Touch screen opens and closes by itself

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bmalasky

New member
Joined
Nov 8, 2010
Messages
2
I parked our leaf in the garage and turned it off. A few seconds later the touch screen opened. then it closed. then it opened... I turned the car back on and the touch screen stays in place.

I've tried removing and restoring the magic T34 fuse to no avail. Should I disconnect the battery for a few minutes?

There is no dealer service on this island and it's our only car. I really would prefer not having to ship it for this minor an issue. Any suggestions?
 
is anything else wrong besides the touch screen? if not, i would let it go. not sure that it would be something i lose sleep over.

does this happen every time or sometimes?
 
By "stays in place" do you mean that it stays open? Fully, or partially? You do know, don't you, that if you hold the Open/Tilt button down until it beeps it will change the angle it stops at? If it "wants" to be partly open, try that a few times until it changes its mind.

It could be there is a loose or loosely shorted wire somewhere that makes the car think you are pressing that button when you aren't.

Ray
 
By stays in place, I meant it stays closed if I use the open/tilt button to close it. I just tried disconnecting the 12V battery for 5 minutes and the spontaneous behavior seems to have been fixed. I'm going our now and if the problem doesn't reoccur, I'm a fan of rebooting.
 
Your touch screen has obviously been possessed by an evil spirit, with a spell cast by the driver of a gas powered car!

:mrgreen:
 
I am having this same problem, 2012 Leaf, I tried disconnecting the 12v battery for 5 minutes. Then reconnected but the screens keeps opening and closing until I press the ignition key. So when the car is parked the display keeps opening and closing. I measured the 12v battery, reads 12.54v. Any ideas what to do?
 
bmalasky said:
I parked our leaf in the garage and turned it off. A few seconds later the touch screen opened. then it closed. then it opened... I turned the car back on and the touch screen stays in place.

I've tried removing and restoring the magic T34 fuse to no avail. Should I disconnect the battery for a few minutes?

There is no dealer service on this island and it's our only car. I really would prefer not having to ship it for this minor an issue. Any suggestions?
Try this fix: http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=17990#p448342. The screen used to close then open to the first tilt position until I realized how to listen for the beeps to select the closed position.
 
The same thing started happening today. When the car is on, the touch screen works as it ought. When I shut the car off, the screen spontaneously opens (exposing the cd player) and then closes at 20 second intervals.

I haven't used any of the buttons around the touch screen since I bought the car two months ago.

I've been fighting this for an hour, and nothing, including the suggestions above make it stop. Any suggestions would be appreciated!

2012 sv and the 12v was fully charged two days ago.
 
Well, I've torn everything out of the console, unplugged fuses, disconnected the battery... nothing. I know which harness gives power to the tilt, but I'd love to know which wire-- I'll just snip it. As of now, I have to keep the button taped in the pressed position. If that works ok, I'll just glue it.

Ebay sells alot of these touch screen/computers, but not sure what kind of hassle that would be: installing would be easy, but the chip and other electronic watzits might not register with the car. I don't know. Working on a damned transmission is tons easier than dealing with electronic stuff.
 
Sometimes people get weird behavior from the display after cleaning and a little bit of glass-cleaner dribbles inside and creates a short. May go away after enough time passes for it to dry out. So if you've recently done some cleaning where this had a chance to happen, it might be an explanation.
 
After a web search I see that this has happened to others before but I can find no answers. When you turn the car of the screen opens and closes continuously all nite long. I hope one of the techs here on the forum can find a solution because it could happen to any of us any day. If the tilt motor could be diabled most of us will never need to open it ever.
 
The Nissan dealership said the unit went bad and it is about $1,000 to replace it.

I'll just take it apart and see if I can remove power to and from the tilt switch or try a junk yard before I spend that kind of dough on something I rarely use, except the radio.
 
Ok, fixed the problem. For you very few humans that will suffer this problem, here is how to fix it.

Remove the negative battery terminal when the screen opens. Remove the plate around the nav screen. There are youtube videos which show this-- it is easy. Remove wiring harness from screen and set aside. Remove the four screws that hold the computer in place. Remove all the harnesses that plug into it, and go someplace with good light. You will need tiny phillips screwdrivers.

Remove the two side screws that attach the screen to the arms. Then remove the five very tiny lock-tighted screws that hold the front plate in place-- the one with the dimmer and tilt switch. When you pull that out and away from the screen, a very thin wiring harness will come out with it-- don't plug that back in when you put the plate back in place and reverse steps.

Viola'. Everything works but the dimmer and the tilt screen, and you just saved yourself a grand. The real bullshit part of all of this, is that there is a very thin circuit board running along the bottom edge of the screen where the two buttons are. One should be able to buy that board instead of having to replace the entire nav unit.

There was corrosion around the board, my guess is that liquid got in to the board when the car was detailed for sale. So keep liquids away from the nav unit.

Sorry, didn't take any pics. Didn't expect a success story here. Anyway, I'm great with engines, transmissions and nuts and bolts mechanics, but suck at electronics. So if I can do this, so can you.
 
In facing this touch screen movement since one month and it destroyed the cd belt and pinions and paid more than 100 uss for new pinions and belt though it's disappeared and after we fixed it and shut down the car the sheet problem again happend so open and close touch screen come again without solution
We need solid solution from u guys really this is consuming the recorder and the belt and the battery and disturbing too much
Hope someone will come up with final touch solution hopefully
 
Guys we are discussing this problem and facing it without giving any solid solution to solve this screen problem .
I'm out of USA and Nissan dealer in our area Couldnot solve it too .
I wonder who can solve it after all this efforts
Eyad
 
Hi everyone, this is my first post on this forum or on any forum. I have been a lurker on web 2.0 until I encountered the problem discussed in this thread. Please excuse the lenght of this post. I got my 2012 gen1 Leaf last november. When I cleaned the interior the touch screen started to open and close on its own. Luckily it stopped quite soon, probably because spilled cleaning liquid dried up. Driving around with the heater on did not harm either. A week ago the problem returned and drained the battery in my absence. I knew what caused it because the touch screen was left open, and there was condensation on the screen.

Inspired by jkline's post (thanks!) I went to work this weekend and took some pictures. However I did want to preserve a functioning button to open and close the screen. If my solution really works remains to be seen, but I am happy I did not damage my sat nav any further. Which does not mean that you won't, so be careful if you try this yourself. You will need phillips screwdrivers in three sizes, a soldering iron, a spray can of Plasti dip liquid electrical tape and some adhesive tape to do this. And a willingness to risk ruining your cars head unit and order an expensive replacement from your dealer in shame.

First, as jkline wrote, disconnect the 12v battery when the screen opens. I did it when it was fully extended and found out it is best to disconnect the battery when the screen is abount and inch out, when the screws in the second picture are reachable. Then remove the head unit. To do so pull gently but firmly at the lower end of the black center console, then pull the top end away. There are indeed movies that show this on youtube. Remove the cables connecting the consule. Then remove four big phillips screws either side of the head unit.

Lift up the radio to pull it out, then disconnect the wires and take it inside. The frame of the screen is held in place by five small screws. Two below and three on top. The two lower ones can be removed now. As jkline wrote they are fixed with loctite. I found out they can be removed by heating them up with a soldering iron. Funnily enough they came loose when I tried to tighten them first. Wiggle a bit and they will come out. Be carefull not to lose these small screws. Next the two screws on the side of the display ca be removed, as show below.

Once these screws are removed the screen can be twisted out of the rails of the main unit. Be carefull, the screen is now only connected by a fragile flat multicable. Once the screen is out of its rails the top three screws can be removed. Heat up first, the wiggle with a small phillips screwdriver.

Now the screen frame unclips on the sides and can be taken of. Be carefull, it is still connected by a small flat cable, see below.

There is a small strip of plastic that hides the pcd jkline mentioned from view. Unscrew five small screws to remove it. Some screws are below the black rubber tape. Now the plastic strip and the screen frame can be removed. The pcb will dangle from the screen on its flat cable. The pcb is a bit more complicated than I imagined. I suspect it either shorts when moisture builds up around the open/close switch on the right or (perhaps more likely) around the connector on the left with its bare wires.

This is probably where jkline disconnected the white flat cable. I couldn't figure out how to disconnect it and I wanted to keep the buttons functioning. So I cleaned the pcb with alcohol, then covered up the head unit and sprayed four layers Plasti Dip liquid electrical tape on the pcb. I covered the two buttons with small pieces of tape. This is the result.

This might be a good time to clean the touch screen and the lcd below it. I put everything back together hoping at least the head unit, screen and touch screen would still work. They did, and the screen remained closed. But this was expected anyway, since it had been in indoors. It is early days but so far the two buttons below the screen still work and the screen has remained closed. It remains to be seen if the solution is permanent, but I have high hopes. It might work for others aswell, but be carefull, it seems awefully easy to do more damage than good. Thank you for pointing me in the right direction!
 
Holy cow, VincentGen1 - thanks for the awesome writeup! :mrgreen:

Indeed, this sounds a lot like corrosion to me. Definitely not any kind of programmed operation... no, Russian hackers aren't poking around in your car. :lol: Poor design by Nissan that it continues to open/close constantly... and that the button isn't of a more "rugged" design.

There are also some good electronics cleaners at Radio Shack (if still open in your area - despite rumors, they still exist - Google Maps it!) that do a better job of cleaning corrosion than alcohol. It should just be a matter of dousing the button (removed from the unit, not through the plastic! Though that MIGHT just work...) in cleaner, mashing it a few times for good mechanical cleaning effect, then letting it dry...
 
Bought a used 2011 Leaf three weeks ago. My open-close-open loop started when I (wait for it) had my car detailed. The detail shop said it was doing it already when the tech pulled the Leaf into the shop. The situation stopped for 4 days and then kicked in 4 days ago again. Apparently it just started. Oh, joy.

I tried the 12V battery disconnect, pressing the button for 2 seconds, removing the fuse, etc. None worked. Here's what did work for me, but it will cost you two seconds of your time every time you power down if it works for you.

With one hand, press a finger on the power button. HOLD it there. With the other hand, press a finger and HOLD the open/tilt button until the powering down system finishes its cycle. When the music (i.e., the noise from the power-down) stops, the cycle is over, just like the opera.

If the open-close-open loop starts up again, hit the power button again to turn on the system, then hold both buttons (power and open/tilt) and power down again.

Voila no more open-shut-open routine. And it's free, and you didn't void any warranty. And it takes less time to taking the unit apart.

Try it. It may work for you too.

Ixnay
 
Just to report back, the fix I posted in januari last year has held up for over a year. I have not had the open/close problem again and the buttons below the screen still work. Hope it will be of use for someone!
 
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