Spontaneous Turtle Mode with Battery @65%

"Technical Service Bulletins, or TSBs, are recommended procedures for repairing vehicles. They are a form of diagnosis. Not to be confused with recalls, a TSB is issued by a vehicle manufacturer when there are several occurrences of an unanticipated problem."

Hi.

I have a 2013 Nissan Leaf. I have been driving my leaf for almost three years without any problems. Suddenly one day it didnt start. I called recovery, he charged my battery and the car was working fine for few hours. I thought this is defenetly a battery problem so I went and bought a new battery. The car was fine again. For half a mile. I parked the car to do my shopping (5 minutes) came back to the car and the car didn’t start again. Have someone experienced this? I get the PS light and ELECTRICAL FAULTY sign on my dashboard. There must be something that draining the battery. I have not changed any habit since I bought the car. So it must be electrical problem somewhere.

Kevin78 said:

Hi.

I have a 2013 Nissan Leaf. I have been driving my leaf for almost three years without any problems. Suddenly one day it didnt start. I called recovery, he charged my battery and the car was working fine for few hours. I thought this is defenetly a battery problem so I went and bought a new battery. The car was fine again. For half a mile. I parked the car to do my shopping (5 minutes) came back to the car and the car didn’t start again. Have someone experienced this? I get the PS light and ELECTRICAL FAULTY sign on my dashboard. There must be something that draining the battery. I have not changed any habit since I bought the car. So it must be electrical problem somewhere.

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It would be beneficial to start a new post, as you have a new issue. This is called "thread-jacking" (like car-jacking, etc) and is impolite forum etiquette. But more importantly less people will see your issue as it is hidden 4 pages into someone else's different issue.

I think you'd get more responses in a new thread.

i searched the web far and wide for this so hopefully this adds to the discussion. first some context, I have a 2013 leaf S with about 110K miles on it. I currently have 8 bars of capacity remaining. anyhow on the drive in with approx 30% battery left my car hit turtle mode while on the freeway (i'v only hit turtle mode once before and it was at an extremely low charge level, at low speeds on city streets). i signaled out of the fast lane decelerated, let off of the pedal considerably and was able to continue driving. my question is if I didn't notice the icon pop up and continued driving the way I was (the engine was pegged as I was going 80+MPH up a pretty steep incline on Vasco Road in the Bay Area for those familiar) I'm concerned the car would have shut down on me or had some other extreme fault come up. with this commute and the hills present I've seen extreme fluctuations with charge level having it start at ~50% as I start the hill and drop down to the mid 30's after just a mile or so. I'll recoup a lot of that back as I'm coasting and as the algorithm tries to get its bearing with displayed charge level since its such an extreme energy spike. my question is whether this happens simply because of the extreme conditions i was driving (its super cold btw, upper 30'sF, flooring the pedal up a hill for an extended period of time with a lower charge state) or is it a sign that there is potentially a cell (s) that is imbalanced among the rest that caused this to come up, or some combination there of? in any case just wanted to throw what i just experienced out there and see if there were any ideas. cheers

You may have a bad cell, which would be good news indeed. You need to check the battery with LeafSpy Pro.

thanks for the reply but why would that be good? from what i'm reading out there my car is not in warranty anymore and i'm assuming if there is a battery issue that is a cost that would be completely out of pocket. the latest i've seen out there is battery replacements are somewhere in the $8k range. that being said i am still interested in thoughts on what would have happened if i continued to floor the car when the turtle mode icon came up even with a relatively high SOC. i'm pretty sure a certain set of extreme circumstances need to be met again for that situation to come up (heater on, accelerator maxed out, energy consumption bar maxed out, steep incline, colder weather, and SOC was on the southside of 50%). that being said on the ride home yesterday i did not experience this happening. just a little worried about having the car in this situation again and it not ending as well as it did this last time. either that or just drive the car more conservatively moving forward....but what fun is that?

I shouldn't be answering right after getting up, but IIRC, you have an 8 year, 100k mile defect warranty on the battery that would cover bad cells. The 5 year, 60k mile capacity warranty is long over.


EDIT: Oh, crap. I read the "110k miles" as 11k miles, probably because we've never, AFAIK, seen a Leaf with that many miles on the odometer, possibly excepting a Taxi in the UK. I'm sorry.

2013leafs100k said:

thanks for the reply but why would that be good? from what i'm reading out there my car is not in warranty anymore and i'm assuming if there is a battery issue that is a cost that would be completely out of pocket. the latest i've seen out there is battery replacements are somewhere in the $8k range. that being said i am still interested in thoughts on what would have happened if i continued to floor the car when the turtle mode icon came up even with a relatively high SOC. i'm pretty sure a certain set of extreme circumstances need to be met again for that situation to come up (heater on, accelerator maxed out, energy consumption bar maxed out, steep incline, colder weather, and SOC was on the southside of 50%). that being said on the ride home yesterday i did not experience this happening. just a little worried about having the car in this situation again and it not ending as well as it did this last time. either that or just drive the car more conservatively moving forward....but what fun is that?

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Bad cells are a quality issue which is covered for first 100,000 miles (120,000 in Cali) or 8 years.

Bad cells are a quality issue which is covered for first 100,000 miles (120,000 in Cali) or 8 years.

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And the OP is at 110,000 miles, unfortunately. Are you sure about it being 120k miles in CA? If so, OP, where do you live?

LeftieBiker said:

probably because we've never, AFAIK, seen a Leaf with that many miles on the odometer, possibly excepting a Taxi in the UK. I'm sorry.

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Oh? I can think of a couple in Washington State.

TaylorSF has two of them.

https://mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=26804&p=540379#p540379

DaveinOlyWA said:

Bad cells are a quality issue which is covered for first 100,000 miles (120,000 in Cali) or 8 years.

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Where is it stated that CA gets 120K mile coverage for that?

I'd forgotten all about those. I sit corrected.

LeftieBiker said:

I shouldn't be answering right after getting up, but IIRC, you have an 8 year, 100k mile defect warranty on the battery that would cover bad cells. The 5 year, 60k mile capacity warranty is long over.


EDIT: Oh, crap. I read the "110k miles" as 11k miles, probably because we've never, AFAIK, seen a Leaf with that many miles on the odometer, possibly excepting a Taxi in the UK. I'm sorry.

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That is a surprising statement. We have several way over 100k miles. FYI; you might be interested to know about one driving a 2015 S over 145,000 miles with all 12 capacity bars. Last I checked he was ALMOST halfway to losing his FIRST capacity bar but that was at 132,000 miles. Who knows what could have happened since then?

2013leafs100k said:

thanks for the reply but why would that be good? from what i'm reading out there my car is not in warranty anymore and i'm assuming if there is a battery issue that is a cost that would be completely out of pocket. the latest i've seen out there is battery replacements are somewhere in the $8k range. that being said i am still interested in thoughts on what would have happened if i continued to floor the car when the turtle mode icon came up even with a relatively high SOC. i'm pretty sure a certain set of extreme circumstances need to be met again for that situation to come up (heater on, accelerator maxed out, energy consumption bar maxed out, steep incline, colder weather, and SOC was on the southside of 50%). that being said on the ride home yesterday i did not experience this happening. just a little worried about having the car in this situation again and it not ending as well as it did this last time. either that or just drive the car more conservatively moving forward....but what fun is that?

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Turtle mode occurs when the lowest cell pair reaches a minimum voltage threshold. The main contactor opens when the weakest cell pair reaches a lower critical voltage threshold. You then coast to the side of the road with no power steering and call for a tow truck.

In you case, you avoided the shutdown threshold by slowing down and reducing discharge current. I suspect you have one or more weak cells.

Just an fyi that obd2 adapters can cause weird problems like this. i experienced a shutdown of my 2012 because of an odb2 Bluetooth adapter.
not saying this is the cause but its a know issue....