Leaf won't Charge or Start - 12V is fine

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Phatcat73

Well-known member
Joined
Feb 8, 2013
Messages
481
Location
Buffalo Grove, Il
Woke up this morning to find my Leaf only charged for 34 minutes on L2 and quit at 52%. Car will also not enter drive (ready) mode, thus is inoperable. Tried the following with no luck:
1) Reset charge connector
2) Tried backup EVSE
3) Checked 12V battery - checked out at 12.5V
4) Put battery on jump starter
5) Put battery on trickle charge

Still no luck, thus called Nissan towing. 2016 Leaf with 18k miles. Normally I attribute to low 12V, but this does not seem to be the case. Ideas?

Thx!
 
Pulled the following codes. Car is at the dealer.

B29C1 2408 CHARGER EVSE VC-98
B29C1 9408 CHARGER EVSE VC-98

P31E7 000B EV/HEV Restart Inhibition EVC-310
P0AA6 0008 EV/HEV Hybrid Batt Volt Sys Isolation EVC-157

U1266 0208 MULTI AV TCU Conn AV-92
 
Phatcat73 said:
Pulled the following codes. Car is at the dealer.

B29C1 2408 CHARGER EVSE VC-98
B29C1 9408 CHARGER EVSE VC-98

P31E7 000B EV/HEV Restart Inhibition EVC-310
P0AA6 0008 EV/HEV Hybrid Batt Volt Sys Isolation EVC-157

U1266 0208 MULTI AV TCU Conn AV-92

From the service manual, the VCM has detected an insulation resistance from the Li-ion battery sensor of 380K Ohms or less.

"Possible cause:
• High voltage harness or connectors
• Electric compressor
• PTC heater
• Traction motor
• PDM(PowerDeliveryModule)
• Li-ionbattery"


That covers a lot of ground, and the confirmation/troubleshooting sections for this code are quite involved.
 
Thanks. Got a call today from the dealer that they will need to drop the battery to continue troubleshooting, and during the process will need training as they never dropped a battery. This will be a while.
 
We've had pretty much the same problem with you here in the UK

So our Leaf 24 kWh 2017 isn't starting.... this is the second time this has happened this month, read on:

1st Problem
10th July 2018
•Car would not start “EV system warning light” showing
•Car taken by Nissan recovery to local Nissan dealer "EV specialist". Incidentally this is not the dealer that supplied the car to us.
•Diagnosis by dealer was that there wasn’t enough charge in the 12V battery. Suggested that we has left a light on. They suggested that we keep the car on charge when it's not being used. I kind of felt they didn't really know what they were talking about and were fobbing us off. They tested the 12V battery and said that it was healthy.

After reading various articles about problems with EV 12v batteries we purchased a 12v Battery charger just in case this happened again.

Second Problem

28th July 2018
Repeat of problems from 2 weeks before

Actions taken
•Battery is removed from the car and left to charge on a trickle charge . Charger reports battery is full. •Battery is put back into car. Still the same problem
•We try and jump start the car using our other car ( a Hyundai Santa Fe fitted with a huge battery). This is to rule out a battery that has really died but still looks normal. Still the same problem
•I test the voltage of the battery using a multimeter . This reports that the battery is producing 12.5volts. Seems healthy. Car still has the same issue.

No lights have been left on, no accessories have been left on. Nothing appears to be draining the battery. The 12V battery appears to be ok.

Note that the main battery will not take any charge ( it wouldn’t during the first problem either. Incidentally the main battery is about 50% charged ( showing 40 ish miles)

Other info
We are using a Chargemaster 7kW Homecharge unit- this plugs into the J1772 connector ( right connector on the car). We almost always use this to charge the car. We have used the CHAdeMO port half a dozen times only.

Update as of today. In order that we don't get fobbed off by the dealer I have purchased an ODB2 Bluetooth device and have downloaded LeafSpy Pro to my iPhone

The Error logs from LeafSpy Pro are:
P31E7 000B EV/HEV Restart Inibition EVC-310
P0AA6 0008 EV/HEV Hybrid Batt Volt Sys Isolation EVC-157
U1266 0208 Multi AV TCU Conn AV-92


So this tallies with your problem ( at least some of your codes).

I'd be really interested to know what your dealer has found was wrong . I hope that the car doesn't need to be taken apart to sort out the problem.....
 
Having had a brand new Zero (quality) motorcycle with isolation fault codes, I can say that it may be hard to find the short, or problem that the car thinks is a short. It's probably a BMS issue, though.
 
LeftieBiker said:
Having had a brand new Zero (quality) motorcycle with isolation fault codes, I can say that it may be hard to find the short, or problem that the car thinks is a short. It's probably a BMS issue, though.

Sure, I get that. I think now that I know how to temporarily fix it and the purpose of posting this on forums is for me to try and obtain all the information that I can about the problem before approaching the dealer or Nissan as I think they haven't a clue and try and fob us off. Interesting that you say Zero's are poor quality as they look awesome ( I ride a Guzzi)
 
Zeros have awesome performance, or at least the SR does. I experienced it all of four times. You just have to:

* Live near an excellent Zero dealership (not just any dealer, as many suck).

* Have another awesome bike to ride while your Zero spends weeks or months (yes, months) in the shop.

* Have so much money that you don't care.

I didn't have any of those advantages, so I did a trade with a great guy in MD who really wanted an SR and had a Vectrix VX-1 he'd converted to Leaf cell power. I managed to craft a trade that made us both happy - I got a great electric bike, and cash, and he got a Zero SR. Two years and change later, I'm still happily riding the VX-1, and he has sold the Zero.
 
LeftieBiker said:
Zeros have awesome performance, or at least the SR does. I experienced it all of four times. You just have to:

* Live near an excellent Zero dealership (not just any dealer, as many suck).

* Have another awesome bike to ride while your Zero spends weeks or months (yes, months) in the shop.

* Have so much money that you don't care.

I didn't have any of those advantages, so I did a trade with a great guy in MD who really wanted an SR and had a Vectrix VX-1 he'd converted to Leaf cell power. I managed to craft a trade that made us both happy - I got a great electric bike, and cash, and he got a Zero SR. Two years and change later, I'm still happily riding the VX-1, and he has sold the Zero.

Will note the BMS system possibility... I trust Nissan will provide me with better support since there are lots more Leafs on the road than Zeros. They are relatively common in London. Your experience sucks but the point the rings true is having a dealer that understands what they are doings that they can support you with the manufacturer. I may have to go back to the original dealer who sadly is 120 miles away...

These days I spend more time cycling around London than anything else. The only batteries I have to worry about there are the ones in my rechargeable lights....

Thanks for the advice
 
Hi Phatcat73,

Is the dealership Arlington Nissan?

I'm out in Deer Park. When I need work done I'm trying to decide which local dealership to go to. So let me know what you think of their service. So far, at least it sounds like they are being honest with you (... never dropped a battery.).

Ron
 
I would not recommend going to them, but you have little choice. I suspect they are overloaded and as a result their service suffers. Not sure how well Schaumburg fairs. I did have exceptional service at Evanston Nissan and will go there going forward.

With regard to my problem, the car is still at the dealer (since July 16), we have a Nissan loaner and an open case with Nissan corporate who will reimburse us the lease payment due to the length of time. They gave us a bare bones Nissan Sentra in the interim which is quite painful coming from a Leaf.

Dealer mentioned there is a short in one of the cells. They will be replacing the single module at fault. Will try to chase them down for an update tomorrow.

Good Luck!
 
I got this issue five weeks ago, and the car has been at the dealership ever since. Now they are replacing the entire battery pack, which works great for me.

I own a 2018 SV with close to 70k miles on it.
 
Has this issue been solved? I am currently facing an almost identical one with my 2011 leaf
 
I have a 2016 Leaf 30kWh, with less than 22,000 miles and a full 12 bars on the battery, but it has started reporting these fault codes:
P0AA6 high voltage battery system isolation, and P31E7 restart inhibition

Our local dealership has checked it out and has said it's not covered by warranty, needs to be sent to a Nissan specialist centre and will cost £2352 ($3200)to fix!

Anyone else had this? Any advice? Should I try an independent EV specialist?
 
I would start by getting an OBDII dongle and the app LeafSpyPro. You can find all the details if you search this site.

That will allow you to check each cell in the battery individually and give you a much, much better idea of the health of the battery pack. You can also use it read and clear the trouble codes on the car.

That said, a weak 12V battery can cause all sorts of funny problems with a Leaf and the Leaf does a mediocre job of keeping the 12V fully charged and thus healthy. It might make sense to check the voltage level and health of your 12V battery first. LeafSpyPro will show the 12V battery voltage as well. It's a great tool.
 
[British accent] Right! [\British accent] It is important the car is in ACC mode only and even better if it's been sitting in the cold for at least a few hours while off. Then just open the door, hit the start button twice (with your foot NOT on the brake) and it should be ready to read the 12V battery.

Or I think that will work. I haven't mastered the entire sequence of states the car cycles through but I'm sure it's all in the manual somewhere. The important thing is that the car isn't ready to drive so the DC-DC converter is off and you can read the actual battery resting voltage.

Or just disconnect one or both battery terminal(s) and put a volt-meter on it if you are so equipped.
 
I've found that, as long as the car is Off, and has been Off for at least 20 minutes, then you can just put the meter probes on the battery terminals without having to disconnect them. I also have one of those little phone chargers with voltage display plugged into the 12 volt accessory port, and that will read the low voltage system voltage well enough - again, in Acc. mode. It's not as accurate as LeafSpy, but it works ok as a Pass/Fail test.
 
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