Leaf dead - no power of any kind

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cgaydos

Well-known member
Joined
Mar 7, 2013
Messages
653
Location
Monument, Colorado
Hi folks,

Been many years since I posted here. I have a 2011 Leaf that sat idle for a few weeks and the 12V battery ran down. I jumped it successfully but the security light on the dashboard stayed on after starting. Drove it about 5 miles to give the 12V battery time to charge then went back into the garage to charge it. Oddly, that 5 mile charge caused 4 of the battery bars to drop. This is a severely degraded original battery, but I've never seen a discharge rate anywhere close.

Well, I plug in but it won't charge. I try to start it again and I get a dashboard screen but it won't charge and now NONE of the battery bars show. The 12V battery is clearly near full charge (I get all the usual beeps and full lights and everything) but the car won't start nor will it accept the charge.

The three blue lights on the dashboard are all on, very dim, and flicking at an extremely rapid rate.

Come back an hour later and now the 12V battery is again drained but it won't start even with a cable jump. And of course it now won't charge.

Questions:
1) Any idea what happened here?
2) Of course the electric brake was set on and the gear in Park. I don't suppose anyone has actually dealt with the procedures to unset these? I found a Leaf dismantling manual on-line and there is a manual way to disable the Parking break but changing gear assumes you can get some kind of electricity running in the vehicle.

Thanks for any help.
 
The 12V battery is clearly near full charge (I get all the usual beeps and full lights and everything) but the car won't start nor will it accept the charge.

I think that this is incorrect, and a near-dead 12 volt battery is still the problem. If the accessory battery isn't too damaged to accept a full charge, then that is what it needs - with an external charger. The early Leafs often do a poor job of charging the accessory battery, and I think that the mistake that you made was to not fully charge it with an external charger either before or while the main battery was charging.

There is a procedure for releasing the electric parking brake, but I don't know it. I'm sure someone here will.
 
LeftieBiker said:
The 12V battery is clearly near full charge (I get all the usual beeps and full lights and everything) but the car won't start nor will it accept the charge.

I think that this is incorrect, and a near-dead 12 volt battery is still the problem. If the accessory battery isn't too damaged to accept a full charge, then that is what it needs - with an external charger. The early Leafs often do a poor job of charging the accessory battery, and I think that the mistake that you made was to not fully charge it with an external charger either before or while the main battery was charging.

There is a procedure for releasing the electric parking brake, but I don't know it. I'm sure someone here will.

Update. It appears to be working now. My son - who since my last post years ago has earned a BS and an MS EE - took a look at it and we were able to jump it to start and did all kinds of testing, including looking at the battery with the Spy app. Nothing looks wrong except the security warning light stays one. It was able to start again after turning off, no problem. It accepts a charge. 12V battery is fully charged. I dunno. Wondering if the Leaf has some kind of all-systems-shut-down protocol that it goes for for a period of time.

I did find a LEAF dismantling manual on-line from Nissan and it described the procedure for turning off the electric brake manually, but getting it out of park requires getting some power to the car. So for now we're putting it in Neutral but with the brake on before turning it off.
 
The actions you see are indicative of a very weak 12V battery. The security system will activate when 12V power becomes available after being lost (jump starting after deep discharge, for example). If the 12V battery sat discharged for a period of time, it is likely ruined and taking just enough charge to activate some of the 12V systems on the car. You may need to use Leaf Spy Pro to clear DTC's (diagnostic trouble codes) after making sure you have a reliable 12V battery.
 
It should be noted that a damaged 12 volt battery can appear to be ok when recharged, and even to seem fully charged, more or less. Often, though, the voltage collapses under real load, and the battery's actual remaining capacity is tiny. If you can swap in a healthy, fully charged 12 volt battery, see what happens. Or if the battery is more than 2 years old, just replace it, fully charging the new battery before or after installation with an external charger.
 
LeftieBiker said:
It should be noted that a damaged 12 volt battery can appear to be ok when recharged, and even to seem fully charged, more or less. Often, though, the voltage collapses under real load, and the battery's actual remaining capacity is tiny. If you can swap in a healthy, fully charged 12 volt battery, see what happens. Or if the battery is more than 2 years old, just replace it, fully charging the new battery before or after installation with an external charger.
Totally agree with this :) The only way to really check the voltage of a battery is under load, as Leafie said it might read just fine with a voltmeter under no load but as soon as you give it a load, it collapses.
 
GerryAZ said:
The actions you see are indicative of a very weak 12V battery. The security system will activate when 12V power becomes available after being lost (jump starting after deep discharge, for example). If the 12V battery sat discharged for a period of time, it is likely ruined and taking just enough charge to activate some of the 12V systems on the car. You may need to use Leaf Spy Pro to clear DTC's (diagnostic trouble codes) after making sure you have a reliable 12V battery.

Thanks for the reply. My son also thinks the battery is bad. We'll do the DTC clearing as well after we replace it.

Interestingly, today everything looks good..... but understand that this could change quickly.
 
I've had a couple fits of (more than usual) laziness this past month, and instead of putting the 12v on an external charger, I just left the car 'on' for about an hour.
 
Is the 12V battery the original? If you are dealing with a 10 year old battery then there's your problem. Just replace the darn thing already. Don't need a degree to know that.
 
After reading how infrequently the Leaf pushes power to the 12 volt battery, I’ve adopted a rule to connect a 10 amp charger to the battery as the Leaf is connected to our Chargepoint home unit. I have been surprised at how long it takes for the charger to top off the battery. Doesn’t seem the software looks at the 12 volt as being a priority. Nissan should have included a trickle charge connector for the 12 volt battery. Have to open the hood, then the connector “mini-hood” due to interference. I keep a trickle charger on my bike via a connector that attaches to the battery and sticks out from the seat. Going to see if Battery Tender makes a connector with a long cable that would be usable next to the main port.
 
Many of us have used an SAE connector hardwired to the 12 volt battery and negative ground, run through a hole in the plastic panel by the QC port, terminating in the charge port compartment. That makes it easy to connect both cables at once.
 
knightmb...since the Leaf doesn’t use the 12v battery to “crank”, what lithium ion, lithium iron phosphate battery would be a candidate to replace a 2018 SV’s 12v?
 
donaldus said:
knightmb...since the Leaf doesn’t use the 12v battery to “crank”, what lithium ion, lithium iron phosphate battery would be a candidate to replace a 2018 SV’s 12v?

Unless you are having a problem with your 12V supply, why change to a much more expensive lithium battery right now? Low voltage issues occur mostly with older LEAFs, it's unlikely that a 2018 like yours would have a worn out 12v lead acid battery already.
 
donaldus said:
knightmb...since the Leaf doesn’t use the 12v battery to “crank”, what lithium ion, lithium iron phosphate battery would be a candidate to replace a 2018 SV’s 12v?

A 12 volt AGM battery would work about as well, for half the cost or less.
 
donaldus said:
knightmb...since the Leaf doesn’t use the 12v battery to “crank”, what lithium ion, lithium iron phosphate battery would be a candidate to replace a 2018 SV’s 12v?

This is what I used in mine: https://www.amazon.com/StarkPower-SP-12V20-EP-Capacity-Lithium-Ion-Storage/dp/B009GMQC14/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_pdt_img_top?ie=UTF8

I choose it because it had a BMS and it was a drop in replacement for a Lead. The difference was, it was only 20AH and the Lead was *suppose* to be 30AH-ish I believe, don't remember exactly. The battery was physical smaller, lighter, kind of an unknown for me at the time, and expensive. It was $250 back in 2015, today they are half the price or less for the same type of battery. It wasn't a "cranking" battery, it was a long term storage battery, so it seemed perfect for the Leaf. Last I remember; only takes 200 watts of power to turn on Leaf for a second, might be different on the 2020, but still seems to work.
 
alozzy said:
Unless you are having a problem with your 12V supply, why change to a much more expensive lithium battery right now? Low voltage issues occur mostly with older LEAFs, it's unlikely that a 2018 like yours would have a worn out 12v lead acid battery already.

It might be fixed in the Gen 2 models, but after having the reliable Lithium all those years and all the single digit temperatures it has worked through, why fix what isn't broken? :D
It's cleaner, no acid, smaller, lighter, etc. I leave my Bluetooth dongle plugged in 24/7/365 and never had a depleted battery in any cold morning. It has worked so well that I've changed most of my friends and relatives with Gen 1 to this battery (or one like it) if they wanted to front the cost and not worry about the Lead they have dying in a few years on a cold morning.
 
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