Catastrophic Failure of 2012 Leaf

The other day my wife called me at work saying she couldn't get the LEAF to go. After several attempts of shutting down and restarting the car she there was no change. I advised her plug the car in for 5 minutes, unplug it and try again. Still no change. When I got home from work I tried several more rounds of charging and restarting the car with no better results. The battery is fully charged and still has 10 bars left at about 55,000mi. The car starts with no problem and will shift between Park and Neutral, but will not shift into Drive or Reverse.

The 12 volt battery perhaps...

So I had the same thought. Brought out the ole 12 volt battery charger and hooked it for about 30 minutes. Nothing changed.

NOGASHOLE said:

The other day my wife called me at work saying she couldn't get the LEAF to go. After several attempts of shutting down and restarting the car she there was no change. I advised her plug the car in for 5 minutes, unplug it and try again. Still no change. When I got home from work I tried several more rounds of charging and restarting the car with no better results. The battery is fully charged and still has 10 bars left at about 55,000mi. The car starts with no problem and will shift between Park and Neutral, but will not shift into Drive or Reverse.

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Sounds like the car thinks it's still charging.
Do you hear the thunk of the charging contactor drop out in the car after removing the J1772 handle?
I would disconect the negative off the 12v battery and let it sit for 5 minutes, creating a re-set and see if that helps.

Do you really think "catastrophic" is the most appropriate adjective given the facts you've described so far?

MikeD said:

Do you really think "catastrophic" is the most appropriate adjective given the facts you've described so far?

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I expected that the wheels fell off or the battery caught fire and demolished the car. So far, we have a Leaf that can't be driven, which is only catastrophic if there is a nuclear test planned for the region and you don't have another way out of town.

A similar thing happened with my Prius, and I know of a few other similar reports. In my case it turned out to be a bad shifter, although another possibility is a bad sensor on the brake pedal.

IIRC, you can exclude the pedal sensor by pressing the brake while someone checks whether the brake lights in the rear light up.

I ended up buying a used shifter for ~ $50 and self-installing. It was an easy and cheap fix since the dealership was not involved. If you go this route, I highly recommend disconnecting the 12v before you start unplugging other stuff.

Addendum:
Here is an old thread with similar symptoms:
http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?t=2565

Addendum #2
Used on Ebay
http://www.ebay.com/itm/NISSAN-LEAF-13-14-2013-2014-FLOOR-SHIFTER-CONTROL-OEM-PARKING-MODULE-UNIT/111938834296?_trksid=p2141725.c100338.m3726&_trkparms=aid%3D222007%26algo%3DSIC.MBE%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D20150313114020%26meid%3Dd430dd14b933408e85ec10f3ec847d29%26pid%3D100338%26rk%3D1%26rkt%3D30%26sd%3D252310322152
Just be sure the part # is identical. They sometimes change from year to year.

Stoaty said:

MikeD said:

Do you really think "catastrophic" is the most appropriate adjective given the facts you've described so far?

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I expected that the wheels fell off or the battery caught fire and demolished the car. So far, we have a Leaf that can't be driven,

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Yep that or something like one of these: the gearbox or motor self-destructed while on the highway, some part of the charging system or drivetrain exploded, suspension collapsed. This comes nowhere near the bar of "catastrophic failure".

Yeah, this reeks a lot of a 12V battery problem. Putting the 12v battery on a charger or jump-starting it only has a, oh, 75% chance of actually getting it back to life. (of course, plugging it into the regular J1772 charger won't have any effect, as it requires the 12V battery to start-up the charging systems, just the same as starting the car normally does.) The other 25%, well...

Welcome to what I call the "Christmas Tree effect".

Long story short: disconnect the 12V battery, wait no fewer than 20 seconds, then plug it back in. Provided the battery is actually charged, it should start right up. Your 12v battery is not "bad", it just needs to be recharged for at least 6 hours. Don't let a dealer scam you on a new 12v battery.

Longer explanation:
The Leaf is infamous for its terrible 12V battery management, and tendency to just randomly drain the battery overnight. Now, if it just so happened that the battery was not ENTIRELY drained overnight, you'll be able to unlock the doors normally, get in normally, and hit the power button normally ("Chime..."), and the dash will flicker, everything will go a little crazy... maybe the alarm will go off... maybe you'll hear a "click, click, click, click..." from the dash, etc... but you end up with the same result: no starty car. Except this time, you can't just get started with a simple jump-start, because the dash is now lit up like a Christmas tree.

When this happens, the car's computer sees everything that's going on. It completely freaks out, thinks every module is defective, flags all sorts of false error codes, and of course, refuses to start once the 12v power is restored. It may think the inverter is bad, the main relay is bad, the brake control is bad, shifter unit is bad, all kinds of stuff it talks to. Every module in the entire car freaks out and reports an error.

In fact, I've even had my car do the strangest thing - after clearing DTCs using Leaf Spy, it'd start, and it'd go into Drive, but all my power bubbles were unavailable. Yes, it'd go to "D" (not "N"), it showed the "Ready" light and no error "!", and it wouldn't budge. I could push the car, though... but it of course, wouldn't regen either.



It could only be fixed by unplugging the 12v battery, waiting 20 seconds (to let everything discharge), then plug it back in and do the "clock reset of shame".

Keep a 10mm wrench and one of these handy, and you will never be stranded by 12v battery woes. (my jump pack probably comes in handy once every 2 months or so... way more often if you count every other ICE car I've saved with it as well!)

The next day I called roadside assistance and had the car flatbedded to the second closest Nissan dealership to my house. They did indeed charge me $150 to replace the 12 volt battery in addition to $360 for diagnostic work. There is still no change in the condition. They still have not managed to identify the problem.

They have, however, complained repeatedly that they keep having to push the non-functional LEAF from the LEAF technician's service bay up/down the hill to the level 2 charger on the other side of the building in order to follow the diagnostic steps from Nissan.

If they changed the 12V battery and there was no change in condition, then the battery wasn't at fault and they should put the old one back and not charge you $150.

NOGASHOLE said:

They have, however, complained repeatedly that they keep having to push the non-functional LEAF from the LEAF technician's service bay up/down the hill to the level 2 charger on the other side of the building in order to follow the diagnostic steps from Nissan.

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Now that sounds catastrophic... from their point of view. :lol:

Wow... yeah, that's all pretty damn bad. Presumably they've already tried unplugging the 12v battery then. :lol:

Yeah, if it didn't fix it, they have no grounds to charge you for a replacement battery... I guarantee you it wasn't bad. But I guess it's in their court now...

$360 ... and counting ... for a diagnosis ?!?

I'm happy with my LEAF, but I sure hope to never have to deal with Nissan or go near a dealership.

NOGASHOLE said:

...They have, however, complained repeatedly that they keep having to push the non-functional LEAF from the LEAF technician's service bay up/down the hill to the level 2 charger on the other side of the building in order to follow the diagnostic steps from Nissan.

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They're the idiots who were too cheap to install a charging unit in one of their service bays. They deserve to push it around. :lol:

davewill said:

NOGASHOLE said:

...They have, however, complained repeatedly that they keep having to push the non-functional LEAF from the LEAF technician's service bay up/down the hill to the level 2 charger on the other side of the building in order to follow the diagnostic steps from Nissan.

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They're the idiots who were too cheap to install a charging unit in one of their service bays. They deserve to push it around.

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I'll guess that the guy who pinched the penny is not the one pushing the car around. And it sure sounds like OP is paying handsomely for the time spent pushing.

davewill said:

They're the idiots who were too cheap to install a charging unit in one of their service bays. They deserve to push it around. :lol:

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Do they not realize there's an EVSE in the trunk?

After the dealership had the car for the better part of two weeks, they still could not determine the cause of the original problem. They informed me that they were in contact with Nissan technical support and the recommendation was for the next diagnostic procedure which takes 9-11 hours at $120/hour. At best case, this looks like $1,080 in addition to the $360 in inconclusive diagnostics already performed plus the $150 for the new 12 volt battery.

For a five year old LEAF with 55,000 miles that has pretty much no resale value, I'm trying to figure out where to draw the line.

NOGASHOLE said:

After the dealership had the car for the better part of two weeks, they still could not determine the cause of the original problem. They informed me that they were in contact with Nissan technical support and the recommendation was for the next diagnostic procedure which takes 9-11 hours at $120/hour. At best case, this looks like $1,080 in addition to the $360 in inconclusive diagnostics already performed plus the $150 for the new 12 volt battery.

For a five year old LEAF with 55,000 miles that has pretty much no resale value, I'm trying to figure out where to draw the line.

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They can't figure out the problem on their own vehicle and want to charge over a thousand dollars for a "diagnosis"??? Unbelievable! :evil:

MikeD said:

Do you really think "catastrophic" is the most appropriate adjective given the facts you've described so far?

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cat·a·stroph·ic /kade'sträfik/ adjective- (2) extremely unfortunate or unsuccessful.

I do think that this failure is extremely unfortunate on my part and extremely unsuccessful on Nissan's part. If you were being asked to shell out $1,500 just to figure out what needs to be fixed you might consider it catastrophic too.