Like, $20,000 to get a replacement battery expensive!
In my area (PNW) I've heard there’s a couple shops that cater to replacing Leaf batteries specifically and have gotten replacement battery costs down close to $5k. I think it works as a business model because of the volume of Leafs sold but I haven’t heard of anything similar for out of warranty Focus Electrics which are much more rare.
Is this something to be concerned about? I don’t want to greet stuck with a brick that I can’t afford to fix.