Help! After turtle mode: What's the best thing to do??

Hi,

Unfortunately I have turtled the vehicle. The car is in "N" and cannot shift into any gear. Power steering is not functioning, and I have not shut the car down just yet.....

What are my options?

Right now, the vehicle is on a flat surface, about 10 feet away from a J1772 charger. The problem is, the charger is up on an incline pavement, so pushing the car up that pavement to get close to the J1772 handle is not an option for me.

Is there someone with a J1772 "extender" nearby the Fremont California area? Basically, I need to borrow a female J1772 receptacle with a male handle on the other end, and with a cable 10 ft long or so.

Any advice is most appreciated. Thanks!

NOTE: I have left the car "On", and I know that if I power down the car, I will not be able to power it back up again. I think.....
In the "On" state, while it does not drive, and currently in "N" ; at least, I could still manually push the heavy vehicle around. I simply just cannot push it up an incline pavement. With its heavy weight, it'll slide back down the pavement.

Have some other vehicle very gently kiss your bumper and slowly push you up?

You can turn the car off and back on again and shift into park or neutral. Anything powered by the 12V battery will work until that dies. You can charge on L1, if you can reach a 120V plug, but it will be 1.5 hours before the car will allow you to shift into drive.

Resolved yet? I would find a dozen people to help push if I could.

A couple of folks helped push. Car was in "N" and we pushed about 100 feet before the car decided to automatically engage "P" all by itself.

Why?? I don't know. At that point, there was a clackling sound and we were unable to push anymore.

I called Nissan roadside assist and we're waiting now for them to show up at 10:20pm.

I don't know how to manually disengage the car. It also seems that the auxiliary battery (regular car battery) is dying since my emergency indicators are fading away.

Is there a manual lever or switch to disengage the car and have it permanently on "N" ??

Thanks for any advice.

smkettner said:

Resolved yet? I would find a dozen people to help push if I could.

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If you were 10 feet away from the L2 charging station, why would you push it 100 feet...? Seems like about 90 feet too far....

Randy said:

If you were 10 feet away from the L2 charging station, why would you push it 100 feet...? Seems like about 90 feet too far....

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I am actually close to home. The first L2 charger was a neighbour's whom I didn't know well and wasn't home at that time. I made the decision to push the car back closer to home since the were people helping which would be easy.

Right now, I am pretty close to home, but I prefer to get the tow truck to get me to a nearby Nissan dealership which has a QC.

The thing that bugs me currently is this: Why did the car decide on its own to automatically switch to "P" when we were manually pushing the car when I originally put it into "N" ??

At this moment, the car won't start, the aux battery is dying and the emergency flashers are dimming. Still waiting for the tow truck.

I am actually worried about the previous "clackling" sound, while pushing the car in "N" which I heard, right before the car decided to switch to "P" and come to a dead stop.

Was there any damage internally somewhere?

I think it engaged Park as the 12-volt battery voltage dropped. You will probably need a 12V booster battery to get it in Neutral. The car is still driveable in Turtle so you actually reached Shutdown which automatically switches the car to Neutral and opens the main contactor. I doubt that you damaged anything since you were just pushing it slowly when it went into Park.

Gerry

120v extension cord? I think I have close to 300' somewhere. Walmart?

I assume dying 12v battery put it in park. 12v battery charger?

this is ridiculous.... get a tow to the charger.. sheesh...

ummm, extension cord. Charge up the 12v then charge up using 110 EVSE....

Thanks to all who responded. The car's functioning again.
Indeed, the 12-volt battery was down and added more issues to the turtle mode situation.

Also, this is the first time I have used the complementary Nissan roadside assistance in almost 5 years of ownership. It's practically useless for me yesterday. The Nissan dispatch was fine, and it had an automatic callback which was good. The contractors whom they use never showed up even after waiting for 2.5 hrs. I'll be filing a reimbursement with Nissan since the police needed to get my car off the road and they called in their tow service instead, which showed up in like 10 mins.

GerryAZ said:

I think it engaged Park as the 12-volt battery voltage dropped. You will probably need a 12V booster battery to get it in Neutral. The car is still driveable in Turtle so you actually reached Shutdown which automatically switches the car to Neutral and opens the main contactor. I doubt that you damaged anything since you were just pushing it slowly when it went into Park.

Gerry

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If it was mainly the 12v battery giving you trouble I wonder if it would pay to carry one of those 12v booster/jumper cable devices around? They can be often be found for <$50 for a lead acid version and I've even seen Lithium ion units that are more compact and I'd assume less likely to gradually discharge like the lead acid ones do. I'd think you'd want one with a backwards 12v cigarette lighter plug so you could simply plug in the cigarette lighter and charge from in the car, on the fly.....of course all devices like this get old and may fail at some point but I'm intrigued by the LiOn versions. I have a lead acid version thats kind of bulky and heavy and requires semi monthly recharges(it beeps when it wants to be recharged) so I've never really thought of lugging it around, would have been handy in your case though

Something like this is what I was thinking:
http://www.amazon.com/EPS-Multi-Function-Automobile-Emergency-Automotive/dp/B00ZZRP0VM/ref=sr_1_32?ie=UTF8&qid=1461011908&sr=8-32&keywords=12v+booster+pack
Note I'm not sure how effective I feel something like this would be jump starting a ICE but I'd think it would be adequate backing up the 12v lead acid battery in a Leaf.

Seems ridiculous. The car died, so plug it in. I carry a 100ft extension in the back all the time with the L1. You are almost never 100ft from an outlet especially with all those warnings before turtle.

Flustering around doesn't do any good. Plug it in, wait, drive away.

powersurge said:

this is ridiculous.... get a tow to the charger.. sheesh...

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2k1Toaster said:

Seems ridiculous... Flustering around doesn't do any good. Plug it in, wait, drive away.

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Guys, please watch the attitude. There's no need to belittle somebody's decision making and their request for advice.

For a 12 v jump starter, I bought the AntiGravity XP1 from Amazon - comes with all kinds of attachments and I've used it to jump start ICE cars - way better than jumper cables! Also holds a charge for a long time, so I recharge maybe every 4-5 months. Fits perfectly in the center console cubby.

garsh said:

powersurge said:

this is ridiculous.... get a tow to the charger.. sheesh...

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2k1Toaster said:

Seems ridiculous... Flustering around doesn't do any good. Plug it in, wait, drive away.

Click to expand...

Guys, please watch the attitude. There's no need to belittle somebody's decision making and their request for advice.

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Once towed to charge he'll still need to replace the 12v battery so just towing isn't a full answer.

joeriv said:

For a 12 v jump starter, I bought the AntiGravity XP1 from Amazon - comes with all kinds of attachments and I've used it to jump start ICE cars - way better than jumper cables! Also holds a charge for a long time, so I recharge maybe every 4-5 months. Fits perfectly in the center console cubby.

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http://www.amazon.com/Antigravity-Batteries-AG-XP-1-Multi-Function-Starter/dp/B00I9HGMYO/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1461097574&sr=8-1&keywords=AntiGravity+XP1
Wow! 1730 reviews on Amazon
I like the size but does it have provisions to charge the vehicle(not be charged by the vehicle) via the 12v accessory(cigarette lighter) socket? Personally I'd think this would very handy to use in motion. True your not going to jump start a ICE vehicle via the cigarette lighter but for assisting a Leaf 12v battery thats almost dead, causing problems as the OP of this thread had, it sure would have been handy. My lead acid jump starter can either be charged or charge a vehicle via the accessory socket, but it seems this feature isn't very common :?

Hit turtle right before pulling into the charger. Here is a picture of the charge state after plugging in. This was my first time hitting turtle and I was surprised at how quickly turtle popped up after the last bar disappeared. I was limited to 10 KW on turtle. My question is, how far approx could I have driven on turtle? Thanks.
http://www.mediafire.com/view/hcs367jkhm5h24y/Low.on.Juice1.jpg#

One estimate I heard was about a half mile from hitting turtle to the car shutting off.

The first time I hit turtle, I was about 1.1 miles away from the office (where we have a charging station). I slowed down to 12 mph (the most efficient speed for the Leaf) and turned off all climate control and accessories (to make sure the car didn't try to charge the 12v battery).

I managed to make it. I took a picture of the dash after making it to the charger, and the car shut down right after I snapped the picture.