Sudden Turtle Mode in Very Cold Weather

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BrockWI said:
Yes, if ours did that at 4 bars we would really be in trouble, ours will do that with 0 or 1 bar of temp.

Yeah, it's a major problem here even in a mild winter. When we can't drive on the highway slightly uphill with a reasonable battery temp and high SoC, I'd say the car is failing to perform normally and reasonably. Around here, we simply have to be able to drive on the highway uphill and in cold temps. I can't imagine how bad it will be when we get a true cold snap. I'm shocked that the car can malfunction to this extent, under normal operating conditions, and not generate any type of fault codes or any indication to the service techs that there is a major problem.
 
Has anyone had this problem fixed? I have been having this issue all winter and actually had the car totally shut down and come up with "No Power, Stop Safely" and left us stranded on the highway. I have had it at the dealer twice now and they can't reproduce the issue and don't have any path forward to actually fix it. I have videos of it happening several times and also of the last time that it actually shut off since my wife was driving then. Now that it's warming up, it will be even harder to convince them there is an issue but I was hoping someone has had this issue and solved it so I can at least suggest to them what to do.
 
So my issue is getting worse. My car is now going into turtle mode and power limited mode at high SoC (50-70%) and with a warm battery (5-6 temp bars). Previously, it was only doing this when the battery was 4 temp bars or less and a SoC of 50% or less. It's only doing this on the highway and uphill, but I turtles every time I drive up Parley's Canyon on I80 East from Salt Lake to Park City, UT. The drive climbs from around 4500ft ASL to 7000ft ASL in about 15 miles. If the battery is colder and a lower SoC, it will turtle on a slight uphill at highway speeds. If it is warmer and a higher SoC, it takes a steeper hill to Turtle. It has yet to set a DTC of any kind related to the drive system, despite my best efforts. I would have been content driving it as is through the warm weather and waiting for another SoH bar to drop (from 9 to 8) but it doesn't look like we're going to be able to do that now that it's happening every time on that drive, even with a warm battery.

My local Nissan Tech plugged in the Nissan Data logger to the OBD2 on three separate occasions and has me drive the car around for a few days trying to catch the data when the car turtles. I've had the car turtle multiple times with the Nissan Data Logger plugged in. The Nissan engineers have requested the data from the tech, to diagnose the problem. The Tech says they're mostly looking for cell deviation. He downloads the data and sends it to the Nissan Engineers. So far they've only come back and asked for more data, having not seen what they're claiming to look for yet.

One of the other four 30Kw leafs the tech is dealing with was turtling in a similar manner at the same point on 80 East up Parley's Canyon. They were able to see the cell voltage deviation on the logger and tried replacing the weak cells. The SoH of that car was also at 9 bars. Replacing the weak cells only made it worse according to the tech, apparently because the voltage deviation was high between the new cells they replaced and the existing with the new cells being higher. So, they ultimately replaced the entire pack with a 40kW.

I've been very happy with the effort our local Nissan Service department has put into trying to resolve this problem. They've definitely been going to bat for us and fighting the resistance from Nissan corporate.

The other thing I noticed today is that the battery temp is climbing faster than what I'd expect (or at least what I remember from before) when driving up hill on the highway. Today I started the drive at 4 temp bars and it climbed to 8 bars by the time I got the the top of the canyon. It was 44F ambient when I left and 40F by the time I got to the top of the canyon. Previously I've only seen 8 temp bars in the summer months or on the rare occasion we've had to Level 3 charge for a while when the battery was already a little warm.

Our tech wants us to drive the car for about a week with the data logger plugged in to catch as much turtle data as possible. His plan is to bombard the Nissan engineers with data. If they don't have a resolution after the engineers review the data, they're' going to elevate the issue to hopefully replace the battery. We've been dealing with this issue since November and there's been a considerable amount of time invested into resolving it. At this point I suspect when you factor in the value of everyones time and loaner cars, Nissan would have some out ahead if they just replaced the battery to begin with.

Our tech mentioned that the last two 40kW batteries he ordered took 2 months to get in. I jokingly (but not really) asked him if he could just order the battery now and by the time it comes in we'd loose another SoH bar. He said it's a huge pain to order a battery from Nissan and they don't list them in their parts system. Apparently there's an involved process and paperwork for a dealer to get a battery from Nissan. Nissan has tight controls on the distribution of the batteries.

We'll see what happens. Hopefully they catch something this time on the data logger. I'll update again when I have more info.
 
dougsoxman said:
Has anyone had this problem fixed? I have been having this issue all winter and actually had the car totally shut down and come up with "No Power, Stop Safely" and left us stranded on the highway. I have had it at the dealer twice now and they can't reproduce the issue and don't have any path forward to actually fix it. I have videos of it happening several times and also of the last time that it actually shut off since my wife was driving then. Now that it's warming up, it will be even harder to convince them there is an issue but I was hoping someone has had this issue and solved it so I can at least suggest to them what to do.

Sorry to hear you're in the same boat! Is your car a 30Kw? How many SoH bars do you have? The silver lining for me is that we're going to get a 40Kw battery under warranty one way or another. It's just been a massive pain in the ass this winter and looks like it will continue to be so until the battery is replaced.
 
Wow that really stinks, I can't imagine having to go up a mountain in mine.
My 17 did the same thing today, 4 temp bars and it was 45F outside and I started with a full charge so I thought I would be OK.
I was driving on flat highway at about 75 with a good headwind and sure enough turtle time.
A 20 mile drive used up %50 of the battery after the cells stabilized.
The battery is at %69.5 health now and I can only really trust it do my daily commute to work.
I've been to the dealer and no codes= clean bill of health, they did offer to buy it LOL.
 
Nissan finally got the data they were looking for and approved a new 40kW battery for our car. The tech had some trouble downloading the data. The Toughbooks they are using are laughably antiquated and there seem to be frequent updates from Nissan for the diagnostic software as well as the updates for the data logger. We lost a bunch of data because Nissan released updates between when we plugged in the data logger to when the tech went to download the data. The data logger wouldn't communicate with the laptop until it they were both updated and the update on the data logger wiped out the data from my turtle drives. So if you need to go this route with a Nissan service tech, make sure you mention diagnostic software updates on their hardware.

So my Tech went for a drive with me so he could watch the voltage readings real time and make sure it was recording. The car went into limited power when going uphill on the highway but it did not turtle or give a limited power warning. However, we could clearly feel it loosing power. When the Tech looked at the data he saw some voltage deviations that were very close to 1mV. The crazy thing is that this instance, with the Tech riding along, was a very minor "reduced power" incident, when compared to the other instances. So with the major malfunctions with the battery, over the course of the winter, the cell deviation had to be substantially greater than this instance. Certainly well over 1mV. Yet we never saw a DTC over dozens of occurrences of substantial sudden SoC drops and turtles. How a car can malfunction so severely, fail to perform basic functions and be a real safety concern and not have any diagnostic information is quite disturbing to me. In the end, the Tech sent that data to Nissan and called them. He was able to get them to authorize a new battery. Can't say enough good stuff about our local service department in dealing with our case. They really went to bat for us.

Nissan is saying it will take 2-3 months for the new 40kW battery to show up at our dealership, which was expected. It's good this is being dealt with now, because we wouldn't have made it through next winter with the old battery.
 
I've been reading these stories of turtling LEAFs through the years.

I cannot prove my suspicion, but I am reasonably confident in saying that the LEAF DTC algorithm is designed to pick up one or two bad cells in an otherwise good pack of cells. When an even larger number of cells are markedly degraded, Nissan's interpretation is the that the pack has naturally aged and it is not a warranty issue.

I disagree -- I think those cases should be covered under the manufacturing defect warranty if still eligible by miles/time. The first thing to do to change Nissan's stance is to have every affected owner write up a safety complaint to the NHTSA. And getting news publicity would I think be pretty effective. Nissan does not want the LEAF smeared leading up to the Ariya going on sale.
 
SageBrush said:
I've been reading these stories of turtling LEAFs through the years.

I cannot prove my suspicion, but I am reasonably confident in saying that the LEAF DTC algorithm is designed to pick up one or two bad cells in an otherwise good pack of cells. When an even larger number of cells are markedly degraded, Nissan's interpretation is the that the pack has naturally aged and it is not a warranty issue.

I disagree -- I think those cases should be covered under the manufacturing defect warranty if still eligible by miles/time. The first thing to do to change Nissan's stance is to have every affected owner write up a safety complaint to the NHTSA. And getting news publicity would I think be pretty effective. Nissan does not want the LEAF smeared leading up to the Ariya going on sale.

I think you could be right. I also suspect when Nissan rolled out the BMS update, they made it more difficult for DTCs related to the battery to be set. Clearly the diagnostic systems for DTCs is woefully insufficient to give an indication of real world battery problems, which prevent the vehicle from performing basic functionality and from becoming a safety issue. I agree that these problems should be raised to the NHTSA. If this were any IC vehicle that would habitually loose significant power while on the highway, there would be recalls.

Technically, Nissan is honoring the warranty for me. However, it has taken 6 months, countless visits to the dealership, and dozens of test drives trying to log battery data to get there. This has been a tremendous source of frustration for both me and our local Techs. The dealerships are simply not given the tools they need to take care of these problems for owners. It's actually quite appalling to see what they have to work with. This is probably by design. In addition to all this, you need to have a dealer service department nearby that will take the time and effort to go through this arduous process. From reading other posts on this forum, it seems like finding a good service department is one of the major hurdles. I consider myself very fortunate to have a good service team. The other thing that really helps in getting the data is a big long uphill highway and cold temps. We may not have gotten the data we needed without a highway that will turtle the car nearly every time. I could have easily been S.O.L., waiting for another SOH bar to drop and unable to use the car for what we need.

Given the lack of technical support Nissan has provided for Leaf, I would never buy a Ariya nor any other Nissan for that matter.
 
LeftieBiker said:
First, run LeafSpy Pro on the car. If it shows weak cells, have the dealer run a CVLI test on the car. Use the videos to convince them to do that.

I should also mention that the CVLI test showed no problems in my case. The tech said the test likely doesn't replicate the same circumstances that cause my problem. I took several videos of the sudden SOC drop and turtling and these went along way in getting our service department to take action.
 
SLC17Leaf said:
Given the lack of technical support Nissan has provided for Leaf, I would never buy a Ariya nor any other Nissan for that matter.

I actually do not doubt doubt Nissan technical expertise at a certain corporate level. But Nissan is run by nickel and dime counters, and they have decided that they make more money by stone-walling and screwing customers. In the old days Nissan would screw customers if the letter of the warranty allowed it. Now they play loosely with the warranty language to meet financial targets.

Our 2013 LEAF has actually treated us quite well, but I'm done with Nissan. I know that I just got lucky. Between absolutely scummy Nissan, and incompetent but outrageously priced dealerships, Nissan ownership is like playing a game of Russian Roulette with the Mafia.
 
I will be majorly disappointed if my car makes it to next winter with 9 bars still. Luckily the SOH dropped nearly 1% even in the cooler spring months at least according to Leaf Spy., 68.5% last time I checked. And I've tried, no issues with the warmer weather and turtling.
 
Yes, at least the 2019 SL Plus has power limited (Turtle) mode. The first low battery warning happens at 6% SOC on the dash display (remaining miles flashing); the very low battery warning happens at 2% SOC on the dash display when the remaining miles display goes to flashing ---; the third warning (which I call extremely low battery warning happens when the SOC display goes to flashing ---%. There is still some capacity at that point (remaining useable range varies, but maybe 5 miles before Turtle mode if battery cells are well balanced). I have driven over 20 miles after the first low battery warning on numerous occasions.
 
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