2017 LEAF Diagnosed with bad VCM

Last year we bought a used 2017 leaf that we absolutely adored ...until yesterday. After unplugging it from a nightly charge, my partner discovered the dashboard lit up with parking brake errors. The car was started and we couldn't shift gears or shut it off.

The good: contacted Nissan roadside assistance and they had a tow truck out within the hour. Once at the dealership the over-the-counter diagnosis was that it was probably a bad 12v battery. An hour later, the diagnosis was a recall issue and a battery recharge. Total: under $10 I was pretty happy.

The bad: several hours later, a call from the dealership revealed it was a bad battery that needed replacing. Total now: $266 ($145 battery plus $121 labor). Less happy. :roll:

The ugly: the following day the dealer reported having the same issue that morning that we had had. They traced the problem to a bad VCM which is outside its warranty. New total: $1,400. :shock:

I asked how certain they were that this was the last thing they'd find and the service guy seemed sure (he sounded pretty sure the last few times, too). I asked how often they run into issues with the VCM and he said it was rare.

This is the first time in over 25 years that I've had an issue with a car that required a trip to any garage or dealership. It's also the most expensive repair I've needed in ~30 years. These days cars simply are so reliable that with reasonable maintenance (e.g., regular oil changes for gas cars) they can go 20 years or more without any major issues.

So my question to you kind folks: how often do you need to make repairs to your LEAF? Is my situation exceptional, or do these things happen more often than anyone would like to admit? How many of you have suffered a defective battery or VCM?

Many thanks in advance...!

How many miles? The VCM should be covered by the 5-year, 60,000-mile power train warranty if it truly is bad (not likely). Ask to see all of the DTC's and look for items with communication errors. A failing 12V battery can cause some modules to stop communicating and lock up other modules connected to the CAN bus. Things will not work properly unless all of the communication errors are cleared and all of the modules are able to communicate.

FWIW, I am on my third LEAF and they have all been very reliable. The Nissan OEM 12V batteries are typical OEM quality so they do fail. I got between 2 and 3 years of use from the original batteries in the 2011 and 2015 (which is better than average for OEM 12V car batteries in my climate). Even though I could have had at least one of them replaced under the 3-year warranty, I chose to purchase high-quality AGM deep cycle batteries for long term reliability and install them myself. I will purchase one for the 2019 as soon as there is an indication of weakness.

I'm glad to hear you've had such a good experience. I would like to think ours was an isolated issue that will be completely resolved with a new unit, but I remain a bit skeptical.

Ours has just under 20,000 miles on it, so far under a 5-year/60,000 mile warranty. We bought it used last year and honestly I didn't check on manufacturer's warranty. Having nearly bullet-proof reliable vehicles for the past ~25 years has made me complacent!

I will definitely investigate the warranty. There is a chance the service manager got his model years and customers mixed up.

i have seen peoples VCMs go bad before, but like Gerry said, check for yourself that it shouldn't be under warranty.

At the end of the day, I think if you made it 30 years with no major failures, then statistics has favored you and is averaging out, as you are due for some low probability failure, like this one

for what its worth the Leaf has been a super reliable car for me, with the exception of the 12V battery as most people find out eventually by getting stranded.

do you have LeafSpy? After replacing the 12v battery the first thing i would do is clear all codes, presumably the dealer has tried this, but we dont know that.

Marko

I wound up calling their customer satisfaction line. After several days I've now learned that they will cover the cost of the VCM, but not the 12v battery. So the cost will be $145 instead of $1,400. Big sigh of relief! :?

Evidently they still consider the issue to be covered by the 36-month/36,000 mile warranty rather than the 60 month/60,000 mile warranty. That seems odd to me, as the warranty clearly places the VCM under the longer warranty. However at this point I'm not complaining!

Overall I'd give them ~8/10 for their customer service. Pleasant people, just a bit of a roller-coaster ride.

I'm just hoping the current battery lasts a bit longer...

I am glad they are taking care of it. FWIW, the 12-volt battery is covered by the 3-year, 36,000-mile warranty, but I assume you are slightly beyond 3 years. I still suspect that the VCM was locked up due to CAN Bus communication errors and thoroughly clearing all of the errors related to the 12-volt battery failure would likely have fixed it (of course, a new VCM should also fix it unless there is another module still locked up). Good Luck and please report back when all is well.

On our 2013 we had to replace the 12 volt battery after about 4 years, and a CV joint at 5 1/2 years. Lots of salt and grime here in Chicago. That’s it, not bad.

Nothing yet on the 2019 Leaf...should say Leafs now.

We just picked it up from the dealership yesterday. It took an extra day because their technician saw strange errors when testing out the new VCM. Evidently he consulted with the previous lab tech / guru who had retired recently, then managed to get everything resolved. Not sure what they would have done if he hadn't been available.

Part of the work they performed was the battery plate recall NTB19055, so I wonder if that didn't cause or contribute to the problem. It was difficult to get any clear answers. I have a sneaking suspicion the service technicians don't understand these cars very well themselves; they may be relying on maintenance manuals to guide them through any diagnoses.

I'm still a bit nervous about how the car will hold up, but I'm sure my nerves will settle if nothing untoward happens in the next couple of months. Thanks for your feedback, everyone -- this forum sure has been a good resource!

Argh!! I spoke too soon. Went out this morning, unplugged the car, put the charging cord in the trunk and the car wouldn't stop beeping. I brought the fob out and saw the exact same issues we had before. At least this time it's not beeping constantly; I simply cannot turn the car off. Hopefully I can drive it to the dealership later when they open.

This sucks.

The battery plate recall is just some grounding/bonding plates and would not impact the function of the car. My guess is there was nothing wrong with the original VCM and the technicians have not found the real problem. It could be as simple as the replacement 12-volt battery is weak and/or ALL of the trouble codes were not properly cleared from ALL of the modules.

Since you had problems after charging, I suggest you ask the dealer to try charging the car for a few minutes (on Level 2, not DCQC) after they "fix" the problem to see if it will charge successfully on their EVSE before driving it home.

GerryAZ said:

The battery plate recall is just some grounding/bonding plates and would not impact the function of the car. My guess is there was nothing wrong with the original VCM and the technicians have not found the real problem. It could be as simple as the replacement 12-volt battery is weak and/or ALL of the trouble codes were not properly cleared from ALL of the modules.

Since you had problems after charging, I suggest you ask the dealer to try charging the car for a few minutes (on Level 2, not DCQC) after they "fix" the problem to see if it will charge successfully on their EVSE before driving it home.

Click to expand...

I agree. I'm concerned that this dealership may not have found the right problem. The additional explanation of it taking an extra day also points to that.

Once the problem is fixed, I expect your car to be quite reliable. Until then... not so much.

Since you had problems after charging, I suggest you ask the dealer to try charging the car for a few minutes (on Level 2, not DCQC) after they "fix" the problem to see if it will charge successfully on their EVSE before driving it home.

Click to expand...

Interesting you should say that -- fortunately I was able to drive the car to the dealership. The service manager asked if the problems occurred immediately after charging, which they had.

Both times, we found the charging lights off first thing in the morning, indicating a full charge. However when the car was turned on, it registered 84 miles the first time and 104 miles the second. Normally a full charge registers 120+ miles in summer temperatures.

Whenever they finally get it sorted, I'll see if I can find out what was the final cure.

@GerryAZ, you're a font of information! If you're ever in Colorado after the pandemic, I owe you a pint.

It's now been more than a month and still the problem hasn't been resolved. I've got a call in to the local dealership for a status update, but about ten days ago they called and said they're waiting to get approval from their regional service rep to do the work.

I called their national customer service line (the same folks who managed to get the VCM replaced under warranty) but they say they've got no influence with regional service reps.

I've no beef with any of the folks who have helped -- they've all been really nice -- but I'm appalled at the lack of support they seem to get from Nissan. I've got a few ideas of what I might try (e.g., calling the dealership manager directly) but I'll be interested to see if the folks here have any ideas.

Thanks for listening to me whine. :roll:

lefty said:

Whenever they finally get it sorted, I'll see if I can find out what was the final cure.

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One needs to remember that once a part is installed, whether that part resolved the problem or not, the part remains installed and the
customer is billed for it. That's unfortunate, but it's the typical troubleshooting and repair procedure usually taken by most dealers and
independents. In the end it may result in only have been a bad wiring connection that took only 10 minutes to repair, but the invoice
indicated $3000 in parts. One would never know!

Finally I heard back from the dealership. The regional service rep said that Nissan will not pay for this repair ($500 this time). The service manager at our dealership was sympathetic, but seems impotent to do anything. As far as I can tell, this should be covered under warranty, but between the service manager and Nissan consumer affairs, it seems I've exhausted my options. Now that it's taken six weeks (and another full week before the dealership receives the part) the car is outside its 3-year warranty.

I'm pretty pissed off about it. What good are warranties if Nissan will only honor them sometimes? At $500, it's not going to be worth it for me to get a lawyer involved. And now that all this B.S. is on the service record, we'll never get a good price for the car if we sell it or trade it in.

All that's left for us is to hope against hope that this repair will be the last. I'm not overly optimistic.

lefty said:

Finally I heard back from the dealership. The regional service rep said that Nissan will not pay for this repair ($500 this time). The service manager at our dealership was sympathetic, but seems impotent to do anything. As far as I can tell, this should be covered under warranty, but between the service manager and Nissan consumer affairs, it seems I've exhausted my options. Now that it's taken six weeks (and another full week before the dealership receives the part) the car is outside its 3-year warranty.

I'm pretty pissed off about it. What good are warranties if Nissan will only honor them sometimes? At $500, it's not going to be worth it for me to get a lawyer involved. And now that all this B.S. is on the service record, we'll never get a good price for the car if we sell it or trade it in.

All that's left for us is to hope against hope that this repair will be the last. I'm not overly optimistic.

Click to expand...

I am not a lawyer, but a problem that occurred and was not resolved before the end of the warranty is still covered under a warranty.

WTF? If it's really the VCM, https://www.nissanusa.com/content/dam/Nissan/us/manuals-and-guides/leaf/2017/2017-Nissan-LEAF-warranty-booklet.pdf on page 7 says that's covered for 5 years/60K.

Agreed. OP should go to the dealership and call the Nissan EV help line, with the warranty pamplet, and ask them under what condition they're not covering the repair.

They said they had traced the problem to the IPDM (intelligent power distribution module), which I don't see listed in the warranty. I noticed another thread in this forum https://mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?t=27742#p547738 related to the IPDM, so this isn't an isolated issue. According to the service manager, possibly the IPDM failed, causing the VCM to fail as well. Or possibly it was the other way around.

We brought the LEAF home last week and it's been running just fine so far.