Heating Coil Not Working

[midelectric]

Finally got my 2012 back last night after nearly 4 weeks in the shop. I put more miles on their loaner Leaf than I had put on mine. Heater works great now. Hopefully everyone with the same issue will be back on the road soon.

 

[ihatethisplace]

Just got back from the dealership. Nissan bought my LEAF back under California's Lemon Law because of the heater. Was in the shop for 36 days. Now I'm free.

It really is completely unacceptable for a car that is only a few months old to have such a major failure, and even worse for the manufacturer to take so long to repair the car when they're still making and selling new ones.

 

[Stoaty]

Just got back from the dealership. Nissan bought my LEAF back under California's Lemon Law because of the heater. Was in the shop for 36 days. Now I'm free.

It really is completely unacceptable for a car that is only a few months old to have such a major failure, and even worse for the manufacturer to take so long to repair the car when they're still making and selling new ones.

Glad to hear it. Certainly goes under the heading, "What were they thinking?"

PS What vehicle is going to replace the Leaf?

 

[timr36]

I'm very disappointed that I now find myself in this situation. My Leaf is also in the shop because the heater stopped working. This is after just getting the car back from having the charger replaced. And that is just after having the NAV system replaced. The tech at the dealership has done a great job fixing problems as they occur, but no car should have this many problems in the first 8000 miles. I think I need to stop reading about people's issues on the problems forum, because I don't want to know what my next problem is going to be, lol. I really like driving the car, and I'm trying to be patient. I'm just trying to imagine ever getting this car to 40,000 miles.

 

[Ingineer]

Unfortunately the OBC (Charger) and the PTC Heater are known problem components from 3rd party suppliers. Nissan has stopped using the supplier for the OBC for 2013, so they presumably have fixed these issues.

Even though it's a "common" problem, it's still relatively rare. I haven't had any problems with my 2011.

-Phil

 

[ihatethisplace]

Just got back from the dealership. Nissan bought my LEAF back under California's Lemon Law because of the heater. Was in the shop for 36 days. Now I'm free.

It really is completely unacceptable for a car that is only a few months old to have such a major failure, and even worse for the manufacturer to take so long to repair the car when they're still making and selling new ones.

Glad to hear it. Certainly goes under the heading, "What were they thinking?"

PS What vehicle is going to replace the Leaf?

Replaced it with a Prius. Had a Prius in the past. Traded it in a few years ago with over 320,000 miles on it and it never required any maintenance other than fluids, brakes, and tires.

I loved how much money I saved on gas in the LEAF. But the freedom with the Prius is amazing. I had forgotten how nice it is to be able to just get in the car and drive. I live in southern California and just recently took a trip to Vegas. $40 to fill up. Drove there and back on a single tank with an estimated 150 miles worth of fuel remaining.

I'll give EVs a shot again in the future. When something with the range of the Tesla Model S has a significantly lower price tag and something like Tesla's "Superchargers" or Level 4 chargers are more abundant. If I can make it from LA to Vegas with a single 30-60 minute stop around Barstow, then I'd be happy.

Speaking of the LEAF though, I used to see a handful of other LEAFs driving around town. But since around the time the heater died in my LEAF, I haven't seen any of them. Not a single one. I was told by the person buying back my LEAF that he had bought back several for the same issue or battery issues. Nissan recently announced they sold 50,000. Makes me wonder if they're not counting the ones they repurchased.

 

[cgaydos]

This is why I love this forum ... after I post this I'll do a donation because it is saving me many times that much in time.

Our 2012 leaf didn't heat for the first time today. Garage is about 40F (outside was 14F this morning) and I usually expect the Leaf to take 5 minutes to start heating so my first clue wasn't the cold - it was that the climate control dial showed zero watts. As we drove on it soon became apparent no heat was coming out at all. After dropping my son off I stopped by Woodmen Nissan and they couldn't find it after 2 hours (and apparently no Nissan techies available on phone on the weekend) so I told them I needed to get home but would drop it off at a later date.

Then I check this forum and find this thread. Thanks! - I called the dealer, told them about it, and now I won't need to drop it off until they've got the part(s). The car still works and we can get by without the heater except on the few remaining days of extreme cold this Spring.

One part of the early adopter nature of the Leafs is that the dealer techs are learning too. The guys at Woodmen couldn't be nicer or more helpful, but they have limited experience with the car as not many have been sold in Colorado Springs.

For those who are upset about the number of problems they've had - I'm sympathetic, but I had even worse quality experiences with the three American cars I bought 1994-2001 in a misguided spate of patriotism. I do think 3-6 weeks to find a problem like this is over the top and suggests that Nissan should have set up a protocol with Leaf techs to call in experts after X hours or a day or so when they are stuck. However, the problem areas we are seeing - battery, carwings, electric heater - are all in components that are being deployed for the first time with the Leaf so some troubles should be expected by early adopters.

 

[cgaydos]

Well, I was wrong with the last post - I got a call back and they still wanted to see the car before agreeing it was the PTC. After 6 hours of disassembling and tests they confirmed it was the PTC. As this is Good Friday they can't order the part until Monday and we won't know how long it will take. They didn't want to reassemble it in case the part comes soon so they gave us a loaner Rogue.

The guy was professional and helpful, but I have to wonder if one challenge Nissan has is that some of the field techs don't really like working on these cars. I mean, let's face it, if you went into auto mechanics at the vo-tech instead of electronics (and yes, I attended a year of electronics at my vo-tech way back when and knew a lot of guys in the auto mechanics classes) you probably are more interested in the inner workings of ICEs than of electronics.

 

[mwalsh]

^ I don't know about that. As a LEAF tech, you've been singled out for special training. Maybe that means you get a bit more cash in your paycheck (can't say for sure). You don't get anywhere near as grimy when working on the car, and you don't get to be smelling funky from gasoline and other fluids (and there is less exposure to known carcinogens). I personally think it would be a pretty choice gig. Plus, these days the kids really aren't learning how to tear down and rebuild components - they're learning how to diagnose issues via laptop and change components that test bad for new ones (or rebuilt).

 

[RegGuheert]

Well, I was wrong with the last post - I got a call back and they still wanted to see the car before agreeing it was the PTC. After 6 hours of disassembling and tests they confirmed it was the PTC.

To me, there is something seriously wrong with Nissan's thinking with this issue. Do they REALLY want to buy back EVERY LEAF that has a broken heater?? If not, why tear it apart knowing that you might not be able to get the part for a month or so? They have a high failure rate on this part, by now they should understand the failure mode and have a high confidence of the diagnosis just from the symptoms.

In this case they had a customer willing to drive without heat until they could get the part in, but instead they take the car apart and get him a loaner. That drives customer satisfaction...the wrong way! :roll:

 

[ksnogas2112]

Well, I was wrong with the last post - I got a call back and they still wanted to see the car before agreeing it was the PTC. After 6 hours of disassembling and tests they confirmed it was the PTC.

To me, there is something seriously wrong with Nissan's thinking with this issue. Do they REALLY want to buy back EVERY LEAF that has a broken heater?? If not, why tear it apart knowing that you might not be able to get the part for a month or so? They have a high failure rate on this part, by now they should understand the failure mode and have a high confidence of the diagnosis just from the symptoms.

In this case they had a customer willing to drive without heat until they could get the part in, but instead they take the car apart and get him a loaner. That drives customer satisfaction...the wrong way! :roll:

Just devil's advocate Reg, we see the trend here which is national. However, would each individual dealer see the same trend. I get the desire to see it proven on their part but I completely disagree with the "not assembling it back" IN CASE they get it early. That part is total bologna.

 

[cgaydos]

So got the Red Leaf back Friday, a week after I brought it in, with the heater working and the car vacuumed out and washed and a charge to 100% (I'd asked for 80%, but the shop wasn't clear how to do that - admittedly it's not intuitive).

My impression is that these repairs take a very long time because so much has to be disassembled to get to the part. I was told that they ordered the part on Monday and it was due Wednesday. On Wednesday I was told another part was found bad, ordered, and would be there Thursday. On Thursday I was told morning Friday, and it was ready at 11 am.

Interestingly, per Carwings they ran the car for 2.2 miles on Tuesday. Per their story, they wouldn't have been able to do this because the car could not be started due to disassembly until Wednesday. I'm wondering if they actually got the part on Tuesday, tested and confirmed it was working, and needed the extra time to reassemble and/or clean out the car for something. Or maybe Carwings is wrong, though I haven't seen that before (missing data, yes, wrong date, no).

Oh well, part of being an early adopter. I understand that in 2013 they've replaced the heater with a more efficient (and hopefully more reliable) heat pump.

 

[RegGuheert]

Thanks for the update. I'm glad to hear you got your LEAF back in a week rather than a month.

It sounds like they may have misdiagnosed, even after taking the car apart.

FWIW, I've never seen CarWings insert trips that weren't there, either.

 

[lkkms2]

Update, while enroute to the dealership last night, the heater started to warm up while on Automatice climate control. hmmmmm Doesn't work when I manually turn the heat on high? That's wierd, or common?

Hmm, sometimes I feel that way too. I am going to test again. I believe it does heat up quicker if in "D" rather than "Eco". My morning preheat works okay as long as I give it 3-5 minutes to get going.

 

[cgaydos]

Update, while enroute to the dealership last night, the heater started to warm up while on Automatice climate control. hmmmmm Doesn't work when I manually turn the heat on high? That's wierd, or common?

Hmm, sometimes I feel that way too. I am going to test again. I believe it does heat up quicker if in "D" rather than "Eco". My morning preheat works okay as long as I give it 3-5 minutes to get going.

That's correct. One of the effects of Eco mode is to reduce the power given to the climate control system.

 

[LeafLeafLeaf]

Nissan is buying back mine (was in the shop for 50+ days)

 

[Bigboler]

I had an interesting go around with the heater; I picked up my new 2012 Leaf a month ago and noticed the heat wasn't working on the way home. So back to the dealer the next day, they determined that the circulating pump for the heater was not working. So they replaced it, Nissan told them to take the DC to DC converter out and test it, it passed but Nissan said replace it anyways. While apparently when you replace the DC to DC converter you also replace the A/C compressor, so the tech did all that and it locked up the car. So next thing was take the battery apart and replace a “junction module” in the battery pack, I get the impression they are what you hear closing when you start the car, like a fuse. So after two weeks in the shop all is good, the car has been fine since.

 

[EatsShootsandLeafs]

Even when it's working, it only kind of "works", not the hottest car on the planet

 

[dgpcolorado]

Even when it's working, it only kind of "works", not the hottest car on the planet

While it is true that the LEAF doesn't have enormous amounts of waste heat to work with like an ICE car, the LEAF heater works fine (assuming one doesn't have a defective one as reported in this thread). It does suck down the kWh unless one is preheating while plugged-in. The heater takes a few minutes to warm up* when starting cold and also is reduced in output when using the Eco setting, which may be why some people are under the mistaken impression that it doesn't work well.

If one preheats, not only is the car warmed up the heater bottle is also, which makes maintaining the heat easy. I've used the heater in 0ºF weather and it heats the car quite well.


* The heat pump in the 2013 SV/SL models is reported to heat quickly in moderately cold temperatures, for obvious reasons.

 

[emanresu]

It's the winter of 2013- 2014 now and I turned on my heater for the first time since buying my 2012 used. As others have experienced- It does not work. At all. This seems crazy- Has this problem been figured out by Nissan? I live in a small town, and I'm concerned that these local guys will spend an eternity trying to figure this out. Beyond that, is there any indication this won't happen again after the warranty is out?