2023 dead at the airport.

[Bombastinator2]

Nice long write up, but you missed a lot of key facts about both the situation and the Nissan Leaf.
1) the Nissan battery heater for the Li battery doesn't turn on until the Battery temp is near 0 deg
2) the outside temp at the airport when this happened was around 32 deg F according to the O.P
3) Leaf traction battery don't use a 3rd of the capacity running the battery heaters.
4) they don't loose there capacity in a week of sitting, Heck I have supercapcitors that will hold their charge longer than that.
5) the traction battery is disconnected when the car is off, no Vampire loads on the traction battery, other than a 4 min charge to the 12 volt every 24 hrs. and the battery heater if the battery temp drops below 0.
The service manual is a long hard read, but much better than making assumptions without looking at the facts. Last time I looked the service manual for 2015 and older could be downloaded for free from the Nico site, I would recommend even if you have a new model to get one and read it.
I know people (or hope anyway) have the best of intentions in helping. However, it doesn't help if the info you are giving is wrong. Like it or not, Nissan built the car and has the best info on it.
All cars sit for over a week at some point in their lives, whether at a dealers lot, the factory lot or when someone goes on vacation, it is expected "use" and not the cause of the traction battery going flat.
Hopefully we will hear back on what the dealer finds. I have a suspicion, but what I think should set a DTC. So far none has been reported. I can rule out things by what has been reported by the owner and what he was able to do with the car before it was towed to the dealer.
This isn't a game where you get a prize for being the 1st one with the right answer, it is someone with a problem that asked for help, guessing is not how you solve something like this. Resolving of the problem starts with a logic tree, with known info and ruling stuff in or out by what can be observed. That which can not be observed directly must be done with DTC and scanners that can look into what is happening or not happening.
Repairing modern equipment has got so much harder in recent years, I have been in the trade (recently retired) for over 50 years, the last 20 or so the pace of difficult to nail down problems has expanded exponentially. It is all too common (and a natural trait of humans) to try and equate back to something in the past. Unfortunately things have changed a lot since then.
I am very interested in what the dealer finds.

Re temps:. 0c° and 32f° are the same. Both are the freezing point of water. Fahrenheit vs celcius can screw a lot of things up. 20f is -6c, 30f is -1c. So I read it as the car being below freezing for the entire duration. If it was 20c there will be no problem. 20f I think there could be though. Youre implying that the main car battery doesn’t need to be heated until it’s well below 32f. Nissan is Japanese and the Japanese use c°. 5 c° is 41f°. My car starts to lose range around 52f° so it seems reasonable.
Re: tape heaters:. 1/3rd is what I was told. If it’s lower even a tape heater would mean the battery probably still has power, and it’s only the dead 12v that is a possible issue (small yay) a 2019 can have either a heat pump or heat tape depending on options. If the car is not plugged in AND it is below freezing I think the time limit still exists.. if I have been misinformed about how long heat tape takes to kill a main battery it could be longer than a week though. as I said all it takes is a light socket. The dealers in my area have extension cords.
Re: scolding: bite me. I know all that. I thought I was. I STILL am not sure I’m wrong. One of us is likely misinformed though.

 

[cornbinder89]

redacted

 

[Drew21]

Lucky for us, Leaf batteries aren't full of water so the freezing point of water is not relevant to our discussion. Higher up in these responses there are several folks, including myself, who have left their Leaf parked, unplugged, for days or weeks in below 0C/32F temperatures with no change in the charge percentage of the traction battery.

To expand on what someone said above, if it wasn't possible to park a Leaf (or any car, ICE or EV) for a week or two in winter conditions it would: 1) be common knowledge and 2) a death sentence for sales of the car in all but a tiny portion of the southern US.

If your Leaf loses battery charge in the conditions you have described there may be something wrong with it, but from the description the OP has given of his/her situation they should not have returned from their trip to find a dead Leaf.

 

[Bombastinator2]

I couldn't have said it better myself, this is why I avoid the FB Leaf Groups and Youtube Leaf Video Comments, other places because there is too much mis-information that makes my brain hurt.

There is some here no doubt. Either I was wrong about the tape thing, or the f vs c thing or both. Or if I was right the other person is wrong. Either way it’s a mess. If the battery doesn’t freeze till -4f(-20c) then it’s possible that the lead acid 12v froze but the lithums didn’t. -4f or lower is common enough in my area all winter (with occasional drops to -15 or even -30) that such a thing was ignored. The scales cross at -40. -40°f and -40°c are the same.

 

[cornbinder89]

According to the SERVICE MANUAL from NISSAN
" The heaters turn on at -4F (-20C) and off at +14F (-10C) both are approximate and not absolute"
All explained starting on page 25 of the EVB section of the service manual.
All is why I said near 0.
I did spec F for the other temps but didn't for the "near 0" I thought that would be understood, since all other reference to temp was in the Fahrenheit scale.
edit:
Those temps listed are at the cells themselves, from temp sensors in the pack itself, not outside temp.

 

[nlspace]

any ideas on how this would happen?

Occam's Razor--a weak 12V battery that couldn't supply the necessary current for the main contactors and relays and all the low voltage power supplies in all the ECUs and the big bank of capacitors for the brake master cylinder. The chemical reaction inside the 12V is extremely retarded by cold temperatures.

This is the quickest and easiest and least expen$ive thing to check and repair.

With a weak 12V the car will not go to Ready mode nor will it Charge the HV Pack.

 

[cornbinder89]

Occam's Razor--a weak 12V battery that couldn't supply the necessary current for the main contactors and relays and all the low voltage power supplies in all the ECUs and the big bank of capacitors for the brake master cylinder. The chemical reaction inside the 12V is extremely retarded by cold temperatures.

This is the quickest and easiest and least expen$ive thing to check and repair.

With a weak 12V the car will not go to Ready mode nor will it Charge the HV Pack.

Simply put, take a volt meter, put in on the 12 volt battery and read the voltage, then have someone else get in and try and turn the car on, If at anytime it drops much below 12 volts, that is an indication it is either discharged or weak. You can charge it an re check, or you can spend over $100 and replace it. Your choice, I know what mine would be.
Yes, a lead acid battery can fail, but my guess is less than 10% of those replaced were at fault.
I have the same (group 51) that is over 5 years old, It started my diesel tractor at -15F. If yours isn't that old, I find it very unlikely to be the problem.
I can test a battery in a few minutes, a new one cost $100, Even if it takes me 10 minutes, I am paying myself $600/hr. If it does need one, I know that it is the proved to be the problem.
If it goes to where the battery/ range comes on, it has enough juice to pull in the relays. If it comes out of park, and goes to neutral, it has enough power to run the park pawl motor. IF it then does not go into gear, it is locked out by DTC's.

 

[cornbinder89]

After some snafus with Nissan roadside assistance, I met a tow driver at the airport. After figuring out that the driver's door needs to be closed for the car to stay in neutral. we pushed it to where he could hook onto the front wheels.
took it to the dealership and the woman at the service desk asked if I'd tried charging the battery and said it's normal for the traction battery to discharge itself after sitting so long in the cold(69%=>0% in 7 days).

I'm wondering what happened when towed to the dealer, how did it work out and what did they find? It helps all on the site to know when odd problems are resolved or what was tried and didn't resolve them.
Yours was one of the three that has died in the last few weeks, not all the same problems, but the same leaving people in a lurch.

 

[Bombastinator2]

I'm wondering what happened when towed to the dealer, how did it work out and what did they find? It helps all on the site to know when odd problems are resolved or what was tried and didn't resolve them.
Yours was one of the three that has died in the last few weeks, not all the same problems, but the same leaving people in a lurch.

It’s normal for a lithium battery to do that if it’s worn enough anyway. Didn’t think yours was. Could be wrong though.

 

[cornbinder89]

It’s normal for a lithium battery to do that if it’s worn enough anyway. Didn’t think yours was. Could be wrong though.

It is neither normal or acceptable for a battery to lose 60% of charge in a week of sitting. Look at some of the other posts on this thread, 3-4 weeks of sitting and no loss.
A severely degraded battery will lose capacity to store power, it doesn't lose capacity to retain the power it still can store.
Not the problem in this case, he has plenty of capacity, but something discharged the battery.

 

[Bombastinator2]

It is neither normal or acceptable for a battery to lose 60% of charge in a week of sitting. Look at some of the other posts on this thread, 3-4 weeks of sitting and no loss.
A severely degraded battery will lose capacity to store power, it doesn't lose capacity to retain the power it still can store.
Not the problem in this case, he has plenty of capacity, but something discharged the battery.

I agree I would call it “not holding a charge” when I wear a NiMh battery enough that it starts doing that I recycle it. Thats only about 18 months of daily use though and these things have hundreds of cells generally.

 

[Bombastinator2]

It is neither normal or acceptable for a battery to lose 60% of charge in a week of sitting. Look at some of the other posts on this thread, 3-4 weeks of sitting and no loss.
A severely degraded battery will lose capacity to store power, it doesn't lose capacity to retain the power it still can store.
Not the problem in this case, he has plenty of capacity, but something discharged the battery.

Sort of. Lithium batteries will eventually do that if they’re worn enough. Which was what I am saying if it’s normal it’s not acceptable. And no one would have bought these. Cars for as long as they did which makes me think that is bs from the dealership.

 

[cornbinder89]

You are woefully misinformed on the Leaf traction battery, how they are and what happens when they degrade. I suggest doing some reading on the subject before telling someone that it is "normal" to lose 60% while sitting un used at the airport.
Don't guess, read and learn.

 

[Bombastinator2]

I am not informed much on the leaf main batter at all. That’s why I asked in another post I am NOT misinformed about NiMh cells though. I’ve been using them since they’ve been available. I wasn’t TALKING about leaf batteries. I was talking about NiMh 18650s

 

[Doanster1]

So we never got closure on this from OP @llopness ?? Inquiring minds want to know. My apologies if there was an update somewhere in the four pages of responses.

 

[cornbinder89]

He/she was on yesterday according to the site. May be they will read and update this thread.