knightmb
Well-known member
It's night time, freezing outside, and my wife pulls into a QC station to charge. She gets the QC session going, then cranks up the heat to like 85F on the climate control (no joking), leaves the seat and wheel heater on, turns on the radio, reclines back to relax..... and falls asleep :lol:
Anyway, the during that nap, the Leaf does a QC all the way to 100% and stops, but... she's asleep. So, all the accessories are left running (heaters, all the outside lights, headlights, climate control fan on near high setting, radio, etc.) for about half an hour, I'm not really sure how long and basically kills the 12V battery. So she wakes up freezing in a "dark" car and can't get it to start. She then tries to troubleshoot this on her phone via social media :roll: and after an hour of trying to do this, she finally breaks down and calls me.... in a panic of course because she was too embarrassed (or prideful?) to call me as soon as she had an issue. :x
At this point, she has the hood up on the Leaf because she is trying to find some wires to pull out or disconnect or something, have no idea what she is trying to do (over the phone explaining all this of course) and finally I ask her, "do you have any cabin lights?". She responds "yes", so I say "well at least it's not completely dead yet". I tell her to plug the Leaf back in and start another QC session. She argues that the car is already charged to 100% and doesn't understand why nothing is working. I explain again, that the 12V battery is dead, not the "big" battery that drives the car. I have her start another QC session (which won't last long since it's just going to balance the cells maybe for a few minutes) and get back in the car and "turn everything off" while the QC session is going. She does that to make sure nothing is trying to "power up" at the same time as she is trying to "start" the Leaf. So she turns off everything (even the all the cabin lights). I then instruct her, now go stop the QC session and then try to start the car as quickly as possible as the QC should have charged the 12V at least enough to get it to start now.
Just like that, it just "barely" starts up and gets going. When you drive the Leaf long enough, you are accustomed to the "thump thump" noise for the relays, I could hear over the phone, it was a slow "thump............thump" and then it started. :? I told her she was lucky this time!
So now my wife has a lovely "EV Start Failure" on the Dash and a Check Engine(EV?) light. I told her I could fix that later with LeafSpy, but since the 12V battery was completely drained and it's freezing outside, it's only going to trickle charge the 12V and she might have the same problem again. I told her when she gets to her destination, just turn everything off (Accessory, Climate Control wise), lock the doors and leave Leaf on for a couple of hours. She decides to leave it on "overnight" instead. :lol: Better safe than sorry I guess. :mrgreen:
Let that be a warning to others when falling asleep in the Leaf while charging and you have all the accessories going during the middle of the night in winter.
Anyway, the during that nap, the Leaf does a QC all the way to 100% and stops, but... she's asleep. So, all the accessories are left running (heaters, all the outside lights, headlights, climate control fan on near high setting, radio, etc.) for about half an hour, I'm not really sure how long and basically kills the 12V battery. So she wakes up freezing in a "dark" car and can't get it to start. She then tries to troubleshoot this on her phone via social media :roll: and after an hour of trying to do this, she finally breaks down and calls me.... in a panic of course because she was too embarrassed (or prideful?) to call me as soon as she had an issue. :x
At this point, she has the hood up on the Leaf because she is trying to find some wires to pull out or disconnect or something, have no idea what she is trying to do (over the phone explaining all this of course) and finally I ask her, "do you have any cabin lights?". She responds "yes", so I say "well at least it's not completely dead yet". I tell her to plug the Leaf back in and start another QC session. She argues that the car is already charged to 100% and doesn't understand why nothing is working. I explain again, that the 12V battery is dead, not the "big" battery that drives the car. I have her start another QC session (which won't last long since it's just going to balance the cells maybe for a few minutes) and get back in the car and "turn everything off" while the QC session is going. She does that to make sure nothing is trying to "power up" at the same time as she is trying to "start" the Leaf. So she turns off everything (even the all the cabin lights). I then instruct her, now go stop the QC session and then try to start the car as quickly as possible as the QC should have charged the 12V at least enough to get it to start now.
Just like that, it just "barely" starts up and gets going. When you drive the Leaf long enough, you are accustomed to the "thump thump" noise for the relays, I could hear over the phone, it was a slow "thump............thump" and then it started. :? I told her she was lucky this time!
So now my wife has a lovely "EV Start Failure" on the Dash and a Check Engine(EV?) light. I told her I could fix that later with LeafSpy, but since the 12V battery was completely drained and it's freezing outside, it's only going to trickle charge the 12V and she might have the same problem again. I told her when she gets to her destination, just turn everything off (Accessory, Climate Control wise), lock the doors and leave Leaf on for a couple of hours. She decides to leave it on "overnight" instead. :lol: Better safe than sorry I guess. :mrgreen:
Let that be a warning to others when falling asleep in the Leaf while charging and you have all the accessories going during the middle of the night in winter.
:roll: 
