Advice for buying a used E-Golf

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ckamas

***
Joined
Feb 5, 2018
Messages
5
Hi all,

Is there any advice you can give a perspective owner before I buy a used E-Golf? I am looking at 2015 SEL lease returns. Is there a way to get the health of the battery? How many times it has been rapidly charged?

Any advice would be appreciated!
 
I wish I could help. I don't know how you find the battery capacity unless you fully charge the car and drive it until empty, using the trip statistics to calculate usable capacity. With OBDEleven I can see how many times I have plugged in but I haven't found a separate variable for DCFC sessions, and certainly no historical data of when the sessions took place. If the car spent the past three years somewhere like hot/warm southern CA, you should probably stay away from the car unless you are ok with the range eventually getting down to 60 miles when it's 8 years old. If the car has spent its life in a colder climate, like MA, then it may not be as much as a worry.
 
Great question I probably should have been asking before diving in, but my wife and I went just to look and wound up buying our used '15 SEL on a "Black Friday Sale" and have been very happy so far.

We _love_ the car. We were looking at the Fiat (way too small), the i3 (way too ugly--and our ICE car is a BMW), the Volt (drove like crap), and the e-Golf. Didn't consider a Leaf because I do not like Japanese cars. I have owned mostly Audis for the past 30 years and instantly fell in love with the e-Golf because it felt so familiar (my first ever VW mind you) and it looks like a normal car at first glance.

Our car did come from SoCal. Now, of course, I have some battery concerns that f1geek is pointing out. Carfax will help you out there. The bonus of a car from SoCal is (if you live in NorCal served by PG&E) is you can get the $500 PG&E rebate since there is no PG&E in SoCal.

So far so good. We are at ~33k miles now and seem to have decent range now that is unseasonably warm, and when we don't use much climate control. (Climate Control sucks lotsawatts.) We recently did a round trip from Santa Cruz to Campbell and back (going up Hwy 17 sucks some serious kilowatts) and still had around 1/3 of a "tank" left. We used the regen drive modes like a manual transmission coming down the hill (thanks to this forum for that tip) which helped a lot. We often see over 90 miles on the Guess-O-Meter at full charge, but the 100 mile club may be out of reach for our car.

We had to have the charging system repaired (module replaced and new programming) under warranty so it would reliably charge on timer, but other than that so far so good.

If you can find a CPO all the better because you get a little more warranty. We bought an extended to get us through 85k miles. Battery is not covered on extended. I guess we used car buyers will find out how battery life pans out. With worn out first generation Leafs still fetching $5k I'm optimistic.

Look for condition flaws. Go over the car with a fine toothed comb. Like f1geek said, the only way I'm aware of to test the battery for range is to charge it all the way up and see how you do. The dealer we bought from (Capital VW in San Jose) offered a 3 day return which would give you enough time to run some range tests. We went in totally blind and impulse bought, but we are still happy 3 months later.
 
I have found the e-Golf GOM to be over optimistic at full charge. If the GOM says 90 miles in 70 F weather and you are driving conservatively, your car probably already has significant battery degradation. If you can achieve 6 miles per kWh shortly before a full charge , the GOM may indicate 90 miles of range but your battery may be near warranty failure (15x6=90). You really need trip efficiency, end of trip SOC and miles driven to be able to calculate usable capacity. The closer your trip gets you to “the turtle”, the more accurate the calculation.
 
f1geek said:
I have found the e-Golf GOM to be over optimistic at full charge. If the GOM says 90 miles in 70 F weather and you are driving conservatively, your car probably already has significant battery degradation. If you can achieve 6 miles per kWh shortly before a full charge , the GOM may indicate 90 miles of range but your battery may be near warranty failure (15x6=90). You really need trip efficiency, end of trip SOC and miles driven to be able to calculate usable capacity. The closer your trip gets you to “the turtle”, the more accurate the calculation.
Don't even think of using the GOM alone to judge the battery condition. It depends completely on the recent driving efficiency and the car does not display the efficiency value it is using to calculate the range. I wish it would display something like "Based on 4.1mi/kWh Efficiency, the Estimated Range is 82 miles". Tesla just uses a constant value to display "rated miles", so their range displayed is always proportional to the car's own assessment of the energy capacity of the battery.

The best we can do with the e-Golf is discussed in the thread Estimating Battery Degradation. However, it's not a very accurate method since there is some non-linearity in the gauge and there is not enough precision in the values used.
 
I tend to go by the following.

I give the car a full recharge in the morning, right before I leave. Drive normally, as you would during commute during the work week.

Note the miles per kwh in the infotainment center as you drive the battery down.

Drive until you have 5 or less miles of range left on a charge in the battery.

Note the miles traveled on that charge, and the miles estimated remaining on that charge.

Add the two of them together.

Divide what the total is by your miles per Kwh.

That should give you a rough idea of battery capacity. The closer to 21.3 kwh you are, the better the condition of your battery. That's an estimate of remaining usable battery capacity. Repeat this 4 or 5 times and average them together in a short time frame.

Other than to check remaining battery capacity, I DON"T recommend running the battery that low at all, and it should be avoided.

My car, new, would show 129 miles of range on the GOM. I drive very conservatively... I average 6.0 to 6.6 miles per kwh winter and summer respectively, driving in the Los Angeles area on surface streets, no freeway. I'm at 15,500 miles now, I think. This winter, I am showing 117 miles of range left on a full recharge. By May or June, I don't know what it will come back up to, maybe 119, 120, or 121, if I am lucky. Or it may stay at 117 miles of range left. Cold weather usually drops the GOM ratings down a bit.

Obviously, with my driving style, I will have a lot less recharges per 1000 miles traveled than almost all other drivers here. That too adds up to lighter battery usage and longer life of the battery.
 
f1geek said:
I have found the e-Golf GOM to be over optimistic at full charge. If the GOM says 90 miles in 70 F weather and you are driving conservatively, your car probably already has significant battery degradation. If you can achieve 6 miles per kWh shortly before a full charge , the GOM may indicate 90 miles of range but your battery may be near warranty failure (15x6=90). You really need trip efficiency, end of trip SOC and miles driven to be able to calculate usable capacity. The closer your trip gets you to “the turtle”, the more accurate the calculation.

I have seen some of the posts on how to calculate this, but am a little unclear how to do so without knowing the starting point.

That said, we have averaged 4.1 miles/kwh since we bought the car. Best we have ever seen so far for a trip was ~5.1 miles/kwh so the GOM has never had the luxury of using 6 as a multiplier for us. We probably don't drive super conservatively

When do we see "the turtle"? We have driven it down to less than 9 miles remaining, the car automatically activated Eco Mode, with the "energy meter" rapidly dropping, but still no turtle.

A good understanding of how to accurately determine battery degradation within the 3 day return window could be very helpful to used e-Golf buyers. (At least those buyers were aren't as impulsive as my wife and I were.)
 
The turtle shows up with about 2-5 miles remaining, so you should be very close to a charging station when you perform this test, so you can plug in ASAP as it's not good for the battery to sit for extended periods at a very low SOC. 5 mi/kWh is pretty good, though there are people who can routinely achieve 6, but it's nigh impossible to get 6 driving on the highway.

You can get SOC from car-net (or some sort of OBD tool) or you can estimate (not very accurately) from the fuel gauge. Charge up fully to 100% SOC (needle on fuel gauge is pointing to 1, drive and make your trip show the turtle, note the miles driven and average efficiency.

Calculated capacity = Miles driven/efficiency/(1-SOC)

For example, if you drive 80 miles, get a trip efficiency of 4.1 mi/kWh and have 4% battery left, the estimated usable capacity is 80/4.1/(1-0.04)=20.3 kWh usable.
 
msvphoto said:
f1geek said:
I have found the e-Golf GOM to be over optimistic at full charge. If the GOM says 90 miles in 70 F weather and you are driving conservatively, your car probably already has significant battery degradation. If you can achieve 6 miles per kWh shortly before a full charge , the GOM may indicate 90 miles of range but your battery may be near warranty failure (15x6=90). You really need trip efficiency, end of trip SOC and miles driven to be able to calculate usable capacity. The closer your trip gets you to “the turtle”, the more accurate the calculation.

I have seen some of the posts on how to calculate this, but am a little unclear how to do so without knowing the starting point.

That said, we have averaged 4.1 miles/kwh since we bought the car. Best we have ever seen so far for a trip was ~5.1 miles/kwh so the GOM has never had the luxury of using 6 as a multiplier for us. We probably don't drive super conservatively

When do we see "the turtle"? We have driven it down to less than 9 miles remaining, the car automatically activated Eco Mode, with the "energy meter" rapidly dropping, but still no turtle.

A good understanding of how to accurately determine battery degradation within the 3 day return window could be very helpful to used e-Golf buyers. (At least those buyers were aren't as impulsive as my wife and I were.)

The starting point is a full charge and zero miles traveled on a charge. The ending point is miles traveled on a charge, plus estimated remaining miles on a charge. The smaller the remaining estimated miles on a charge, the less potential for errors in your estimated battery capacity. So, you add the two numbers together, say it's 95 miles, total, of whch 90 miles traveled on charge, 5 miles left on the charge. Your actual miles per kWh traveled is 5.1 miles on the Infotainment system under driving data. 95 miles/ 5.1 miles per kWh yields 18.627 KWh usable battery capacity. Known USEABLE new capacity has been observed as 21.0 to 21.3 kWh .
 
All excellent information and advice. Thank you both, JoulesThief and f1geek.

There is no charge percentage in CarNet any longer that I can see, either on the App (Android version) or the browser based version. Am I missing something?
 
msvphoto said:
All excellent information and advice. Thank you both, JoulesThief and f1geek.

There is no charge percentage in CarNet any longer that I can see, either on the App (Android version) or the browser based version. Am I missing something?
On a desktop computer resize the window very narrow and the formatting will change. There used to be a battery percentage in that format in very small text.
 
msvphoto said:
All excellent information and advice. Thank you both, JoulesThief and f1geek.

There is no charge percentage in CarNet any longer that I can see, either on the App (Android version) or the browser based version. Am I missing something?

I use and save the browser based version on my Android based phone. Run portrait, you should see a % of charge, run landscape, you should see miles remaining.
 
Wow, that is strange. Got it on the desktop by resizing the window really narrow. I normally run the app, not browser based, on Android but I can see how rotating the phone may act the same way if using a browser. The App does not appear to display % at all best I can tell.

Thank you both for the tip, I can see % of charge now so I can start some calculatin' and see how the battery is holding up.
 
You can buy mine if you can wait until early April. 2015 black SEL, <19,000 miles, excellent shape, never been fast charged, only L2 charged.

I'm turning it in early April at Galpin in LA. No idea what the residual is, cause I never intended to keep it.
 
eGolfeGirl said:
You can buy mine if you can wait until early April. 2015 black SEL, <19,000 miles, excellent shape, never been fast charged, only L2 charged.

I'm turning it in early April at Galpin in LA. No idea what the residual is, cause I never intended to keep it.

I think he already bought his used?
 
Thanks for the offer... however I am looking for a car sooner than April, and in the Norther CA area.
 
ckamas said:
Thanks for the offer... however I am looking for a car sooner than April, and in the Norther CA area.

I have a white 2015 SEL with 31,200 miles. White with the black leatherette interior. I leased a Bolt a few months ago and have stopped driving the E-Golf. I have 10 payments remaining on my lease, and my total payoff as of today is $15.7k ($13.4k residual + 10 payments of $230). I've been thinking about selling it, but not sure how the sales tax on the buyoff would work. I'm in Point Richmond (near the Richmond/San Rafael Bridge). Let me know if you're seriously interested.

My interior is like brand new, I have two sets of floor mats (all weather OEM and the regular cloth ones), along with a set of OEM window shades that snap into place for the rear two windows and the back hatch window. Only issues are that one of the wheels has a small scratch from rubbing a curb while parallel parking and there are a couple rock chips in the front bumper and hood from daily driving on interstate 80. I've never actually used a DC fast charger, but I know it has the SAE Combo port since its an SEL. I've noticed no degradation in range since the day I leased it (1/1/16). I charge on an L2 at work and at home overnight, I never really drained it since I had chargers at both ends of my commute and never used it for anything other than commuting to work.

I can look into paying it off and selling it to you if you're seriously interested.
 
Sorry to say, but at 31,000 miles, your car's battery has probably degraded. Even though you haven't performed any DCFCs, like VW says, capacity decreases with time and use. If anyone on this forum is interested in this or any other used e-Golf, I would highly recommend performing a test to determine the battery's true capacity.
 
f1geek said:
Sorry to say, but at 31,000 miles, your car's battery has probably degraded. Even though you haven't performed any DCFCs, like VW says, capacity decreases with time and use. If anyone on this forum is interested in this or any other used e-Golf, I would highly recommend performing a test to determine the battery's true capacity.

I actually hadn't experience noticeable degradation. I drive the same number of miles to work and back every single day and I check the SOC with car-net every time I get home and every time I get to work. When I drive 35 miles home after charging to 100% and keep my speed on the highway at 60mph, I get home with 59% to 61% SOC. That has been the same since I leased the car. The cold would slightly affect it, but once it warmed up last week I commuted in the E-Golf to work and back and confirmed I'm still getting the same SOC remaining as I would during my commute when I first leased the car. I think the fact that I never used a fast charger and the fact I never drained the battery down low and recharged a large percentage at once has helped keep it from seeing degradation.

In any case, I got some appraisals from dealers and decided to sell it last night. Sold it for an even $13k. The VW dealer had me pay them the difference between the buyout of $15.4k and $13k, so I just wrote them a check for $2,400 and said goodbye to my little E-Golf. My remaining lease payments with sales tax would have cost me $2,600, and I would have had an additional $400 disposition fee, at least $200 for being over the allowed miles on the lease, and likely dinged with a wear and tear because of the curb rash and rock chips. To get rid of it for a $2,400 payment versus at least $3,200 seemed like a good deal to not have any more headache. Also didn't realize I was paying close to $100/mo in insurance, so that saves me another $1,000 over the next 10 months.
 
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