Health of 12 Volt battery

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Kokako65

New member
Joined
Sep 23, 2017
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Hi as a new owner of a 2nd hand 2106 Leaf I have been teaching my wife to drive it. We go in a tangle trying to select D when the READY state had not come up (later due to her light pressure on the foot brake), but the immediate display was a Major alarm light and 12 Volt battery fail light causing a bit of panic being a few miles form home. We swapped driving seats, got going and returned home to investigate via the user manual. Looks OK now but I but a volt meter on the 12 volt battery terminals and was surprised to see 18 volts registered. This is way above the 14 volts i expected but the electrolyte level was correct and no gassing was evident. Has any one taken a similar voltage reading ?
 
I assume you tested with the car's power on? try 15 minutes after turning the car off. And please use one of the several existing topics on the 12 volt system.
 
Kokako65 said:
Hi as a new owner of a 2nd hand 2106 Leaf I have been teaching my wife to drive it. We go in a tangle trying to select D when the READY state had not come up (later due to her light pressure on the foot brake), but the immediate display was a Major alarm light and 12 Volt battery fail light causing a bit of panic being a few miles form home. We swapped driving seats, got going and returned home to investigate via the user manual. Looks OK now but I but a volt meter on the 12 volt battery terminals and was surprised to see 18 volts registered. This is way above the 14 volts i expected but the electrolyte level was correct and no gassing was evident. Has any one taken a similar voltage reading ?

18 volts is much higher than I have ever seen on either 2011 or 2015. Are you sure your voltmeter is accurate? If voltage were held at 18 for any length of time, cells would gas and likely be very low on electrolyte. As you found, failure to apply foot brake while pressing the power button to turn on will result in the car going into accessory mode instead of ready mode. Float voltage of LEAF 12-volt battery is typically a little lower than most gasoline engine cars (13.0 to 14.5 depending upon conditions).
 
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