PS Warning Light (power steering) - Won't go into DRIVE

2013 Leaf SV: I drove home, parked the car in the driveway, left the car for 1/2 hour, then got into the car to drive it into the garage. After pushing brake and power, the car came on normally, but the PS warning light stayed on, the car wouldn't go into drive, and the steering wheel was very hard to turn. I could shift into neutral, but not drive. I kept my foot on the brake and hit power again, and it then powered on normally and allowed me to drive.

I repeated this. Car off. Foot hard on brake. Push power. PS light stays on. Steering won't turn easily. Car won't go into drive. Hold foot on brake and push power again, and car powers up normally.

I'm sure that the 12V battery is fully charged. The traction battery was at 6 bars, so had plenty of range remaining.

Can you advise me on what could be wrong? I'm still under warranty, so will take it to the dealer, but want to make sure it's fixed. Any help is greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

Bob

I would still suspect 12v battery.

Bob said:

I'm sure that the 12V battery is fully charged.

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How did you determine this?

Firetruck41 said:

I would still suspect 12v battery.

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Yep, esp. if the car won't go into READY mode (green car w/arrows). It sounds like the READY light isn't coming on for the OP but I can't tell from his post, for certain.

And, since it's a 2013, I wouldn't be surprised if the 12 volt is toast. My used '13 SV which was built 5/2013 (same as the delivery month for the OP) had its original 12 volt go bad in October 2015: http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=449626#p449626.

Happened to me in the '12. Turned out I was double clicking the off button so it looked off but wasn't. Then, same symptoms on start up. If not that, and you're sure about the 12v, maybe you have a faulty button.

My apologies for necrobumping this thread And the long post. But I am experiencing the same issues as the OP of this thread did. 2014 SV, car was fully charged, inside garage, on a very cold day, I pushed brake hard and pressed start, put it in drive and started driving. Within a minute the PS warning light (car with exclamation) came on. I stopped and the dashboard said it was a power supply issue and to contact dealer.

I turned it off and then back on. This time it would not shift to gear and the PS light stayed on along with the push brake sign. I waited, cycled the power button a few times and then it started normally. No warnings were on. Drove it to the dealer and they said they couldn't do anything without the warning lights coming on.

They did a "regular" maintenance and told me to come back if any issues. They drove it out for me and parked it. I tried to turn it back on and the PS light came back on and it would not shift to drive. The Service person said he had never seen anything like it and would have to keep it for a day to figure out what's wrong.

I live in a place where there are not many Leafs though I did see one other car in service at this dealership today. I would appreciate any pointers that I could then pass on to the dealer/ service Techs.

Thanks.

Test the 12 volt battery. The resting voltage should be above 12.4 volts.

LeftieBiker said:

Test the 12 volt battery. The resting voltage should be above 12.4 volts.

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Thanks. I will have them test it. Hopefully it's as simple as that. Just saw them start it now and it is now showing no warning lights and shifting to gear!

If you are in the habit of leaving the car plugged in after charging ends, I'm fairly certain it's the 12 volt battery. Likewise if it's the original 12 volt battery. If that proves to be the case, avoid leaving it plugged in for more than an hour or two when not charging, and top off the 12 volt battery with an external charger once or twice a month. If the 12 volt battery needs replacing, consider using either a larger capacity 51R battery or an AGM battery of the same or larger capacity.

LeftieBiker said:

If you are in the habit of leaving the car plugged in after charging ends, I'm fairly certain it's the 12 volt battery. Likewise if it's the original 12 volt battery. If that proves to be the case, avoid leaving it plugged in for more than an hour or two when not charging, and top off the 12 volt battery with an external charger once or twice a month. If the 12 volt battery needs replacing, consider using either a larger capacity 51R battery or an AGM battery of the same or larger capacity.

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It was the 12v battery. It read 10v at the dealership. They replaced it and the car has been back to normal since then.

This is a 2014 leaf and I leave it plugged in when I get back in the evening and then unplug it when leaving for work the next day. Is that what caused the battery to go bad? I have never really liked into what proper charging habits for the Leaf should be. Any pointers?

Thanks for all the help.

Charge to roughly 80% if you don't need the range (you have to manually unplug it, or plug it in later in the evening so it doesn't fully charge overnight) or if you do need the range, use the charging timer(s) to have the charge end shortly before you leave. And avoid leaving it plugged in but not charging for more than a few hours. If you have to leave it that way, charge the 12 volt battery with an external charger once a week or so. Some of us hardwired a battery maintainer lead to the battery, with the lead's connector in the charge port compartment. There is some evidence that using a higher capacity battery can help you avoid this nonsense, so if you want the easiest (but not cheapest) solution, install a higher capacity AGM type battery.

jaydoc said:

I leave it plugged in when I get back in the evening and then unplug it when leaving for work the next day. Is that what caused the battery to go bad? I have never really liked into what proper charging habits for the Leaf should be. Any pointers?

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You're using your LEAF in a completely reasonable way. If Nissan failed to design the car to operate reasonably, that's on them. Maybe if, instead of obligingly using supplemental battery maintainers, flocks of their customers showed up a couple times a year for warranty replacement of their 12V batteries, Nissan might have corrected the defect. Could be a simple software adjustment that would just go out via the over-the-air proc... I mean, get folded into a subsequent model year's cars..

As for routine charging procedure, I'd suggest that if your daily driving needs are reasonably consistent, set a timer's Start and End criteria to dispense enough energy to replace what's used in a typical day, rounded up by ten or twenty minutes. Ideally, the end time should be just prior to the next day's departure, and the charging should use the cheapest energy. This scheme will have the battery's average charge level rachet up (thanks to the extra minutes) gradually; hopefully, your daily drive is short enough that you can periodically burn off the accumulated extra charge by not plugging in one evening. Otherwise, just plug the car in each evening.

You're using your LEAF in a completely reasonable way. If Nissan failed to design the car to operate reasonably, that's on them. Maybe if, instead of obligingly using supplemental battery maintainers, flocks of their customers showed up a couple times a year for warranty replacement of their 12V batteries, Nissan might have corrected the defect. Could be a simple software adjustment that would just go out via the over-the-air proc... I mean, get folded into a subsequent model year's cars..

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I like how you both (correctly) blame Nissan AND blame those of us who found a way to live with the car's deficiency. You don't seem to realize, though, that Nissan apparently DID correct the problem in 2015.

jaydoc said:

It was the 12v battery. It read 10v at the dealership. They replaced it and the car has been back to normal since then.

This is a 2014 leaf and I leave it plugged in when I get back in the evening and then unplug it when leaving for work the next day. Is that what caused the battery to go bad? I have never really liked into what proper charging habits for the Leaf should be. Any pointers? ...

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Earlier LEAFs could have issues with 12V battery charging. In particular, leaving plugged in for extended periods (after charge completion) could drain the battery. Your routine sounds ok. More of an issue for people who would stay plugged for days.

That being said, if you got 4 years from the original battery, that's not too terrible. Deep-cycle AGM is a good choice for this application, but since it's just been replaced, I wouldn't spend more money.

The car is heavily dependent on a healthy 12V system though, and can exhibit all manner of weird behaviors when they go bad. I would recommend an occasional check of the battery so you can be proactive with any future replacements and not wait for failure. A "load check" is the most reliable way to assess battery health. I do a load check on our vehicles about every 6 months now along with normal maintenance. It's quick and easy; you can get a load tester fairly cheap.

I'm having this same problem, but it comes up every OTHER time I turn the car on:
I turn it on, it won't go into Ready mode, and will not shift into Drive or Reverse. The PS error light is on, and the steering wheel is locked. If I turn it off and on again, it boots normally, and drives fine.
This isn't exactly an intermittent problem, because it happens precisely every other time the car is turned on, like clockwork.
Here's what I have done:
Replaced the 12v battery. Tested the voltage - it's 12.8 volts.
The dealer did a load test on the battery, found no problems. Also scanned and cleared some codes, but nothing that seems to bear on this issue.
Now the dealer says he wants $420 just to attempt to diagnose the problem - no guarantee that they will find the problem, or what it might cost to fix. This is in Florida, where they have probably seldom seen a LEAF. I've also consulted the shop that I bought the car from (Tampa Hybrids - Todd is very knowledgeable and helpful), but beyond saying that he suspects it's something to do with the 12v battery, there's nothing else he can do.
I guess I will have no other choice but to pay the 420 and pray for a miracle...

FloridaLeafGator: Who did the load test? Did they show you a printout from the test? If it were my car, I would request the load test be repeated before I'd shell out ANY $$ for some sort of vague diagnostic.

Also, please post your car's year, model, mileage, etc. in your signature. It really does help us.

Hi, try pressing the on button with the break on. I just had the same problem and it fixed by doing this.