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15leafsv

Member
Joined
Jan 11, 2018
Messages
7
Yesterday my 2015 Leaf SV (30k miles) turned on, but would not "engage" into drive mode. I turned the car off, and tried a few times, and it did finally drive. Did the same thing today,

I noticed what feels like a "shaking" feeling under the dash when it does it, and the brake pedal feels softer than normal.

From searching, it looks like this could be a power inverter? Does anyone have any ideas or suggestions? Thanks in advance. I'm about 2 months out of the 36month warranty on drive train.
 
It's likely a low 12 volt battery. Can you measure the voltage at the terminals once it's in this state or after it's sat overnight?

Not sure what "I'm about 2 months out of the 36month warranty on drive train" means. EV system/powertrain warranty is 5 years/60K miles. Car's basic warranty is only 3 years/36K miles though.
 
cwerdna said:
EV system/powertrain warranty is 5 years/60K miles. Car's basic warranty is only 3 years/36K miles though.

thanks for the reply. I wasn't sure if (it was a the power inverter) that it would be covered under 5/60. Thanks again, will check the battery.
 
cwerdna said:
It's likely a low 12 volt battery. Can you measure the voltage at the terminals once it's in this state or after it's sat overnight?
Also, to be clear, when in this bad state, I'm talking about with the car totally off, not if it's successfully started and in READY mode (green car w/arrows).

If the car's in READY, the DC to DC converter is engaged, powering the 12 volt bus, and thus the voltage at the terminals of the 12 volt at that point will not reflect the at rest state of the battery.

You can download PDFs of the manual, warranty booklet, etc at https://owners.nissanusa.com/nowners/navigation/manualsGuide.
 
quick update

The new 12v battery is in and everything is working fine. One note that I (hope) help others. The time display on the odometer cluster was oddly switching itself to 24hour (military) time with the bad battery. I would re-set it o 12 hour, and it would go back to 24hr the next day. The time on the center cluster stayed at 12 hour.

Before I removed the old battery, I set the odometer cluster time display to 12 hour and removed the battery. After the new battery was installed, the time switched again to 24hr. Basically, if your car is switching to 24hr time, it seems like a pretty strong clue your 12v battery is dying.

thanks for the reply, cwerdna, you nailed it with one post, and I'm very grateful.
 
^^^
Awesome. Good to know.

Side note: If you had the TCU upgraded to 3G, some folks have reported 12 volt excessive drainage, as a result: http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=514520#p514520 (skim from there forward, looking for battery).

Supposedly, there's a new TSB or service campaign that will resolve this (came out in the last few weeks), the id is NTB18-045.

Long ago, there were reports of engineers being flown from Singapore to investigate: http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=12448&p=497352&hilit=singapore+engineers#p497352. At the time, from what I could tell (posted at http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=516453#p516453) there weren't even Leafs in Singapore yet. (https://newsroom.nissan-global.com/releases/release-ddbd7a9f7c3b6e2465990d76e101044d-new-nissan-leaf-to-go-on-sale-in-seven-markets-in-asia-and-oceania from 2018 says it'll go on sale in Singapore + some other Asian markets during the next fiscal year.)

I saw 0 EVs in the few days I was in Singapore, not even any Teslas. So, it seems likely that if the engineers were in Singapore, they weren't able to properly dogfood their own creation.

The original 12 volt on my 5/2013 built used '13 Leaf bit the dust around Oct 2015 (IIRC) and was replaced for free under warranty by my local dealer.
 
cwerdna said:
^^^
Side note: If you had the TCU upgraded to 3G, some folks have reported 12 volt excessive drainage, as a result: http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=514520#p514520 (skim from there forward, looking for battery).

Supposedly, there's a new TSB or service campaign that will resolve this (came out in the last few weeks), the id is NTB18-045.

I am having excessive drainage on a brand new battery after a TCU upgrade and would love to know more about this TSB service campaign ID NTB18-045 you mentioned but cannot find anything by search. Could you point me in the right direction so I can learn more about it?

Thanks!
 
^^^
Learned of it via https://www.facebook.com/groups/seattlenissanleaf/permalink/1998872776810816/?comment_id=1998903483474412&reply_comment_id=1999807600050667&comment_tracking=%7B%22tn%22%3A%22R%22%7D and https://www.facebook.com/groups/seattlenissanleaf/permalink/1975885039109590/.

Aaron is a well-known tech in the Pacific NW. Unfortunately, Nissanhelp doesn't seem to have the TSB/service campaign. :(

(I got your PM but didn't realize you'd also post here, until I replied.)
 
NISSAN REPLACED MY 3G TCU THREE TIMES!
NONE SOLVED EITHER PROBLEM! See below...

My Leaf did not yet have a starting problem, however, I decided to replace the 12V battery since it was 5 years old and people had posted... doing so helps the 3G TCU upgrade function again (it did not in my case)

What happens is when replacing the battery, you causing TCU to reset (but you can do with a fuse under the hood easier) Once reset, my 3G TCU would ONLY function with the Nissan ConnectEV App about one month and STOP! Note, this is the App or Portal of Nissan ConnectEV only (the Leaf GPS and Update Stations always works fine)

The 3G TCU causes excess 12V battery drain, Nissan claims TSB service campaign ID NTB18-045 resolves both problems. I just had it done 7/11/18, so I can't yet know if it has.
Note that Nissan also refers to this as their Countermeasure. A software solution.
$120 labor charge unless under 3yr/36K!
However, since I.paid for the original 3G TCU upgrade (and the upgrade caused these problem in the first place, and I opened two support cases and called about 150 times to complain of it all including them closing my original case... (and since it took Nissan 1.5 years to provide a fix)

Nissan Consumer Affairs refunded me the total cost including my state tax even though my Leaf is older, since these problems took 1.5 years to resolve *if it does resolves both?
I can update later on when I know.
Having said that, the 3G TCU will eventually going EOL/not function when 3G tower antennas are shutdown, so we'll be back to...paying to upgrade to 4G to make it work!

Hope this helps, John
 
Great! Come back in a month and post again if it is still working. I’d love to do mine, but I find it easier to pull a fuse than to pull a tooth talking to the dealers. I paid for the upgrade too, but I don’t want to waste my time with it. I’m hoping someone will find a simple permanent fix soon. One that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg and several hours. Until then, I’ll keep doing the fuse pull and/or battery terminal when the fuse pull doesn’t resolve it.
 
My Leaf has been dealing with all of the issues with the "upgraded" TCU - drained battery. I called my Nissan dealership to see about getting this update, gave them the number, and basically they said no. They said they can't put this update on my car because it isn't giving them the codes that this update applies to. I've actually had my TCU turned off, on the advice of Nissan, for MONTHS because of this. I'm seriously irritated right now.
 
JMF said:
NISSAN REPLACED MY 3G TCU THREE TIMES!
NONE SOLVED EITHER PROBLEM! See below...

My Leaf did not yet have a starting problem, however, I decided to replace the 12V battery since it was 5 years old and people had posted... doing so helps the 3G TCU upgrade function again (it did not in my case)

What happens is when replacing the battery, you causing TCU to reset (but you can do with a fuse under the hood easier) Once reset, my 3G TCU would ONLY function with the Nissan ConnectEV App about one month and STOP! Note, this is the App or Portal of Nissan ConnectEV only (the Leaf GPS and Update Stations always works fine)

The 3G TCU causes excess 12V battery drain, Nissan claims TSB service campaign ID NTB18-045 resolves both problems. I just had it done 7/11/18, so I can't yet know if it has.
Note that Nissan also refers to this as their Countermeasure. A software solution.
$120 labor charge unless under 3yr/36K!
However, since I.paid for the original 3G TCU upgrade (and the upgrade caused these problem in the first place, and I opened two support cases and called about 150 times to complain of it all including them closing my original case... (and since it took Nissan 1.5 years to provide a fix)

Nissan Consumer Affairs refunded me the total cost including my state tax even though my Leaf is older, since these problems took 1.5 years to resolve *if it does resolves both?
I didn't go thru TCU replacements but I did have a rocky start to my 3G TCU upgrade (already posted about before). As I posted in another thread, my dealer charged me $85 of labor to do NTB18-045. They suggested I take it up w/Nissan customer service to see if they'd refund me the labor charge.

Long story short, I did and I finally got the $85 check today. Yay!
 
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