Lit up dash, no climate control, no OBD, as well as shift issues

My brother-in-law recently bought a 2012 Leaf SV from auction, and had me go get it with him. Upon getting to the car, it was completely dead. They attached one of their jump kits to it just so we could get it into neutral and push it to an outlet. After charging it for a bit, we turn it on (brake down, then start button), and try to shift but it just beeps at us once and refuses to shift. We try again with the emergency brake off, same result.

Fast forward to now, we have the Leaf at my parent's place since they have a level 2 charger. The Leaf is fully charged and has a brand new (as of today) 12V battery. Now for the issues; the dash is lit up with all of the warning lights (master, ev, yellow triangle, etc.), climate control doesn't work (radio and nav unit do), OBD port does not receive any power, and the kicker is that it doesn't shift from park(sort of). I did however, spend 10 minutes fiddling with turning the car on/off and a bunch of different combinations of ACC to ON, OFF to ON, etc. as well as pulling the shifter to drive/neutral while OFF/ON/ACC. I noticed that after two or so minutes of fiddling with it, I am able to shift to N/D/ECO/R, but the second I put it in park and turn it off, it goes back to being stuck in park.

So the problems I am facing are; whatever is up with the shifter and power to accessories, with a "minor" issue being that when I did get it into drive and drove it around, the T/M malfunction popped up. The things I am 100% sure are good are the charge and the 12V battery. Where do I go from here (preferably not the dealer)? Thanks in advance.

Edit: Just grabbed my phone and a usb cable, plugged it into on the of the USB ports, and turns out that it's powered and active. So, I have power to accessories like the usb. but not to climate control or OBD.

You probably have a bunch of leftover DTCs (diagnostic trouble codes) from the dead 12-volt battery and trying to turn on the car. I suggest that you get LEAF Spy Pro and a suitable OBDII interface so you can read all of the trouble codes and then clear them. After clearing all of the trouble codes, disconnect the 12-volt battery for a minute or two, reconnect it, read/clear trouble codes again, then try starting the car. Low voltage on the 12-volt system can cause numerous CAN Bus communication errors which set trouble codes and the car will not start/drive correctly until those errors are cleared.

Good luck,
Gerry

Ok, looked it up, both A/C auto amp(CC), and OBD are powered through
10 amp fuse 13. Of the 4 fuse boxes in the Leaf it is the one on the side of
the car that is accessed by opening the drivers door, and removing the cover.
It is the highest fuse in the middle column.
this fuse is feed by fusible link C (100 Amp), which is feed by fusible link A
(250 Amp) which is connected directly to the battery positive. The fusible
links are attached to the side of the battery.
Fuse 13 also feeds 3 other things, including the immediate charge switch.
Seems to me this is not enough to create all your problems, so maybe the fusible link C.
But certainly odd to not have power to the OBD (pin 16) which is not switched, so
would suggest following this power train.

I misread the original post. With no power to OBDII port, my original reply was not helpful. If you get power to the OBDII port, try the suggestions in my first reply.

The T/M malfunction can be caused by power supply issues for the shift control module. There are two 12-volt power sources for redundancy for the shift control module. If the two sources don't power up and/or power down correctly when the car is switched on and off, it will display the T/M malfunction. One source runs through a small relay in the relay box under the hood near the firewall on the right side of the car. Early versions of LEAF Spy pulsed that relay repeatedly when reading data with car not in ready mode. I eventually traced intermittent T/M malfunction warnings on my 2011 to that relay sticking closed once in a while.

I've got something similar on a 2011 UK leaf.

Try to turn off, clicking noise from left side engine bay, and 3 charging lights all flash togethter in a random fashion..

Try to turn on, and sometimes shows 'no bars', won;t shift into gear. Took ten minutes of trying on and off to finanlly get it to 'start' and fire up the whole system

I've checked and charged 12V (new last year) seems ok.

I presume it is a stuck 'relay' in the box just under the bonnet on left side?

Any suggestions folks?

ianto said:

I've got something similar on a 2011 UK leaf.

Try to turn off, clicking noise from left side engine bay, and 3 charging lights all flash togethter in a random fashion..

Try to turn on, and sometimes shows 'no bars', won;t shift into gear. Took ten minutes of trying on and off to finanlly get it to 'start' and fire up the whole system

I've checked and charged 12V (new last year) seems ok.

I presume it is a stuck 'relay' in the box just under the bonnet on left side?

Any suggestions folks?

Click to expand...

With the car completely off, pull the little relays one at a time holding it with your fingers so you can feel if it drops out when you pull it out of the socket. If you don't feel the relay drop out, measure the contacts to verify they are in the coil not energized state; then replace it and move to the next. I am fairly sure that none of those little relays should be activated with the car completely off. I found one with its contacts closed so I shook it or tapped it until I felt it drop out and then verified the contacts were open. I plugged it back in and the circuit worked correctly until it stuck again so I replaced the relay.

don't buy cars at auction.