knightmb
Well-known member
Yeah, there is a LeafSpy for the iPhone as far as I know, you should be able to search it out in the apple store.Redwomack said:Thank you folks for helpful details on how the 12 volt is integrated into the Leaf's operation. I'm glad this forum is here. Otherwise owners who are interested in how their cars work wouldn't have much recourse. I will indeed climb the ladder with this local dealership if they don't put a new 12 volt in today. I think it would be useful to contact Nissan operations and register dissatisfaction with failure to correct a problem that triggers liability if a runaway Leaf crashes into something or someone. Complete negligence on their part. Were it not under warranty I, like many, would have replaced the bad battery with a good one right away.
Was looking at Leafy Spy app. It looks good. It appears to be designed to run on Android devices. I have an iPhone. There may be an Android app that would run Leaf Spy on an iPhone. Otherwise have to buy an Android, right? You would be able to monitor the voltage on the 12 volt as well as the lithium. If the the Leaf only needs 10.5 to operate--because I dd drive it to the dealership this morning to drop it off--then there should only be a 10.5 volt battery in the car--according to the reasoning of the service advisor. Anybody running Leaf Spy on iPhone?
The Leaf only needs power to turn on the 400v pack, then the 400v pack provides 12 volt power (on top of driving, etc.). Think of the 12 volt as kind of a standby battery for the computer. If the voltage gets too low, even if it can turn on the bigger battery, the computer is not getting all the power it needs to run properly, so wonky things can happen. So even if the battery is sitting at 10.5 volts, as soon as you switch on the Leaf, it should jump up to +14 volts for the whole system (the power is now coming from the big battery). When you turn off the Leaf and disengage the big battery, the voltage drops back down to whatever the battery is at, now in standby. I don't know if the low voltage will trip any codes to later look at, some others here might have to chime in about that.
The dealer might be just checking the car for codes and maybe the voltage isn't low enough to trip anything *yet*. But you've already physically tested the battery and one bad cell is bad for the whole battery. That bad cell is basically an inline heater due to the high resistance and it brings down the whole battery voltage and probably anything else trying to push power through it. So while the battery might not have a nuclear meltdown (they are engineered to be safe), it might be enough of a problem to interfere with the power levels on your 12 volt system to run the vehicle properly. The easiest test would be to simply replace the bad battery and see if all the problems go away. Otherwise, we might all be wrong and the problem is completely different?If there is a bad 12 volt or one with a bad cell as this one has--does the system set a DTC? I learned from this forum that a conventional ICE OBDII scanner won't work on a Leaf. Different parameters. No conventional combustion pollutants. Dealership said they checked the 12 volt--how? Must not have set a code due to low voltage. You would think Nissan engineers would make sure a low voltage 12 volt would set a code--since the car doesn't operate correctly or safely with a bad 12 volt.