Will charge on L1 but won't on L2? WTF?

Greetings!

My 2011 Leaf has been doing great until a couple of weeks ago. I can charge it just fine with the Leaf-supplied L1 charger. My wall-mounted Schneider shows a red trouble LED and won't charge. Public L2 chargers show a trouble indicator too. I took it into the dealer and he says the technician said that the timer was preventing the charging.

WTF does that mean? I have had it set to start at 2:00am and stop at 80% charge for the past 4 years and haven't changed it.

Is the technician full of it or am I?

I have to head up tomorrow and pick it up, so I'll know more then.

Many thanks, Leaf Owners, for any insight.

Well, I'm sure you know enough to disable the timer if you want to charge at another time... Be sure to make the tech show you it charging fine when the timer is off and not charging if the timer is set AND sends an error code to the EVSE. I am skeptical.

Sounds like a possibly failed diode in your charger. The supplied L1 EVSE might not do the diode check but a fully compliant EVSE would.

The EVSE is signaled to turn on the high voltage for charge, by the car charger, by putting on the correct
load on the pilot line. To insure that this is not a false signal(load) by the EVSE plug say sitting in a pool
of salt water, a diode is put in series with the pilot on the car side, so that the EVSE should only see a
positive voltage. If it sees a negative voltage, then it knows that this is a false signal, so do not turn
on the high voltage. Oddly the (at least early) AV EVSE's that dealers use, did not have this diode check,
so when someone had the problem and went to a dealer, they would say there is no problem it is
charging fine. I have never seen a post showing what part in the charger could be replaced, but may
have seen where someone installed their own diode in series with the pilot. Otherwise it is an expensive
charger replacement.

Wow, I knew you guys would come through. This sounds exactly like my problem. I'm going to have to print off some of the explanation to show to the technician.

This was EXTREMELY expensive for me. Because it would charge at L1 and that the Schneider was showing a red LED, I assumed the charger was bad, bought a new one, and paid to mount the new unit - a total cost of $950. Boy do I feel stupid.

The dealer will want to replace the AC charger if this is a diode failure. This is covered by the 5 year/60000 mile warranty. I inserted a diode in the pilot line since my charger was out of warranty when it failed.

Well, things were very rocky. I went there to pick up my car, expecting it to be under my extended gold warranty (8 months left). I got there and the customer rep said Nissan refused to cover the OBC (on board charger). I had to threaten the dealer and Nissan with breach of contract and promised a swift legal response. They let me go with no charge and the write up said it was the diode in the OBC. The dealer said they were going to resubmit it as a warranty item to Nissan.

My car is a 2011 with 37K miles. I have a gold extended $2000 warranty that goes out to 72,000 miles.

I had trouble sleeping. Did the dealer just get stuck with a $2600 bill that should have been Nissans?

What just happened?

clarke said:

Well, things were very rocky. I went there to pick up my car, expecting it to be under my extended gold warranty (8 months left). I got there and the customer rep said Nissan refused to cover the OBC (on board charger). I had to threaten the dealer and Nissan with breach of contract and promised a swift legal response. They let me go with no charge and the write up said it was the diode in the OBC. The dealer said they were going to resubmit it as a warranty item to Nissan.

My car is a 2011 with 37K miles. I have a gold extended $2000 warranty that goes out to 72,000 miles.

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The on-board charger is covered for 60 months or 60,000 miles by the standard warranty which came with the LEAF.

clarke said:

I had trouble sleeping. Did the dealer just get stuck with a $2600 bill that should have been Nissans?

What just happened?

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While I'm not sure about the Schneider unit, there was a big kerfuffle between Nissan and GE in which each company was blaming the other for failures which occurred in the LEAF's OBC when charged by a GE Wattstation EVSE. Has your vehicle ever been charged using a GE Wattstation?

In any case, the failure is NOT your fault and the charger repair should be covered under warranty.

Sounds like dealer tried to get paid 2x!

I would avoid that dealer!

I vaguely remember the flap about the GE charger. I have never charged at a public station. Honest! Just the L1 charger that comes with the car and my Schneider in the garage.

I'm still trying to gather my composure. I'm trying to understand this. The original warranty covers the OBC. I also have that extended warranty. Why was this ever an issue at all?

On the being paid 2X, my wife mentioned that to me too. That seems to be the most likely explanation. Wow. What a risk the dealer is taking. If Nissan gets wind of it, their dealership could be at risk.

The one thing I learned out of this is to come to the forums before ANYTHING else.

clarke said:

... On the being paid 2X, my wife mentioned that to me too. That seems to be the most likely explanation. Wow. What a risk the dealer is taking. If Nissan gets wind of it, their dealership could be at risk.

The one thing I learned out of this is to come to the forums before ANYTHING else.

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I'd report the incident to 1-877-NOGASEV. If no one tells Nissan, they might not find out about it.

Edit: Corrected number above.

davewill said:

I'd report the incident to 1-800-NOGASEV.

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The correct number is 1-877-NOGASEV.

I was quoted around $500 or $600 to replace the OBC. $2000, really?

91040 said:

I was quoted around $500 or $600 to replace the OBC. $2000, really?

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Sounds low. The OBC is a $1,500 part.

RegGuheert said:

davewill said:

I'd report the incident to 1-800-NOGASEV.

Click to expand...

The correct number is 1-877-NOGASEV.

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Whoops. You're right of course.

My quote was about $2600 parts+labor.

davewill said:

Whoops. You're right of course.

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I only noticed because I've made the same mistake.

clarke said:

My quote was about $2600 parts+labor.

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If the diode fails on my 2011 (after warranty expiration), I will be investigating and implementing that fix of simply putting a diode in line....