Warning: Nissan EVSE Charger Handle Issue Disables Vehicle

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neo1700

New member
Joined
Sep 22, 2014
Messages
4
My car was completely disabled this weekend at a remote location due to a faulty release button on the J1772 handle. Nissan has known about this problem for over a year, but refuses to issue a recall. Once the button fails, there is no way to remove the charger handle from the car. Not only that, the car cannot be placed in neutral for towing, so your car has to be dragged onto a flat bed truck. There is another detailed thread from a year ago on this subject, but this problem is significant enough that I needed to warn everyone until this is fixed by Nissan. Here's my story from the weekend.

We've had our Leaf for one year, and have 12,000 miles on it.

This weekend, I was at a marina in Indiana. We plugged our Leaf into a standard 110 outlet, only to be greeted with three flashing lights and no charge. I thought it might be a warning of unreliable voltage, so I attempted to move the car to another outlet. To my surprise, the J1772 plug would not release from the car. No matter what I did, the plug would not come out. Consequently, it was impossible to take the car out of park. I downloaded the owners manual, and found a series of steps to forcefully unlock the charge port using "the appropriate tool". It would have been helpful if the authors of the manual had simply put a picture of what "the appropriate tool" looks like. I went through all the procedures to no avail.

I called Nissan Leaf Roadside Assistance using the Nissan Leaf app on my phone. I described the problem in detail, only to be told that all they are responsible for is towing, and they did not know anything about the problem.

I searched the web, and came up with this thread describing the problem in detail, with possible solutions. http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=13229" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; It's a long thread, so I will give you the bottom line. Since June 2013, Nissan engineers have known about this problem. It is the button on the J1772 handle that fails, making it impossible to remove the handle, effectively turning the car into a brick. According to this post, the inability to put the car in neutral makes it impossible to tow.

At that point, I called Nissan Customer Support. The person at Customer Support was very nice, but soon informed me that they really only answer questions from the owners manual and web site support. He took me through the procedures in the owners manual, which I had already accomplished. I explained to him that this was a known problem with the J1772 handle from June 2013, and Nissan Engineering had been involved in the diagnostics. I asked him to elevate this to someone at Nissan. He said he did not have any way of contacting Nissan, and that he would call the nearest dealer and talk with their service department. He then asked me where the nearest dealer was because his dealer system was down. I told him I was not at home, so I didn't know. I asked him to use Google Maps to find it. At the same time I opened up Google Maps to find the nearest dealer. I gave Nissan Customer Support the name and number, and I was placed on hold. After some time, he told me he contacted the dealer, and was told there were no Nissan service personnel available because the rotate weekends between their stores, and there were only GM service personnel on call. I gave him the name of the next Nissan dealer, and was placed on hold again. He came back and said the next dealer told him they had nobody to help me. I told Nissan Customer Support that this is very disappointing as this is a known defect in their charging handle, and they should have had a recall/replacement program. He told me there is no way of elevating this as it was Saturday morning, and nobody would be in at Nissan until Monday Morning. I told him I would leave the car at the marina and they could come pick it up on Monday, as I could not get it into neutral for towing.

I later called Roadside Assistance and asked to speak to the towing company. They said they could drag the car onto the flatbed truck. Two hours later, I watched the car disappear into the sunset on the back of a truck.
 
As far as I can tell, your report is the third one in over 3 years that we have seen on MNL. Doesn't sound like that rises to the level of a recall.

Moderator: please move thread to EVSE forum.
 
Tesla had one case of a charger plug melting in someone's garage. It turned out that it was caused by faulty wiring in the garage. However, Tesla designed a new plug, with a fuse in it, and sent it to every Tesla owner just to be safe.

You would think Nissan would, at least, warn customers that this could happen.
 
neo1700 said:
Tesla had one case of a charger plug melting in someone's garage. It turned out that it was caused by faulty wiring in the garage. However, Tesla designed a new plug, with a fuse in it, and sent it to every Tesla owner just to be safe.

You would think Nissan would, at least, warn customers that this could happen.

You do have a point there. While I agree with the sentiment, the practical side of this doesn't make the events all that comparable. Having a plug melt raises the risk of a fire with significant property damage, possible injury, and a TON of bad PR that could sink any company, especially one with very small volume/profits such as Tesla. A plug getting stuck and inconveniencing someone, while a nasty event for the person going through it, is a very different thing.

I wonder what, if any, engineering review of the incidents has shown for the stuck plugs. My guess, however, is that none has been done. If you consider the (tens of, hundreds of?) thousands of plug in/out events from folks likely to post a bad experience here on MNL, if indeed there have been less than 10 reported that is a very low incidence rate. I would guess the dealers are more concerned about getting folks on their way than they are on preserving information for investigation and/or understanding the root cause.

I'm eager to hear what you get back from the dealer from your event other than "it's out now, have a nice day"....

As to warning folks - what would you say in the warning? If you say "plug is likely to stick" who would use it (and that doesn't seem accurate). So, what advice do you give? It seems that there is information in the user's guide but that didn't work for you - unless someone figures out what is causing the issue, nothing helpful can be written eh?
 
Or even a signification problem. Ingineer covered it in good detail in another thread...

Stoaty said:
As far as I can tell, your report is the third one in over 3 years that we have seen on MNL. Doesn't sound like that rises to the level of a recall.
 
TomT said:
Or even a signification problem. Ingineer covered it in good detail in another thread...

Stoaty said:
As far as I can tell, your report is the third one in over 3 years that we have seen on MNL. Doesn't sound like that rises to the level of a recall.
yep .... nature of the beast. It's not important until the problem is OUR problem. Just like the poor RF filtering on our original on board charger. Not until it happened time and time again / with more & more owners ... and only then did Nissan reluctantly deal with changing out the entire charger (dumb solution) in stead of just installing the right sized RF choke .
.
 
FYI, Just had this happen to a colleague of mine here in NY. Same issue as the OP: handle got stuck and car had to be flatbedded to the dealer.
 
michapok said:
FYI, Just had this happen to a colleague of mine here in NY. Same issue as the OP: handle got stuck and car had to be flatbedded to the dealer.
That makes 4, now. (And then maybe 5 soon, if I get struck by 'instant karma' just for saying that ;-))

ps. For the record, and possibly a new topic, I did once nearly have a quick charger "plug" get stuck in my quick charge port. I believe it took over ten minutes to disengage it. I forget what was actually the problem, but I do remember worrying that damage was being done in trying to pull it out by force.
 
Slow1 said:
I wonder what, if any, engineering review of the incidents has shown for the stuck plugs. My guess, however, is that none has been done. If you consider the (tens of, hundreds of?) thousands of plug in/out events from folks likely to post a bad experience here on MNL, if indeed there have been less than 10 reported that is a very low incidence rate. I would guess the dealers are more concerned about getting folks on their way than they are on preserving information for investigation and/or understanding the root cause.

With the big car manufacturers we deal with in Japan, 5 or 10 out of a few hundred thousand is extremely significant.

We are being pushed to deliver 0.3 and below PPM failures. So if you sell a BILLION cars, only 3 can have a defect. And if you have it "as high as" 0.3ppm, you will most likely be blacklisted as a company.

It is very surprising that Nissan hasn't taken this issue up. Perhaps they moved engineering and support out of Japan and into the states? The Big-3 in the states don't require anything more than 100ppm failures from us. One of the many reasons I don't buy domestic US cars...
 
2k1Toaster said:
Slow1 said:
I wonder what, if any, engineering review of the incidents has shown for the stuck plugs. My guess, however, is that none has been done. If you consider the (tens of, hundreds of?) thousands of plug in/out events from folks likely to post a bad experience here on MNL, if indeed there have been less than 10 reported that is a very low incidence rate. I would guess the dealers are more concerned about getting folks on their way than they are on preserving information for investigation and/or understanding the root cause.

With the big car manufacturers we deal with in Japan, 5 or 10 out of a few hundred thousand is extremely significant.

We are being pushed to deliver 0.3 and below PPM failures. So if you sell a BILLION cars, only 3 can have a defect. And if you have it "as high as" 0.3ppm, you will most likely be blacklisted as a company.

It is very surprising that Nissan hasn't taken this issue up. Perhaps they moved engineering and support out of Japan and into the states? The Big-3 in the states don't require anything more than 100ppm failures from us. One of the many reasons I don't buy domestic US cars...


From the original post back in 2013.....

"OK, I have resolution. It was a bad EVSE unit and it was the button lever on the handle that went out locking it in place. Likely it was the plastic pin that broke or got deformed locking it halfway depressed. They wanted to take it apart in front of the manufacturer to confirm the issue with them. Good news is they were able to safely remove the charger and confirm there was nothing wrong with the car and didn't have to tow it. They provided me with a new EVSE, took the broken one and I'm good to go.

When the person from Nissan corporate came down with the local rep and a tech, they wanted to document everything so that their manufacturer could be made aware and to confirm it was not a case of abuse of the EVSE. (i.e. it was only a few months old and I didn't drop it from 10 feet or run over it with the car) So likely a bad part supplier or error in manufacture.

They took plenty of pictures and were nice enough and we spent an hour or so talking through everything. The process of removing the charger required taking off the plastic protector from the hood and only took a few minutes to pop the charger out. However, this was easy because it was not a hot system because the other end of my EVSE was disconnected from the wall. IF THIS WAS LIVE SYSTEM YOU COULD EASILY KILL YOUSELF TRYING TO DO THIS. For this reason, the process to remove the plug is not something that is documented in the manual and not somehting I should describe here lest somebody try it and kill themself. "

They flew in specialists and came to the guys house. Sounds like Nissan was taking it pretty seriously and as pointed out it is not a Nissan part, it's a Panasonic and has been redesigned at least once so to be fair we would have to split off the count of 4 to pre and post 2013 cars. There is also an off chance that someone might be using a pre 2013 unit in a post 2013 car. First problem was in summer 2013 of a 10 month old unit so it's most likely a 2012.

Also the failure rate of a portable unit that is supposed/recommended to be kept in a closed semi padded bag and also not used for daily charging can vary greatly on how the customers uses/stores the product.
 
The issue is related to some handles and the internal mold, it usually happens when the end clasp is hit or swings into something and the defect is from Yasaki molding in the handle (not the clasp) and not a Panasonic made part. As far as I know it was corrected some time ago.
 
Last month I was at a local dealer trying to charge up. The first station was occupied so I drove around to the opposite side to use the other charger. I plugged in, but quickly noticed that the car was not charging. I removed and replugged the charger back in. Nothing. Then checked the EVSE panel and it said that it was in Ready mode but charging was not happening. Upon careful reexamination, I noticed that the latch lock on the charging handle had snapped off, and the actual charging interface (the male part) that gets inserted into the charging port had partly come off of the handle on one side.

I eventually gave up and replaced the handle back into the EVSE, then got into my car to go to the next dealer a few miles down. When I started up the car, all the warning lights came on, and I found that I was unable to shift into any gears except N. After a few ^@#$$^@, I went into the dealer to notify them that their charging station had somehow bricked my car. The very first question they asked was "did you buy the car here?". Rubbing more salt on the wound, their next question was "were you already down to zero when you tried to charge?" After two quick no's, someone walked back out with me to the car. He mentioned that they already knew the charger was broken(but never bothered shutting it off so people wouldn't brick their cars trying to charge with it). When he got in, he fiddled with a few things, then after a few minutes got the car back to normal. He had said that placing the fob close to the start button would reset the car, but I wondered whether having turned off the car for a minutes before restarting it was all that was needed.

Anyhow, I quickly drove off as the dealer was giving me an extremely bad vibe. Will never again go there. I called Nissan to report this experience. All they said was that dealer charging is not guaranteed as each dealer is a franchise, and that they would "look into" the repair status of the charger. I am glad that I did not buy the car there in the first place as this scumbag place is the last place I want to support.
 
Actually, probably not. As soon as you try to press the lever on the 1772 handle, the switch inside shuts down the EVSE and there is then no power at the handle... I suspect it would still have worked as such in your scenario...

minispeed said:
[IF THIS WAS LIVE SYSTEM YOU COULD EASILY KILL YOUSELF TRYING TO DO THIS.
 
I'm a victim of this new. I just bought a used '13 Leaf SV but I didn't check the operation of the L1 120 volt EVSE. :oops: I plugged it in and got beep-beep-beep beep-beep-beep beep-beep-beep and so on (accompanied by all 3 blue lights flashing in unison). Car wouldn't charge nor could I release the J1772 handle. Ugh!

Sure enough, the trigger was always partly depressed, breaking the proximity connection. But I couldn't press it any further to move the latch far enough so I could remove the handle. If I push upwards on the trigger (moving the latch downwards), the car can charge... but only if held that way. Release it and the car stops charging.

I ended up having to use a small screwdriver to push the plastic latch up to free the handle. Grrrr... I will have to take it to to the dealer. At least it's covered by the 5 year/60K mile warranty.
 
This happened to me this weekend. I read through this string and one other and noticed someone had said the Nissan tech was able to pull the handle out in a few seconds. Light bulb went off. OK, so there is a solution.

Solution 1:
Go into your car and check that the button "lock" handle has not been accidentally depressed. Mine is right next to the button I press to open the charger hatch. This ultimately became my problem. My other fingers must have hit it by accident, and I didnt know I locked the handle in. Frankly I didnt even know that button existed. Good at parking lots! haha.

Solution 2:
If you didnt press the lock button, theres's still hope of releasing it. The first thing I did was unplug the charging unit from the wall. Then if you go back to the handle and peer into where it plugs into the car, you'll notice a white tab or bar at about twelve o'clock (just above the circular portion of the inserted handle). This white bar is what locks that handle into the car. It slides left. So I used a small piece of wood (nothing metal to be safe) and was able to slide that white bar to the left and was able to then pull the handle free.

Hope this helps some other confused people!
 
Just happen to me this morning 2013 sv. Call local dealer and waiting for them to call me back on a solution. Try the second solution but couldn't push the white plastic left. Handle stuck.
 
v103 said:
Just happen to me this morning 2013 sv. Call local dealer and waiting for them to call me back on a solution. Try the second solution but couldn't push the white plastic left. Handle stuck.

Jiggle or reposition the handle while trying to slide the white plastic?

Assume you already check/pressed the lock/unlock Button mentioned in the earlier post.
 
My 2012 is doing this where the button is half way depressed. Is this actually covered under the 5yr 60k mile warrenty?
 
The latch on these handles is metal.

If you drop it on its "nose" (as it's very easy to do, don't deny it ;) ), it'll land on that metal, deforming it. While it still appears "normal" at a basic glance, when you plug it into the car you'll be in for a nasty surprise.

That's what gets it "stuck" in the car. Because the latch is now bent, the full range of button motion isn't enough to unlatch it. This is also why the car gives the "beep-beep-beep" - which means solely one thing: the release button is being held down, and the car is saying "let go of the button, dummy". If you ever see your Leaf flashing the 3 lights and beeping, it means only a problem with the handle latch - nothing more, nothing less.

So, to fix this, you just have to reform the latch. When it's plugged/latched into the car, you have to use some tool to lift-up on the button of the release latch, so it bends back into shape. The latch on the car end will act as the other leverage point that you bend against. The "lock hole" in the button should eventually be exposed when you're no longer bending it. It might take a little effort to bend it back into shape, but then -- provided your Leaf also doesn't have the lock into the "auto/on" mode (turn it off! to the middle position) -- it should just unlatch and remove normally.

Provided the latch is bent back to its original form, the Leaf ought to charge normally. :cool:
 
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