My Leaf is sick

[saintyohann]

My Leaf is sitting at the dealership as a surprise for them in the morning. I'm betting they're going to say nothing is wrong with it.

Maybe someone here knows what's up, chain of events as follows:
- Normal startup procedure except a loud clunk and shudder as I tried to shift into reverse.
- Leaf has power, GOM reads "---", multiple warnings, can't shift into D or R, info center says to hold brake and press power, doing so has no effect, can't seem to power off.
- Tow truck comes, discover I can power off if the brake pedal is NOT being pressed, yellow warning triangle light is on even when car is off.
- Get to dealership, service is closed. Try to turn car off again, it does turn off and no warning triangle, power on still multiple warnings, can't shift, power off and on again, now can shift into drive and reverse, only warning is "I-Key Fault," power off and on again, "i-key" warning again but it goes away, power off and on one more time, everything is normal.

I left the car, but I doubt they'll do anything.

So has anyone seen or heard of anything like this?

 

[Herm]

I left the car, but I doubt they'll do anything.

Its amazing how much good will is generated by leaving a case of beer in the trunk, and a free for the taking note... even cheap beer will do.

 

[adric22]

Its amazing how much good will is generated by leaving a case of beer in the trunk, and a free for the taking note... even cheap beer will do.

There is actually some truth to that statement. In most dealerships if the technician doesn't charge out any part to get changed, he doesn't get paid anything for his time spent diagnosing something. Since you are forbidden to pay the tech directly, offering them a gift can often go a long way to make them more happy to spend some time with your car.

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

i dont "think" i can power off with foot on brake. seems to me it just toggles between "run mode" and "accessory mode"

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

I left the car, but I doubt they'll do anything.

Its amazing how much good will is generated by leaving a case of beer in the trunk, and a free for the taking note... even cheap beer will do.

doughnuts always worked wonders for me

 

[saintyohann]

So they pulled the error codes and the basic theory at this point is:

The Leaf thought it was traveling at 28 MPH and though it was being shifted into Park, so it locked out the shifter.

In reality it was being shifted from P to R from a dead stop.

Now I have to wait for a Nissan Engineer to get a look at it.

 

[Stoaty]

My Leaf is sitting at the dealership as a surprise for them in the morning. I'm betting they're going to say nothing is wrong with it.

Well, at least you have been proven wrong (fortunately) on this point. Hope they find the problem and fix it quickly. First report I have seen of this problem. You are unique!

 

[Ingineer]

Always, ALWAYS, ask for the exact codes your car reports when it's being diagnosed! I can sometimes help with a good diagnosis, but not without more information.

Soon, with LEAFSCAN, owners will have access to the Leaf's diagnostic codes without the need to depend on the dealer, and be able to reset them as well. This will be especially useful when our cars go out of warranty.

-Phil

 

[EVDrive]

Sweet! That sounds quite exciting Ingineer.

Always, ALWAYS, ask for the exact codes your car reports when it's being diagnosed! I can sometimes help with a good diagnosis, but not without more information.

Soon, with LEAFSCAN, owners will have access to the Leaf's diagnostic codes without the need to depend on the dealer, and be able to reset them as well. This will be especially useful when our cars go out of warranty.

-Phil

 

[Ingineer]

Sweet! That sounds quite exciting Ingineer.

Good luck on your Leaf! The I-Key errors have been known to happen to some Leaf owners. Usually if they don't clear themselves, a simple disconnect/reconnect of the 12v battery under the hood will solve the problem. Yours sounds a little more involved, but since it did seem to clear itself it's probably not too serious.

-Phil

 

[NissanTech375]

Sweet! That sounds quite exciting Ingineer.

Good luck on your Leaf! The I-Key errors have been known to happen to some Leaf owners. Usually if they don't clear themselves, a simple disconnect/reconnect of the 12v battery under the hood will solve the problem. Yours sounds a little more involved, but since it did seem to clear itself it's probably not too serious.

-Phil

Very good tip, but let me elaborate. Unhooking the 12V (house keeping) battery should be accompanied by shorting the LEADS (while unhooked from the battery) together and opening a door to cause capacitor/stored electrons to dissipate (relaxing improper gate closings in the chips throughout the car). This is a HARD BOOT when re-connecting the 12V battery, and expect miraculous operation.

 

[Ingineer]

Actually I find that shorting the battery leads is not as important as allowing a few minutes. Even if you short the leads, if you don't wait at least a full minute, the memory is not cleared. This is due to capacitors on the low voltage memory circuits (3.3 & 5v), so shorting the 12v lines do not discharge these capacitors.

Whether you short them or not, after a few minutes w/o 12v, the codes are cleared.

-Phil

 

[saintyohann]

Got my car back today, they said they couldn't find anything wrong.

I asked what the codes were and the service manager read off a long list of about eight codes, there was one for EV system, brakes, HVAC, Shifter and more...but they still couldn't find anything wrong so they just cleared them and gave me my car back.

The other weird thing was the battery. I have the Green Charge app and it polls the car every 15 minutes for battery charge. When they stopped testing the car on Saturday, the battery was 92%, and remained there all weekend, but when they plugged it in first thing Monday AM, it was at 42% charge and took 3+ hours to charge.

 

[keydiver]

When they stopped testing the car on Saturday, the battery was 92%, and remained there all weekend, but when they plugged it in first thing Monday AM, it was at 42% charge and took 3+ hours to charge.

Are they sure they didn't leave your LEAF turned ON all weekend? :?

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

well sounds like the only thing you can do is drive it and report back. hope all is well