24kwh battery - in Canada (turtle mode at 100%)

My nissan leaf is showing turtle mode, at a full charge! What gives?

Can someone help try me see what is wrong with my car? I can't believe nissan could sell a faulty car like this. Driving on turtle mode it is hard for me to make left turns, change lanes, accelerate with the pace of traffic. I need this car to take my family around to places what can be done?

If you have Leaf Spy Pro (and an OBD2 dongle known to be compatible w/your Leaf Spy Pro with your phone OS) you could retrieve the DTCs. Otherwise, all we can do is guess.

What year's your car? When was its original in-service date? You may be covered under the battery defects warranty and/or EV system/powertrain warranty. (I'm unfortunately only familiar w/US warranty durations.)

Dang there's a lot of these threads popping up!

There can be a multitude of reasons for turtle mode when fully charged, only way to know is to scan the codes.

It might even be so simple as to clear the codes, and the turtle will go away! A faulty 12V battery is always the prime suspect.

Worst case scenario is cells that have drifted >200mV from the rest, or some powertrain failure.

Scan the codes with a bluetooth OBD2 ELM327 v1.5 scanner, with LeafSpy app on your phone!

Dala said:

Dang there's a lot of these threads popping up!

There can be a multitude of reasons for turtle mode when fully charged, only way to know is to scan the codes.

It might even be so simple as to clear the codes, and the turtle will go away! A faulty 12V battery is always the prime suspect.

Worst case scenario is cells that have drifted >200mV from the rest, or some powertrain failure.

Scan the codes with a bluetooth OBD2 ELM327 v1.5 scanner, with LeafSpy app on your phone!

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there are no codes showing up. I ALMOST DIED today while driving my nissan leaf. on turtle mode the car can't accelerate for ****. Some other SUV almost rear ended me today. WTF nissan. This is turning out to be a case like the ford pinto

Turtle Mode is NOT a driving mode. It's a "limp home and park it" mode. Do NOT drive the car like this - consider it broken down.

jblomstein said:

there are no codes showing up.

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I find that virtually impossible to believe. The yellow ! car light remaining on while the car's in READY (green car with arrows) indicates 1 or more DTCs is stored. You have Leaf Spy Pro w/the proper OBD2 dongle for your phone OS?

You retrieving the DTCs via the Leaf Spy Pro's service screen? The service screen must be enabled via the app's settings screen.

LeftieBiker said:

Turtle Mode is NOT a driving mode. It's a "limp home and park it" mode. Do NOT drive the car like this - consider it broken down.

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Agreed.

WTF jblonstein, driving around in a broken car ? You should be prosecuted as a criminal if you are involved in an accident.

I can believe the no codes as I had a similar problem a while back. Car charged, started driving and then turtle mode. Took to dealer, and they said it was fine and they couldn't replicate the problem and had no codes recorded. After it happened a couple times I managed to get video of it happening. After showing them that, they took it seriously and did a real diagnostic. Took a couple weeks for them to sort the issue out - had to replace a couple cells and a couple connections in the battery. Fortunately it was under warranty at the time and has been perfect since.

I concur with the above - Do not drive in turtle mode. That is only for pulling off to the side of the road and waiting for the tow truck.

DarthPuppy said:

I can believe the no codes as I had a similar problem a while back. Car charged, started driving and then turtle mode. Took to dealer, and they said it was fine and they couldn't replicate the problem and had no codes recorded.

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I don't buy it with the OP. If the yellow ! car light stays on with the READY light (green car w/arrows lit), I'd say it's at least 95% certain there's at least 1 code stored that relates to the drivability problems. And, Leaf Spy can let the OP inspect the module voltages and the max imbalance, if there's a problem w/the HV battery.

OP, you will not see any DTCs (Diagnostic Trouble Codes) anywhere in the Leaf's dash, nav system or anywhere else in the Leaf's UI. You need something (such as Leaf Spy Pro) to retrieve the DTCs.

There very well could have been codes but the dealer decided to ignore them and not report those back to me as they knew it was going to be a heck of a lot of work. I didn't have my own ability to access the codes and relied on the dealer - which was probably a mistake. Independent verification is a good idea.

And, the OP hasn't answered my questions I posted on Monday, Nov 19th...

cwerdna said:

And, the OP hasn't answered my questions I posted on Monday, Nov 19th...

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You are surprised? This would be incident # 500 something of basically the same thing. People come here post some wild issue and leave with a grand total of less than 5 posts.

It was probably something simple like a reboot that fixed it.