T/M Vehicle System Malfunction Warning

The dealer replaced my 12v battery and did the recall reprogram while I waited.

I had a dead accessory battery this evening, ad the T/M error as well. Charging the battery for 1/2 hour got rid of the error. Now I have to worry about the damned accessory battery's health. Ironically, I have it hardwired for a maintainer, but haven't used it a lot this Winter. I think the 12 volt throw blanket, plus the seat heater and wheel heater, all running together, caused the little battery to run a deficit. I told myself that the long L-1 charges, plus my 35 minute commute, should keep the battery charged. Well, probably in Summer...

Has anyone investigated how much battery is needed to "jump" these cars? I have several 12 volt UPS batteries that are used, and read 12.89 volts charged. They were originally 10AH. Would one of these suffice with a little lead with alligator clips, or do I need to keep carrying a larger battery, and cables?

I used a 10 year old, 7 ah ups battery, to jump start my LEAF.

pchilds said:

I used a 10 year old, 7 ah ups battery, to jump start my LEAF.

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Heh, that answers that question! I was a little concerned about resistance from the near-dead accessory battery, but I guess that isn't an issue. Thanks. I'll be using a UPS battery and a little alligator clip/wire/tab connector setup I cobbled up in 5 minutes last night. But I think I'll still carry jumper cables...

All new Leafs should come with a hardwired battery tender plug, and a complimentary battery maintainer. Maybe someday I'll be able to get mine to a dealer again when it gets into it's "rampant vampire drain" mode, which generally occurs monthly. I sure wish the dealer I took it to in Edmonds, WA wouldn't have blown their chance to diagnose the problem. May have shed some light on an (apparent) widespread problem. Meanwhile, my Leaf lives on a battery tender at all times when not being driven. It simply cannot be trusted to take care of itself.

You should be able to skip the tender while it's plugged in and actually charging.

I completely forgot to post any update after I took the car to the dealership. They tested the car ( or that what they said) and found nothing wrong with it; since many have mentioned that the 12V battery was the culprit, mine runs fine since March 2011 when I took delivery of the car.
I just hope this is not going to happen to anyone again in the middle of the road; I hope Nissan figures this issue out and provide a fix.

My concern is that 12 volt battery was damaged and will now do it again, when I don't have time for it. Lead-acid batteries don't like being run that low (although it looks like the car shuts the non-memory drains off at some point,leaving the battery just very low, not dead) and tend to get damaged by it. And I know if I take it to a local dealer they will find nothing wrong...

I got this message today. But noticed it after slipping on icy snowy road.

Took delivery of a 2013 "S" model in October 2013. Yesterday, had my third T/M Malfunction resulting in total shutdown of vehicle. Third tow to dealer. First time, replaced entire motor assembly. Second time, Leaf Engineer flew in from Smyrna, TN to supervise inverter replacement. Have no idea what to expect now. Clearly a serious design flaw. Total shutdown is very disconcerting especially as first two happened on Interstate and yesterday's happened in the intersection of two, six-lane state roads. Police have had to shutdown traffic and manually push car to safety all three times.

Will get to see up close and personal Nissan's customer service. In Florida, this series of incidents triggers the "Lemon Law" provision. Hopefully Nissan will take the long view and do the right thing without forcing me to file paperwork with State of Florida.

Anyone here had anything similar to this on 2013 "S" model?

I think it is basically because the batteries have a high failure rate and are of marginal quality... The 12 volt inverter is about 1,000 watts and should be able to handle anything you can reasonably draw. It is far higher capacity than the alternator in almost any ICE vehicle... Since you are not actually starting the car with the 12 volt battery, almost any small 12 volt source should work to get it powered up...

LeftieBiker said:

I had a dead accessory battery this evening, ad the T/M error as well. Charging the battery for 1/2 hour got rid of the error. Now I have to worry about the damned accessory battery's health. Ironically, I have it hardwired for a maintainer, but haven't used it a lot this Winter. I think the 12 volt throw blanket, plus the seat heater and wheel heater, all running together, caused the little battery to run a deficit. I told myself that the long L-1 charges, plus my 35 minute commute, should keep the battery charged. Well, probably in Summer...

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I had a T/M Malfunction on my 2013 Leaf and dealer said my 12v battery was dead. It had lights and door locks worked, but it would not shift. Dealer assured me that this was the problem and I am good to go.

This is my second incident -- both were similar in that I pushed the brake and when I hit the start button, the pedal depressed to the floor and the car wouldn't do anything after that. I didn't get a T/M error the first time (about a month ago).

Just sharing my experiences and symptoms in case others have had similar events and to give gurus and experts more data.

I still love the ride, but I'm getting frustrated . . . dunno why I thought an ecar would be trouble-free . . . my toaster has never failed, but I suppose computer is the closer analogy . . .

Speaking of appliances, have you seen this?

http://youtu.be/Nn__9hLJKAk

Yours in Leafdom,

B

Just happened to my 2014 SL. 2890 miles and 2 1/2 months old. Got in it this afternoon for the first start of the day and the brake pedal pushed to the floor, no lights/sound or nav display when I pushed the start button. I got the "T/M system malfunction see dealer" warning.
After shutting it off and trying again I got all kinds of warning lights, display, but no warning and would shift into N only. The third try was a normal start.
Drove around town with three normal stops and starts.
I am home now and will check the accessory battery voltage after a few hours. I should read around 12.6 volts.

Any other ideas?

Yep, 12V battery reads 10.5V. Looks like a bad cell. I'll put it on a charger in the morning, and then off to the dealer.
Can't wait to deal with the service department. :roll:

After 11 months of 12 Volt trickle charging (2A) on a bi-monthly basis for about 8 hours each time, the "little battery" is finally showing signs improvement holding at 12.6 volts average.

bbrowncods said:

Yep, 12V battery reads 10.5V. Looks like a bad cell. I'll put it on a charger in the morning, and then off to the dealer.
Can't wait to deal with the service department. :roll:

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Took it to the dealer this morning and left it all day. They called and said it was ready this afternoon. When I went to pick it up the service writer said that there were so many codes they had to call Nissan. He said they ran all kinds of tests and ended up replacing the 12V battery, cleared all the codes and rechecked everything. Pretty much what I said - bad battery.
Best part is they washed the car and detailed the inside for me. Sweet!

my new 2015 nissan LEAF ran great for ~250 miles, mostly <35 commute freeway miles per day, and this friday before returning home it wouldn't start in our office parking garage. warning suggests T/M vehicle system malfunction and to visit a dealer.

* the roadside assistance was so damn slow with nissan electric vehicle support. i reported car breakdown before 7 pm and it was towed to nissan burlingame, CA at 12.30 midnight. do you realize we live in a busy SF bay area urban setting and it takes 5 hrs for just towing to destination with in <10 miles.!!! nissan COULD DO A LOT BETTER!. couple of lousy folks working in this business for sure, the first person dispatched arrived at garage w/ a regular sized tow truck, asking my all basis electric veh questions, trying to put in Neutral...read the owner manual for half hour and left with some boasting advise words...literally wasted my time!

nissan service called me next morning when they opened for business and acknowledged the car on-site and they initially suggested weirdly that this issue was something very new/rare and reported to nissan engg folks and they are off so they would try their best in their local resource to fix it. my immediate reaction was that it is everywhere on internet people talk about t/m malfunction etc and simple google would yield a lot of reports. the technician seemed a bit prideful and says internet is not their first source to attend a car problem but they would do what they can. i reminded my very lax response to road side assistance call last night and that greatly disheartened to have run in to this widely discussed car problem in just 2 wks of owning new car! said i needed more assurance than that.

however after 3 hrs, the technician called and said the car was ready! and like most people reported, its the 12V battery gone bad and resulted all the dashboard full of error warning signs, a full load of error codes but they just replaced it and checked everything ok. may be service staff were just playing safe, thats all. overall I see burlingame, CA folks reasonable to fix my issue and no complaints there!

they tried to suggest that I left the car in READY and battery discharged but never accepted that and even then that wouldn't explain why u needed to replace though. just charging would do the trick right? and Boardwalk nissan dealer from whom i bought the car must not have put in right condition when it left the showroom if it was bad one in the first place. nissan keeps hearing these many reports so they should put a condition MUST to keep these silly 12V batteries in good condition. irony that the whole powertrain runs on main EV lithion battery and the 12V gives problems to you???? just put a good battery and ensure its charging from car running is all thats needed and ensured by nissan, not that hard for a reputed company to promise, right?

hope this is useful to other nissan LEAF owners!

2013 Leaf bot 4/29/2014.

Today at lunch it would not detect the brake press and thus refused to go Ready or shift from P.

After several tries, including opening and closing the charge door and the plastic charge port covers, I got the T/M System Malfunction Visit Dealer message.

Dealer sending tow truck and loaner car.

Odd thing is that my 12V died 2 weeks ago and was replaced under warranty. If it is a 12V problem, then to me, the question is what is killing the 12V?

Will advise when I know more...

My 2013 with 16,000 miles had the same T/M System Failure. Could not get it into neutral. The dealership replaced the 12 volt battery. So far it works but I am skeptical that it is not something else. We will see.

Got the car back next day, 12/16/14, with new 12V. Dealership did not realized they just replaced it on 12/3/14.

Yesterday, 12/28/14, this 3rd 12V died. It refuses to hold a charge. Hopefully the issue can now be escalated with Nissan...