2011 48k miles - car won't charge

[nerys]

if anyone else has trouble with a dealership like this there is a pretty easy solution drive the car to them and hand them the level 1 EVSE the car comes with and say this does not work with my car properly. It gets hot ans smells of burning. fix it please. thank you

don't mention the l2 don't mention the public chargers just give them the charger of the car came with and say fix this please.

if they say it charges on our chargers just fine say I don't care it doesn't work on this (l1) charger properly the car came with this charger

 

[JeremyW]

If you had actually read the first page you would see that the car charged on the L1 (except drawing too much current).

This was a difficult problem to solve, mostly due to a difficult dealer, but also a rare failure mode.

 

[nerys]

I read every post on this thread the l1 one charger was not functioning properly it got hot it smelled of burning. if you had read what I said you would understand and not be trying to insult me.

this information would not help op but it could help anyone else op mentioned l2 problems but because the charger at the dealer worked they logically alas incorrectly assumed it was his problem since the l2 did not come from them

I am saying this for anyone else to prevent their dealer from accidentally going down the same incorrect path and blaming the l2 charger.

ie reduce their option set so that they will correctly diagnose from the getgo.

 

[TimLee]

...
This was a difficult problem to solve, mostly due to a difficult dealer, but also a rare failure mode.

On MNL I only read of these two reports.
But Chattanooga dealer told me they did handle the same problem on one vehicle.
It probably is a somewhat rare failure in 1% to 5% of 2011 LEAFs.
Could be "early" failures on Weibull curve, or could be early start of lots of "end of life" failures for OBC.
Hard to know which.

 

[TimLee]

...
ie reduce their option set so that they will correctly diagnose from the getgo.

You have a point, but with a somewhat difficult to troubleshoot problem leaving the dealer in the dark on some of the symptoms is often a very bad idea.

Both of these dealers and Nissan should have done a better job with the very detailed information that both users provided.

 

[JeremyW]

Could be "early" failures on Weibull curve, or could be early start of lots of "end of life" failures for OBC.
Hard to know which.

I hope it's not the start of a rash of EOL failures. The failure mode could start a few fires for people charging on L1. :?

Why Nissan or Nichicon didn't include a current transformer on the mains input baffles me.

 

[nerys]

It is not leaving them in the dark. The moment it was discovered the l1 charger was not working properly there was zero dispute thst the l2 had nothing tondo with it.

The issue here is the deal burryibg itself in its own hole because they can not get past the fact that your l2 no worky their l2 works.

This leada them to the dead end. It must be your l2.

By avoiding this and handing them the car abd the l1 you prevent this blind alley.

If they plug int ok l2 and it works it means nothing.

Either the l1 charger is broken or the car is broken. Either way their only next srep is a replace l1 charger or b diagnose car charger combo.

Either way it stopsnthen from going down that too too easy its yoyr l2 that is the problem.

 

[blimpy]

At the heart of this problem is the particular service person knowing little or nothing about electricity and less about electronics.

Once they have entered erroneous BS opinion in their computer .. god knows if any logical approach will help.

Except some CAN / OBD diagnostics ! Which you need to insist on !
Who cares what some guy "thinks" ? !!! :lol:

There is a Corporate Leaf Care department you can reach by telephone.
Fellow I talked to there seemed pretty up to date on Leaf Problems .
And probably interested in Odd Ball Problems.

Dealers are not interested in electric cars anyway.
But corporate IS !

When I couldn't get a certified warranty booklet for EV's.. from any dealer. he had it sent to them
and emailed me copy also.

So, that may be a way to get corporate to slap the hands of non performing dealerships,
and/or get the attention of somebody with some actual technical expertise at corporate to look at the problem.

I would have been jumping up an down to get them to plug into the OBD port, and get some analysis of the battery,
the charge events, and the charger.

They have the ability to do this.

All this " well gosh shucks it must be the water pump, no it's the carburetor" BS means nothing. :roll: :!:

Demand to see some print outs proving the status of the system . :shock:


Paying for this.. if you must.. is cheaper than towing the car.
:mrgreen:

 

[JeremyW]

Except some CAN / OBD diagnostics !

I can tell you with 100% certainty that dealers will only use the Consult III+ on the leaf. They will not accept any other method of diagnostics. Go ahead and beat your head against a wall but this will not change.

What happened here was: The voltage sensor failed and was giving abnormally high values. Because this sensor is the sole mains input detection (ie. 120, 208 or 240v mains detection), when plugged into 120v, the charger thought it was plugged into a ~200V connection, and drew 18 amps. On 208v the car acted "normal" because the charger thought the mains was just under maximum allowable. On 240v the car refused to charge because it believed the mains was over the maximum allowable. The on board charger set a diagnostic code for "mains overvoltage" and eventually found while watching real time values from the charger that it was reporting incorrect mains voltage.

Dealer incompetence was not realizing their charger voltage (208v) was different from household mains (240V), and indeed that the reported voltage while charging (reported in freeze-frame data and during monitoring) was wrong. The portable EVSE was damaged because the onboard charger was pulling 18 amps through it and it was only rated for 12 (16 if it's been upgrade by EVSE upgrade).

I encourage anyone reading only the last few pages to go re-read from the beginning.

 

[cwerdna]

if anyone else has trouble with a dealership like this there is a pretty easy solution drive the car to them and hand them the level 1 EVSE the car comes with and say this does not work with my car properly. It gets hot ans smells of burning. fix it please. thank you

don't mention the l2 don't mention the public chargers just give them the charger of the car came with and say fix this please.

if they say it charges on our chargers just fine say I don't care it doesn't work on this (l1) charger properly the car came with this charger

Can you stop mixing up EVSEs and "chargers"? It's confusing. For L1 and L2 AC charging, the charger is on-board the car. On a '11 and '12 Leaf, it's under the hump in the back: http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=69224" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;.

You used EVSE once here but then drifted to referring to them as chargers later. Please see http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=262630#p262630" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;.

 

[kubel]

What happened here was: The voltage sensor failed and was giving abnormally high values. Because this sensor is the sole mains input detection (ie. 120, 208 or 240v mains detection), when plugged into 120v, the charger thought it was plugged into a ~200V connection, and drew 18 amps. On 208v the car acted "normal" because the charger thought the mains was just under maximum allowable. On 240v the car refused to charge because it believed the mains was over the maximum allowable. The on board charger set a diagnostic code for "mains overvoltage" and eventually found while watching real time values from the charger that it was reporting incorrect mains voltage.

Dealer incompetence was not realizing their charger voltage (208v) was different from household mains (240V), and indeed that the reported voltage while charging (reported in freeze-frame data and during monitoring) was wrong. The portable EVSE was damaged because the onboard charger was pulling 18 amps through it and it was only rated for 12 (16 if it's been upgrade by EVSE upgrade).

Best tl;dr summary.