Miles and Smiles (Click to enlarge)

Third Maintenance Checkup for my Nissan Leaf September 23, 2014 Mark D Larsen

While on the trip to Las Vegas for the National Drive Electric EV'ent last weekend, my Leaf’s odometer topped the third maintenance threshold of 22,500 miles, as today’s dashboard shows in the above photo. I therefore took it to Stephen Wade Nissan for the next checkup.

As with the first and second appointments, there was very little to actually check —another prime benefit of driving an EV. The technician rotated the tires, visually inspected the moving parts, and topped up the fluids. Everything was still in fine working order.

He did point out that the right side of my tires seem to be wearing down a little faster than the left side, which might indicate that they’re slightly out of alignment. I actually think it is due to the fact that I routinely zip through the numerous roundabouts in our community at a faster speed than most, just because the Leaf’s nimble handling is so fun when cornering. Regardless, since the tires won’t last much longer, I’ll have the shop also check the alignment when I replace them.

I asked the technician to also perform a battery analysis, and you can see the results below. Although I am now missing the first capacity bar, I still have five stars in all four categories. This comes as no surprise, since I have only tried —and failed!— to QuickCharge once while in Las Vegas last week, seldom drive at freeway speeds, never top up with an already high charge, nor leave the battery fully charged for more than a few hours at most. In short, according to the report, my usage continues to be exemplary.

Total cost for the checkup? $19.95 plus tax. Can’t beat that. I’ve never had such a low maintenance car. What’s not to like? At this point, I am only curious to see which will happen first: the 30,000 mile checkup or losing the second capacity bar...?