Wireless phone charging dock seems to interfere with TPMS

Hi all,

I searched for an existing thread on this topic but couldn't find one. For Christmas I received a Qi-infinity™ Wireless Car Charger Dock for holding and charging my Droid Maxx in my 2012 Leaf. I mounted it on the left air vent and ran its wire under the dash panel to the 12 V socket. Soon thereafter I noticed a strange problem. With my phone charging in the dock, after about 15 min. of driving my tire pressure monitoring system (TPMS) warning light would come on. Sometimes it would be solid, indicating a tire problem, and sometimes it would be blinking, indicating a TPMS signal problem. The tires were always fine.

At first I thought the TPMS system might be damaged in the tires because I'd had all four tires replaced a month earlier. Brought it back to Discount Tires and they double-checked everything. All good. Brought it to my dealership for routine 3 yr service check and asked them to test the TPMS system specifically. All good.

Then I started to realize the problem was correlated with charging my phone. To check, I bought Turbo3's Leaf Spy Pro app and watched the tire pressure readings. Sure enough, as soon as I started charging the phone, the readings froze. If I interrupted the charge in any way -- unplugging the charger from the 12 V socket, removing the phone from the dock, or both -- the tire pressure readings started updating again.

So from what I can tell, this wireless phone charger dock interferes with the TPMS signal between the tires and the car. No other instruments in the car are affected. Not sure if other wireless phone charger docks cause the same problem. It was pretty mystifying until I figured it out. Hope this might help someone else who is getting strange TPMS warnings.

Another Leaf owner had a similar issue recently with his dash cam causing interference. If I recall, the fix was using the factory power cord which had a ferrite core wrapped around it, to suppress RFI emissions back into the 12 volt power.
I suggest you put some kind of power filter in the line:
http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=16698" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Ah, interesting. I was assuming it was related to electromagnetic noise from the inductive charging process itself. But the power cord and/or 12V socket connector might be to blame, yes. I'll do some experiments. Thanks!

I always say we're just "one hotspot/device/whatever away from comm failure", but honestly wouldn't have pegged this problem. Very interesting.

Today I checked the DTC codes with Leaf Spy Pro.
As soon as I plugged in the phone charger, the car threw codes. Screenshot:


As expected, there are codes for the tires. But there also seems to be an apparent code near the bottom,
"U1263 0208 MULTI AV USB Overcurrent AV-91"

Perhaps this means the phone charger is drawing too much current from the 12 V outlet? Looking in the Leaf manual, that outlet is supposed to be good up to 10A (12V, 120W). The charger draws only 1.5 A, according to its specs. I didn't have any other accessories (wipers, lights, etc.) operating.

Anyone see this U1263 DTC code before? I searched the code on this forum and found nothing. More generally on the web I can find some info, e.g. Nissan Rogue Service Manual, but it doesn't say much more than "to diagnose, start disconnecting things".

My next step will be to swap out the charger-included microUSB cable with some others to see if I can get rid of the tire pressure DTCs that are likely due to interference. If I'm lucky that will get rid of the overcurrent DTC, too. But if not I wonder if I should stop using the charger... I have no interest in burning up the wiring in the center console area.

Thanks for any advice.

The error is probably a glitch, caused by faulty comm on the buss. The manual says about U1263: "Detection of overcurrent in USB connecter. Check USB harness between the AV control unit and USB connector."
"Check the USB harness visually and check if there is any pinching."

Thanks. I cleared that code and haven't seen it come back again. Not worrying about it.

All the other issues are still present but I'm living with them. As soon as I plug in the phone charger, the readings for the tires (on Leaf Spy Pro) freeze -- i.e. don't update even if, for example, it's morning and I'm driving 12 miles to work, when they'd normally be increasing in psi steadily. After about 10 minutes, the DTC codes for the tires appear, and simultaneously, the idiot light for "low tire pressure" appears on the dash display.

I tried with several configurations of wiring -- under the dash as I had it, or simply across my lap as a test, and the same problems happen. Tried with an inexpensive but supposedly well-shielded cable (AmazonBasics) rathe than the stock cable that came with the phone charger, but that didn't help.

Anyway, I don't charge my phone much in my car (hooray, Droid Maxx which goes all day!), so it's not a big deal. But still, it piques my curiosity. If this happens to anyone else and they figure out a fix, I'd love to hear it.