What? Stuck on the middle of the road for couple of minutes

Strange and scary:

I was at a busy red light and put my leaf in parking to check something on the phone. When the green light came on, I tried to move by going to 'D'. But the card wouldn't move! the 'green car with two sided arrow' didn't turn on. I tried pressing the main switch couple of times, but it didn't help. During this time red battery sign was on (on the left side of the dash). After sometime it finally green car turned on.

I could not do anything.. kept waving the cars behind me to go around me. What might have gone wrong? This was in the morning, I had driven about 1 mile from home so far.

Model: 2013 Nissan S with 6.6Kw charger.
This is just 4 days old and I haven't read the manual yet.

The only time I have experienced anything like this is when I've turned on the car with the power button but forgot to push the brake. Or maybe pushed the brake, but not soon enough. As a result the car boots up into accessory mode, and will not allow you to put into drive. Also the red battery warning is usually on like this.

This EXACT situation happened for me right after I got my LEAF.
I was hurredly trying to switch from P to D and forgot to depress the brake first.
With the traffic behind me, my stress level went up quickly.
Before I realized I had created the situation, I thought for sure my car was posessed by gremlins.

I have had the same thing happen to me on two occassions. Both times, stopped at a long red light and shifted to "park". Car would not go back into drive (even when depressing the brake pedal before shifting). The only solution was to turn off the car and reboot it before it would shift into drive. I thought there was something wrong with my car but after seeing this post, there must be a software glitch somewhere. I don't know why it only happens under this condition because under a normal startup or a long time in park before shifting back to drive, I never have had a problem.

siai said:

I have had the same thing happen to me on two occassions. Both times, stopped at a long red light and shifted to "park". Car would not go back into drive (even when depressing the brake pedal before shifting). The only solution was to turn off the car and reboot it before it would shift into drive. I thought there was something wrong with my car but after seeing this post, there must be a software glitch somewhere. I don't know why it only happens under this condition because under a normal startup or a long time in park before shifting back to drive, I never have had a problem.

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It only happens when there are impatient drivers behind you when the light turns green and you're frantically trying to hold the brake pedal and get the dang thing back into DRIVE!

raghu1111 said:

Strange and scary:

I was at a busy red light and put my leaf in parking to check something on the phone.

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Strange and Scary: Yes, my thoughts exactly. You shouldn't do EITHER OF THOSE THINGS ON THE ROAD. Drive the car like your life depended on it (because it does, as well as every little child's around you).

I've not had the exact same thing happen, but I've noticed that sometimes the car can be picky about turning on or going into gear if you haven't released the brakes since putting it in park or turning it off.

In other words, press and hold brake, put in park, turn off - then it won't turn back on until you *release* the brake then press it again.

Seems like a stupid requirement, but I'm pretty sure mine works that way.

Oh, this has something to do with the 'depressing' the brake? I will try it out. need to know what exactly is expected. I am surprised this is not treated as MAJOR issue and explained by Nissan very very clearly.

Reddy said:

Strange and Scary: Yes, my thoughts exactly. You shouldn't do EITHER OF THOSE THINGS ON THE ROAD. Drive the car like your life depended on it (because it does, as well as every little child's around you).

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I meant to say "long" red light. Any way, be careful, if you are always driving like your life depends on every inch, you could easily stress yourself into major health issues. [sorry, couldn't resist the bait]

raghu1111 said:

Oh, this has something to do with the 'depressing' the brake? I will try it out. need to know what exactly is expected. I am surprised this is not treated as MAJOR issue and explained by Nissan very very clearly.

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EVERY modern car, for who knows how long, requires a foot on the brake before you put it into gear. This should not be news to anyone.

raghu1111 said:

I meant to say "long" red light. Any way, be careful, if you are always driving like your life depends on every inch, you could easily stress yourself into major health issues. [sorry, couldn't resist the bait]

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No worries, no extra stress. It's my habit since I bicycle much of the year, and yes, my life does depend on it. I try not to have metaphysical arguments with 3000 lbs of moving metal. On two occasions I thought I had lost the argument, but luckily found an alternative pathway.

GeekEV said:

EVERY modern car, for who knows how long, requires a foot on the brake before you put it into gear. This should not be news to anyone.

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Can elaborate? Does "green car sign" turns on only when the brake is pressed? Could you explain a bit better what caused the issue I saw, certainly not obvious to us. Others here are saying we need 'depress' the brake.

You're right in that the green ready light should still be on even if you're not in gear. When you say you put it in park, did you do that by hitting the P button on the hockey-puck shifter? Or did you just power the car off? I'm guessing you powered off, then tried to power back on without your foot on the brake. In that case, yes, the car would come on but the green ready light would not because that's the equivalent of accessories mode. You need your foot on the break when you power on to put it in ready mode and you need your foot on the brake to shift into gear.

GeekEV said:

raghu1111 said:

Oh, this has something to do with the 'depressing' the brake? I will try it out. need to know what exactly is expected. I am surprised this is not treated as MAJOR issue and explained by Nissan very very clearly.

Click to expand...

EVERY modern car, for who knows how long, requires a foot on the brake before you put it into gear. This should not be news to anyone.

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Well, at least every car that doesn't have manual transmission.

I believe needing to press the brake pedal to shift out of park interlock being widely used/used by everyone grew out of the Audi 60 Minutes SUA (Sudden Unintended Acceleration) fiasco from late 1986.

I didn't turn it off. I only put it in Park by pressing 'P' on the joy stick.

GeekEV said:

You're right in that the green ready light should still be on even if you're not in gear. When you say you put it in park, did you do that by hitting the P button on the hockey-puck shifter? Or did you just power the car off? I'm guessing you powered off, then tried to power back on without your foot on the brake. In that case, yes, the car would come on but the green ready light would not because that's the equivalent of accessories mode. You need your foot on the break when you power on to put it in ready mode and you need your foot on the brake to shift into gear.

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Thanks. It is good to know I should have brake pressed while turning it on (though I do it by habit).

You need to be pushing on the brake to put the car into ready mode (green car light w/arrows), so that you can drive. This is like every car I've ever driven w/smart key system (Intelligent Key in Nissan parlance).

The same holds true to shift out of Park. This has been true for all non-manual transmission cars for AGES.

raghu1111 said:

During this time red battery sign was on (on the left side of the dash).

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I think this is the key here. I recommend that you measure your 12V battery voltage and check to ensure your battery terminals are tight. Everything in the LEAF is controlled over a communications bus and there have been several reports of strange behaviors (including brake failure) when there are problems with the 12V battery. Please post what you measure for the battery voltage with the car off and not charging. Anything below about 12.2V should be cause for concern.

Edit: Your post prompted me to measure our LEAF's 12V battery. Voltage while charging was 13.1V. 25 minutes after the end of charging it measures 12.7V, which indicates it is very close to full. Temperature here is 39F.

RegGuheert, I will check it and report back here.

GeekEV, I should correct my statement : After initial trouble, I did turn off the main switch and turned it back on, since I didn't know what to do.

cwerda, I have been driving manual car (CRV) till now (for > 10 years). May be I didn't press the brake at the right time. I will experiment to reproduce this condition.

I tried to reproduce this handlful of times (in a safe place, usually parking lots). It happened yesterday. I still don't know exact steps (something like press parking, turn off, and then on). This time I tried multiple times to shift to 'R' or 'D' with my foot clearly on the brake. I took a picture of the instrument pannel. 12V battery was red (though the pic below shows it orange) and 'PS' was yellow. Only way to get out was to turn it off and turn on.

I haven't verified the voltage for the batter yet.

^^^
Looks like you aren't in READY mode (no car w/green arrows).

Are you confused about the operating modes of the Leaf? There should be 4 or 5 states: OFF/LOCK, ACC, ON and READY. I'm guessing you're in ON. You can go to READY by pushing on the brake and then power at that point.

The only one in which you can drive in is READY (green car w/arrows, see page 0-9). Look at page 5-8 of the '13 Leaf manual.

This isn't that different from cars w/physical keys. Japanese cars w/physical keys typically have an OFF/LOCK, ACC, ON and START position, going from backwards to forward. If you turn such a car on to ON, all the warning lights will come on as a test (see page 2-13), but you can't drive anywhere, because you haven't started. This is just like forgetting to push the brake while pushing power.

(I'm familiar with all this stuff as my Prius w/smart key system (Toyota parlance) works just like my mom's 07 Altima Hybrid w/Intelligent Key (Nissan parlance). The indicators are a little different, but the behavior, requirements and states are basically the same.)

To me, it seems like your dealer should be demonstrating these modes and the behavior to people.

If you have a case where your car and fob battery aren't dead, you aren't plugged in and pushing on the brake while pushing power doesn't get you into READY mode (assuming you're not already in READY), then you have a problem. If you're in READY and you can't shift out into D or R while pushing on the brake, you have a problem.

Try cycling thru all the modes and observing behavior/what's available by pushing power w/o your foot on the brake. Then, from each of those states, put your foot on the brake and push power.

I think you are right. I was half way through the manual and always seen ACC and READY modes mentioned. 'ON' or LOCK are never mentioned. The page you describe is actually page 290! That is way deep inside, haven't reached there yet.

I agree dealer should go through this properly. That said, those states and restrictions are really messed up. If I take that state diagram seriously I cann't go go to READY from ACC or ON. What is ON state any way? "LOCK" state is even more obscure. The manual does not help at all.



Literal explanation of these states from the manual (italics is my impression):

• LOCK (Normal parking position)
  The power switch can only be locked in this position.
  The power switch will be unlocked when it is pushed to the ACC position while the driver is carrying the Intelligent Key.
  What?
• ACC (Accessories)
  This position activates electrical accessories, such as the radio, when EV system is OFF.
• ON
  This position turns on the EV (Electric Vehicle) system and electrical accessories.
  Whats the difference between this and READY
• READY (Normal operating position)
  This position turns on the EV (Electric Vehicle) system, electrical accessories and the vehicle can be driven.
• OFF
  The EV (Electric Vehicle) system can be turned off.
  The power switch cannot be placed in the LOCK position until the vehicle is in the P (Park) position. What does this mean