2016 iOn with 34k km / 21k miles

[Yuri]

Hi all, I am talking to a Peugeot dealership that has a 2016 iOn for sale with 34k km or 21k miles on it. I asked for the current max range and they actually send me a status report of the battery (easy thing to do as they are Peugeot dealer). The report shows a battery capacity of 35.8Ah. That seems low to me for an iOn with only 21k miles on it? The range with 99% battery charge (reading on dash) is 85km or 53 miles (currently mild winter with 10ºC / 50ºF).

I am planning on using this as a second car for short distances but still I don't want to buy an iOn/C Zero/iMiev that has a bad battery to begin with... Anyone an opinion on the status of the battery? Thanks a lot!

Btw I know this is an iMiev forum, hope a question about an iOn won't be a problem

[JoeS]

Hello Yuri, and welcome to the forum.

The 2016 iOn has the improved LEV50N battery cells. When new, the car's battery capacity reading would have been around 45Ah, so this car has lost probably around 20% of its capacity, which is a bit much for this five-year-old car with such a low odometer reading. The full-charge Range Remaining (RR) reading is simply a function of how the car had been driven the previous 24km, so I wouldn't worry about it, especially as it's now winter and range drops in the cold. The car should certainly be easily good for 60km daily driving, if that is sufficient for you. If the car is otherwise ok, I would point out to the dealer that the range is problematic and haggle the price down. Better yet, ask to borrow the car from the dealer for a day and try it out for yourself - but do drive it 'normally' and don't hot-rod it, as range is also very dependent on one's driving style. Good luck!

Any one else have any opinions?

[Don]

The dealer seems honest and upfront - Not trying to hide anything. I would ask them what the AH figure for the car would have been when new as I'm not sure all models were the same as the North American versions

To buy it or not depends largely on the condition of the car and the price. IMO, the battery probably isn't going to get much worse any time soon and if it's a nice car and you can get a good price, and it suits your needs, I would still buy it. Two of my three cars were lease vehicles which were stored for extended periods with the battery full, which is NOT the way to do it. They have around 32 or 33 AH batteries, good for 50 to 55 miles, but they are both nice cars and do everything we need them to do and . . . . we negotiated great prices when we bought them. The third car, which we bought brand new and took good care of, has more miles on it than either of them and it's battery is in much better shape and it can easily go 10 or 15 more miles than either of them, even though we seldom need the extra range

Don

[kiev]

The battery voltage and Ahr when full don't tell the whole story--i bought a used miev based upon that alone only to find out later that there was a weak cell in the pack that caused the range to be only about 30 miles. You need to check the cell voltages when the pack has been used and brought down to about 50% or lower using canion or other app or scanning tool device. A weak cell would show up under such conditions, especially if measured while driving.

[Yuri]

Hi all, thanks for the replies. Good to know the Ahr doesn't say much with a full battery. Going to the dealer for a testdrive is a bit difficult though as I was going to import the iOn from Germany (prices are lower in Germany). So it is quite a distance just to make a testdrive and measure the Ahr again with canion when battery is <50%. For now I didn't want to take the risk and am going to look for another one. The price was €7500 (9150 usd) and the dealer would sell it for €6500 (7930 usd). The transparecny of the dealer and the lowered price were definitely pro's but still...

I found a nice chart on a German website which shows the Ah vs the milage (10k km = 6200miles) and the age of the iOn/C Zero /iMiev.

https://i.ibb.co/j4zg2Rs/Chart.jpg

@kiev; What did you do with the weak cell? Did you replace the cell? If so, how much range do you have afterwards?

[JoeS]

Yuri, thank you for the plot showing battery capacity vs. mileage for various years. Interesting that the newest ones show in-excess of 45Ah.

The CaniOn app is very good for looking at cell voltages, but if I recall it does not work on the 2016 or 2017 cars to display battery capacity (Ah).

I think if there were an individual cell problem then the almost-full reading of 85km would be difficult to achieve. When one cell in my battery pack started to go bad, I could no longer fully charge the car to its 16 bars, and the Range Remaining number plummeted.

I personally would not purchase a car believing that I could replace a cell or module and thinking everything would be ok. Replacing an individual cell has proven to be a lot of work, with questionable results as the rest of the cells in the pack have not been very good. There are a few threads on this subject on this forum as well as others. Perhaps someone who has opened up the pack might chime in on this?

The attraction of this particular car is not only its very low mileage but the fact that it is a late-model with presumably the best and lightly-used cells. Sadly, we don't know how the car had been treated for the past five years, as that can significantly affect battery life.

Pity, as the willingness of the dealer to provide you with the information is commendable.

[Yuri]

Here is a list of all the cars from the chart: https://www.goingelectric.de/forum/viewtopic.php?f=222&t=23324&start=250

I find it a bit difficult to determine what iMiev/iOn/C Zero's are good or not so good. For ICE cars I know what to look for but for EV's (I'm new to EV's) I'm still struggling to determine which car I should or shouldn't buy (in terms of quality). General condition is the same as ICE cars and things like brakes, tyres etc are also the same but then the motor and battery are completely unknown to me... Normally I would say the higher the milage the less capacity the battery gets, but If you look at this iOn with this low milage and probably already quite some battery degradation... And if I buy one of these models with a bad battery I'm stuck with it since a replacement battery is almost impossible it seems. Oh well, in the mean time setting alerts for new deals on these models