Spontaneous Turtle Mode with Battery @65%

My Nissan Leaf Forum

Help Support My Nissan Leaf Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

cappcc

New member
Joined
Jan 12, 2017
Messages
1
First post. Searched for relevant posts, saw plenty of references of "Turtle Mode" but all involved having the battery down in single digits.
Model Year: 2015

On the way home yesterday from typical commute (30 mi r/t), car entered turtle mode accompanied by the turtle icon and a car with :!: icon. I had 65% battery Life remaining and the temperature gauge was normal. Pulled over, turned car off. Let it rest a couple minutes (while I released some expletives) and started it back up. The turtle icon remained, but the :!: icon was gone. Traffic was too fast to limp my way home so called Nissan Roadside Assistance and had it towed to my house (dealership was closed).

When it was dropped off at house (1.5 hrs later), it was no longer in turtle mode and running fine. I'm driving it today hoping that it doesn't happen again, and have had no issues (knock on wood).

My service advisor wants me to bring it in (obv) but cautioned they may not be able to diagnose anything if it is not currently exhibiting any symptoms. I don't mind driving it as I welcome some unpredictability in my life, but my wife refuses to drive it (she is the usual driver) without knowing this won't happen again.

Has this happened to anyone? Any tips I can try myself or pass along to my service technician?

Thanks
 
Take it in as soon as you can so they can check for error codes. Some diagnostic trouble codes (DTC) will clear themselves after some number of vehicle on/off cycles or charge cycles so the sooner you get it to the dealer, the better chance of finding codes. It is under warranty so diagnostics (and repair if needed) should not cost you anything.

I have over 30,000 miles on my 2015 and it has never happened to me. Describe driving conditions, etc. as accurately as you can to the service technician when you take it in.

Gerry
 
I got the exclamation point icon several times after using EVgo DCQC's at Tacoma and Marysville, WA last year. I pulled over and rebooted the car and it went away each time.
 
Those sound like good guesses above.

LEAFspy is SO useful. Highly, highly recommended. Pull DTC codes and visit a dealer if any are logged.
 
have to go with crowd consensus here.

a very bad cell will initiate turtle mode if its voltage drops enough under load. So turtle is not dependent on SOC. if the cell is bad enough, it can happen at any SOC including yours.
 
Could a bad 12v battery cause this kind of behavior? I know people have had some strange things happen when their 12v battery was dying, but I don't recall if anybody saw something similar to this.
 
DaveinOlyWA said:
have to go with crowd consensus here.

a very bad cell will initiate turtle mode if its voltage drops enough under load. So turtle is not dependent on SOC. if the cell is bad enough, it can happen at any SOC including yours.

The above sounds like the most logical explanation. Probably good to get it to the dealer ASAP.

If you want to try and replicate the problem, you could try a few 'launches. When it's safe to do so mash the gas pedal, preferably on a freeway or highway somewhere so you can keep it going for more than a few seconds. Preferably with the heater on max at the same time. Make sure you are maxing out the power (all power bubbles should be lit, you'll have to be going at least 20MPH or so). You can use your left foot to brake if you need to control your speed. This will max the power draw from the battery and put maximum possible load on the cells. If there is a bad cell, it may drop below the threshold that initiates turtle/limp home mode.
 
garsh said:
Could a bad 12v battery cause this kind of behavior? I know people have had some strange things happen when their 12v battery was dying, but I don't recall if anybody saw something similar to this.
If the 12v battery was that bad, it likely wouldn't start to begin with. Once the car is going, the DC to DC converter should keep the 12v system at a high enough voltage to prevent odd behavior, but that's always worthy of investigation, because as you said, when the 12v battery is low, odd things happen.
 
garsh said:
Could a bad 12v battery cause this kind of behavior? I know people have had some strange things happen when their 12v battery was dying, but I don't recall if anybody saw something similar to this.

12 volt battery is essentially off the system when the car is running. the 12 volt DC inverter is powered by the traction battery
 
Hi, wondering if the original poster resolved this or if anyone has any more insight?

I have only had my 2017 model for 6 weeks. Everything was great, until yesterday when my car conked out in rush hour freeway traffic in southern California. I had charged with a level 2 charger at work during the day and was about 10 miles into my 40 mile commute when I felt loss of power and the EV warning light (car with !) and the turtle light both came on. Somehow (so fortunately) I limped over to the (tiny) shoulder before it lost power altogether. At this point my dashboard told me that I had 91 miles range (9 bars) and 72 percent battery. Temp gauge was at 6. To say I was freaked out is an understatement. I called the tow service through the warranty, and he asked me if it would go into neutral, which it would not. After that I just waited in park for 3 hours for the tow to arrive and take me to the Nissan where I bought it. I am waiting to see what's wrong. I have never done the fast charge, just level 2 at work and trickle charging at home. This is the first time I've seen anything else like this. I had ordered the dongle to pair with the Leaf Spy app, but it hasn't arrived from Amazon yet so i don't have any data. If I did have Leaf Spy, would I be able to tell if one of the battery cells is defective? Thanks for any help! Sarah :cry:
 
Thanks, Leftiebiker. I got a call from Nissan. They said the diagnostics showed that there was an error in charging. So, even though the chargepoint session that I did at my workplace seemed fine (and charged my account), and also the dashboard indicators showed plenty of charge, they are saying that it did not charge properly. That apparently screwed things up 10 miles down the road when it died spontaneously.
Importantly, they are not saying it was discharged when it died, rather that the charging error caused a problem that manifested itself as I drove down the freeway. They said they fixed it by resetting the computer/battery. The employee I spoke to said the technicians have seen this before, but I can't find anything else in the forum. She wasn't too concerned, which is a bit scary, since there was no way for me to know that the charge was faulty and presumably next time this happens I could be in a worse situation....as in rear-ended. She said that since I was using a third party charger (chargepoint), not a Nissan charger, this wasn't something they would address. Please can others share if you've had a similar problem? Also, my car is still in the shop because they found a separate error message with the pedal position sensor. I'll post again if that turns out to be related. Thanks all! Sarah
 
sarahn said:
Thanks, Leftiebiker. I got a call from Nissan. They said the diagnostics showed that there was an error in charging. So, even though the chargepoint session that I did at my workplace seemed fine (and charged my account), and also the dashboard indicators showed plenty of charge, they are saying that it did not charge properly. That apparently screwed things up 10 miles down the road when it died spontaneously.
Importantly, they are not saying it was discharged when it died, rather that the charging error caused a problem that manifested itself as I drove down the freeway. They said they fixed it by resetting the computer/battery. The employee I spoke to said the technicians have seen this before, but I can't find anything else in the forum. She wasn't too concerned, which is a bit scary, since there was no way for me to know that the charge was faulty and presumably next time this happens I could be in a worse situation....as in rear-ended. She said that since I was using a third party charger (chargepoint), not a Nissan charger, this wasn't something they would address. Please can others share if you've had a similar problem? Also, my car is still in the shop because they found a separate error message with the pedal position sensor. I'll post again if that turns out to be related. Thanks all! Sarah

I don't buy that. And the fact that Nissan keeps passing the buck on non-Nissan branded EVSE's even though it is them that don't conform to the international SAE standard, it really troubling.

You said the car showed a high SOC. It shouldn't do that if it was a faulty charge. Also if it was a faulty charge, you should get the warning light on the dash indicating it was a faulty charge. Something is broken. If the charger was faulty (don't buy that) then your car should have an error light and if it doesn't then the car is faulty. If the charge was normal as everything indicated then the fault lies with the car.

I think this is quite easy to eliminate the faulty charging excuse. You say the station was a ChargePoint correct? They store data on all the charges. The time you started, time it stopped charging, time you unplugged, power draw for the whole session, etc. Getting the chargepoint data that shows a very normal charge, would call them out on their BS pretty quickly...
 
2k1Toaster said:
sarahn said:
Thanks, Leftiebiker. I got a call from Nissan. They said the diagnostics showed that there was an error in charging. So, even though the chargepoint session that I did at my workplace seemed fine (and charged my account), and also the dashboard indicators showed plenty of charge, they are saying that it did not charge properly. That apparently screwed things up 10 miles down the road when it died spontaneously.
Importantly, they are not saying it was discharged when it died, rather that the charging error caused a problem that manifested itself as I drove down the freeway. They said they fixed it by resetting the computer/battery. The employee I spoke to said the technicians have seen this before, but I can't find anything else in the forum. She wasn't too concerned, which is a bit scary, since there was no way for me to know that the charge was faulty and presumably next time this happens I could be in a worse situation....as in rear-ended. She said that since I was using a third party charger (chargepoint), not a Nissan charger, this wasn't something they would address. Please can others share if you've had a similar problem? Also, my car is still in the shop because they found a separate error message with the pedal position sensor. I'll post again if that turns out to be related. Thanks all! Sarah

I don't buy that. And the fact that Nissan keeps passing the buck on non-Nissan branded EVSE's even though it is them that don't conform to the international SAE standard, it really troubling.

You said the car showed a high SOC. It shouldn't do that if it was a faulty charge. Also if it was a faulty charge, you should get the warning light on the dash indicating it was a faulty charge. Something is broken. If the charger was faulty (don't buy that) then your car should have an error light and if it doesn't then the car is faulty. If the charge was normal as everything indicated then the fault lies with the car.

I think this is quite easy to eliminate the faulty charging excuse. You say the station was a ChargePoint correct? They store data on all the charges. The time you started, time it stopped charging, time you unplugged, power draw for the whole session, etc. Getting the chargepoint data that shows a very normal charge, would call them out on their BS pretty quickly...

I wouldn't be surprised to see a new TSB to do with these issues with "non branded Nissan EVSE " charging as this is not the first we have heard of this.

http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=24587
 
sarahn:
1. Agree with the above that the EVSE excuse is bogus.
2. A faulty 12V battery or its connections might have caused this.
3. Another cause could be a bad cell pair. LeafSpy will show the voltage of each pair. A premature shutdown can occur if one pair is low enough.
4. LeafSpy also will show error codes that people on this forum can explain.
 
sarahn said:
Hi, wondering if the original poster resolved this or if anyone has any more insight?

I have only had my 2017 model for 6 weeks. Everything was great, until yesterday when my car conked out in rush hour freeway traffic in southern California. I had charged with a level 2 charger at work during the day and was about 10 miles into my 40 mile commute when I felt loss of power and the EV warning light (car with !) and the turtle light both came on. Somehow (so fortunately) I limped over to the (tiny) shoulder before it lost power altogether. At this point my dashboard told me that I had 91 miles range (9 bars) and 72 percent battery. Temp gauge was at 6. To say I was freaked out is an understatement. I called the tow service through the warranty, and he asked me if it would go into neutral, which it would not. After that I just waited in park for 3 hours for the tow to arrive and take me to the Nissan where I bought it. I am waiting to see what's wrong. I have never done the fast charge, just level 2 at work and trickle charging at home. This is the first time I've seen anything else like this. I had ordered the dongle to pair with the Leaf Spy app, but it hasn't arrived from Amazon yet so i don't have any data. If I did have Leaf Spy, would I be able to tell if one of the battery cells is defective? Thanks for any help! Sarah :cry:
LeafSpy would have shown you all 96 cell voltages and if one or more were very low it would show. If you get the Pro version you can read out the DTC codes and verify any error code that were set. There are DTC codes for each cell if they are really low.
 
Thank you all! Yes, I agree it's an odd explanation from Nissan, but wouldn't they be able to see if the 12V battery or one cell was going bad?

My chargepoint app shows that I added 71 miles during the most recent session and no indication that anything went wrong. But Nissan says that's what triggered the error code that shut down my car. I will definitely need to wrap my head around Leaf Spy. My main concern is that if that charge looks normal how will I know if this is going to happen again.

What is a TSB?

Sarah
 
Back
Top