Carwings TCU Upgrade issue / Need some ideas

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NatureCoastLeaf

New member
Joined
Aug 6, 2018
Messages
3
First post. New 2012 Leaf owner. Bought it 3 weeks ago with 65k miles on it. The car had a warranty battery installed in 10/2016. Love the car works great and does exactly what we want.

The issue was the car still had the 2G TCU. Went to Nissan and had it installed. Three days later tried to connect and it won't connect. I keep getting the same error ..... "You need an account to use this service". I've been on the phone with the Carwings support and have escalated twice now with no resolution. The funny thing is the car will update charging station with no problem what so ever. They have deleted the car and put it back half a dozen times, sent me back to the dealer and they just looked at me with a blank stare and sent me back to Nissan support. I've read and tried every short cut or quirky suggestion I can find and nothing works. This has been going on for three weeks now.... Frustrated is an understatement.

Looking for some advice or suggestion on anything else I can do to resolve this issue. Support is clueless.

Thank you for your time.
 
I had a saga myself, starting with http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=489376#p489376. I made a bunch of updates in that thread.

Ignore the stuff about the yellow ! car and P3131 DTC. That was a LONG running problem that in theory, TSB NTB18-045 (published in mid-Jine 2018) is supposed to resolve. I had that applied earlier this week. So far, so good, but who knows?

Hope that helps, a bit? IIRC, you don't need to be signed in on the nav system side to update charging stations. You probably need to be signed in to have the remote stuff from their app/web site to work.
 
Did you setup a Carwings account? Did you call EV Customer Service and get the car transferred to your account? I had to send in proof of purchase to be able to put the car on my account.

Did they install the correct TCU unit? The bulletin the dealer is supposed to follow outlines the different part numbers and the vehicles they work in. There are also multiple steps that have to be followed by the LEAF Tech to activate the new TCU and tie it to the car.
 
Thanks for the information. I have setup a CarWings account and that is working. I assume the Nissan dealer did what they were supposed to as far as the TCU. The tech was rather gruff after the install and just told me it won't work for 3 days so don't even try it. That's been 3 weeks ago. I am very frustrated because I'm rather tech savvy and keep requesting to speak with someone higher up at Nissan support but keep getting the same people.

Thanks again. Will keep trying.
 
Baustin is on the money. There are (oddly) indeed multiple part numbers and it's possible for the dealer to install the wrong one.

NTB17-015a at https://x.nissanhelp.com/forums/Knowledgebase/links/740/ is the right bulletin with instructions on upgrading the TCU. With a free account, you can d/l 2 PDFs a day.
 
NatureCoastLeaf said:
First post. New 2012 Leaf owner. Bought it 3 weeks ago with 65k miles on it. The car had a warranty battery installed in 10/2016. Love the car works great and does exactly what we want.

The issue was the car still had the 2G TCU. Went to Nissan and had it installed. Three days later tried to connect and it won't connect. I keep getting the same error ..... "You need an account to use this service". I've been on the phone with the Carwings support and have escalated twice now with no resolution. The funny thing is the car will update charging station with no problem what so ever. They have deleted the car and put it back half a dozen times, sent me back to the dealer and they just looked at me with a blank stare and sent me back to Nissan support. I've read and tried every short cut or quirky suggestion I can find and nothing works. This has been going on for three weeks now.... Frustrated is an understatement.

Looking for some advice or suggestion on anything else I can do to resolve this issue. Support is clueless.

Thank you for your time.

I'm dealing with the same problem. I have a 2012 Leaf with new main battery as well. I brought the car in last year to upgrade TCU. Three weeks after they took my car in, they had still not been able to get the TCU to communicate. I called Nissan and was asked whether the technicians had electronically registered the unit. I relayed the message to dealership mechanics and within two hours my car was ready for pickup. Last week I brought it in for maintenance and noted that my app was not communicating with the car even though the car could update charging locations. They replaced the TCU - no charge to me - and now the TCU does not communicate with anything - no app and no charging station update. Instead I get the "cannot connect to the center" message. Going back in today. Ugh. The local Tucson dealership where I bought the car appears to have no interest in supporting its electric cars. Anyone have success with third-party mechanics supporting the tech pieces of the Leaf?
 
Lizardbelly said:
NatureCoastLeaf said:
First post. New 2012 Leaf owner. Bought it 3 weeks ago with 65k miles on it. The car had a warranty battery installed in 10/2016. Love the car works great and does exactly what we want.

The issue was the car still had the 2G TCU. Went to Nissan and had it installed. Three days later tried to connect and it won't connect. I keep getting the same error ..... "You need an account to use this service". I've been on the phone with the Carwings support and have escalated twice now with no resolution. The funny thing is the car will update charging station with no problem what so ever. They have deleted the car and put it back half a dozen times, sent me back to the dealer and they just looked at me with a blank stare and sent me back to Nissan support. I've read and tried every short cut or quirky suggestion I can find and nothing works. This has been going on for three weeks now.... Frustrated is an understatement.

Looking for some advice or suggestion on anything else I can do to resolve this issue. Support is clueless.

Thank you for your time.

I'm dealing with the same problem. I have a 2012 Leaf with new main battery as well. I brought the car in last year to upgrade TCU. Three weeks after they took my car in, they had still not been able to get the TCU to communicate. I called Nissan and was asked whether the technicians had electronically registered the unit. I relayed the message to dealership mechanics and within two hours my car was ready for pickup. Last week I brought it in for maintenance and noted that my app was not communicating with the car even though the car could update charging locations. They replaced the TCU - no charge to me - and now the TCU does not communicate with anything - no app and no charging station update. Instead I get the "cannot connect to the center" message. Going back in today. Ugh. The local Tucson dealership where I bought the car appears to have no interest in supporting its electric cars. Anyone have success with third-party mechanics supporting the tech pieces of the Leaf?


Seems the dealerships just really don't understand the Leaf TCU. I don't know why.

At least on the 2011 2G TCU, there were 3 cables that went into the TCU. If it's showing disconnected, a possible cause is one of the cables isn't connected or connected right. Do you have leafspy? What codes is the car throwing?

I know you don't want to disconnect the TCU, but the following article may help explain why the car is doing what you're doing:
http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?t=25949

In particular, if the grey plug is disconnected you'll get U1266 and U1A05. If the white cable is unplugged you'll get tons of CAN bus DTC's. If the blue plug is unplugged the TCU will show up and register to the car, but it will throw a code that the TCU antenna is disconnected.
 
I have an iPhone so apparently Leaf Spy does not work for me. I just talked with Jim Click Nissan and they are waiting for Nissan Tech help to respond. It is now day 7. I will look at that link you provided. Thank you.
 
Lizardbelly said:
I have an iPhone so apparently Leaf Spy does not work for me. I just talked with Jim Click Nissan and they are waiting for Nissan Tech help to respond. It is now day 7. I will look at that link you provided. Thank you.
I've been using LEAFSpyPro for a long time now without difficulty on my iPhone6. Like others, I downloaded it from Apple's App Store after paying for the license.
 
*****UPDATE*******

After going round and round the Nissan support merry-go-round and escalating three times they finally got it working for me. Out of the blue the support lady called and somehow it works now. But then ..... the same lady called back a couple days later to ask me to see if I could connect. I said this was already resolved and she had already called me about it. Then it quit working :oops:

After another call it was back working again. The only thing that frustrates me is the lack of information. I would have liked to know what the issue was and spoke to someone who actually fixed it instead of the middle people. Would have been nice to post a solution here to help others, other than "it just started working"

My advice for others is just keep calling and escalating the ticket because there is little else to do.

Thanks again for all the information and help posted.
 
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