NissanConnect EV / Telematics Hardware Update, for the post-2G world

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baustin said:
When the TCU stops responding, I just do a 30-second fuse pull, and then all is good for another month or two. Yes, it is an inconvenience, but not as much as it would be not having remote access to the car.

I'm averaging about 3 months between fuse pulls. Annoying, but I need remote access for preheat in winter.
 
baustin said:
Your denying yourself the advantages of a functioning TCU, because of the possibility of a problem. Yes, there are those with TCU issues, but not everyone has been negatively affected. It may cost me a little time, but it has not cost me any more money that would be expected. I upgraded the TCU, when they first became available, in January 2017. I replaced the original battery (almost 5 years old) in September 2017 with an AGM battery. The need for fuse pulls has greatly decreased since then. When the TCU stops responding, I just do a 30-second fuse pull, and then all is good for another month or two. Yes, it is an inconvenience, but not as much as it would be not having remote access to the car.

Fuse pulls, dead batteries... Nope, I expect it fixed before I spend money for this.
 
MalcolmReynolds said:
baustin said:
Your denying yourself the advantages of a functioning TCU, because of the possibility of a problem. Yes, there are those with TCU issues, but not everyone has been negatively affected. It may cost me a little time, but it has not cost me any more money that would be expected. I upgraded the TCU, when they first became available, in January 2017. I replaced the original battery (almost 5 years old) in September 2017 with an AGM battery. The need for fuse pulls has greatly decreased since then. When the TCU stops responding, I just do a 30-second fuse pull, and then all is good for another month or two. Yes, it is an inconvenience, but not as much as it would be not having remote access to the car.

Fuse pulls, dead batteries... Nope, I expect it fixed before I spend money for this.

That is your choice, and your decision. We all have different levels of inconvenience we are willing to accept to gain the levels of convenience that we desire.

Hopefully, Nissan is working on a fix, but I don't see a speedy resolution, or a major recall, in the near future. The upgraded TCU has been available for almost 18 months, with no positive updates from the field, or from Nissan.
 
I haven't had any problems with the TCU since I deleted my "saved charger locations" many months ago (no fuse pulls/12v issues/nothing). In fact, I just returned from a week-long vacation where I was able to retrieve charge status via the app. As was mentioned, there may be other/different issues with different model years (and battery types), but all relevant info about my Leaf is in my sig.
 
My saga with TCU upgrade on Leaf 2015 SV is over. It was caused by Data Communications settings to be set to manual and no provider selected. Setting it to auto config (AT&T), corrected the connectivity issue. No issues with 12V battery yet, but it seems to be compromised (by deep discharge) as car was parked on dealer lot for months before I got it. TCU works, but complains of poor reception at home, as it blocked by massive Expedition between Leaf and tower. I have moved Expedition into garage as it started to rust too much for my comfort when left outside, so reception got better.
 
Posted on another thread. Found this thread to be more active.
9/12/2018... 2012 working, 2013 Not working. Still getting intermittent Low signal error message. Problem is not consistent.
Nissan Support says they are aware of the problem and has escalated the problem.
No remedy in sight. Since I haven't seen any new posting... Is this problem solved? Did it set swept under the rug? Did we just Give up?
I hope this thread is still live. I hope I'm not the only one having this problem.
BTW: Both cars have fresh 12V batteries. 2012 has the new Lizard Battery. Problem started after the 3G upgrade. AT&T says they only provide the service its the Software or Hardware problem. Carwings had me take my car back to check the TCU. got charged $75 to reboot and update TCU. Still problems (Got reimbursed after complained to NissanCare). Service says TCU hardware is working great. Strong Signal, Blames Software. So Support blame hardware, Service (hardware) blames Carewings (Software), Personally I don't care. I just want Nissan to make it work!
 
I own a 2015 nissan Leaf SV, bought and owned in Canada. I am currently trying to have my TCU upgraded to 3G. I was informed through this site that upgrades on the 2015 model year should be free. My dealer just quoted me $962 to do the upgrade. Unreal. Can anyone provide info for Canadians trying to have this upgrade done on their 2015(free of charge). Any help would be greatly appreciated. Ive been lurking in this forum for years, I've received so much useful advice I cant say thank you enough.
 
CDNLeafer said:
I own a 2015 nissan Leaf SV, bought and owned in Canada. I am currently trying to have my TCU upgraded to 3G. I was informed through this site that upgrades on the 2015 model year should be free. My dealer just quoted me $962 to do the upgrade. Unreal. Can anyone provide info for Canadians trying to have this upgrade done on their 2015(free of charge). Any help would be greatly appreciated. Ive been lurking in this forum for years, I've received so much useful advice I cant say thank you enough.

Does the 2G TCU in the car still function? Is 2G service still active in Canada? If so, they are not going to do the upgrade for free. It was done in the states, because 2G service was turned off by AT&T. Since it is a Canadian Leaf, the EV Help Line and Nissan Canada will be your best sources for assistance, if 2G service is turned off and it needs replaced.
 
On 11/29/18 I brought my 2011 Leaf in for the TCU upgrade. I got it back with assurances that everything went fine but it would take "a couple of days" before it would actually work. I downloaded the app for my phone and was successful in logging in to the EV Connect portal but I've never been able to get the car to respond after 6 days, either to charge or to start the climate control.

Today I called the main Nissan EV service number and the rep there told me the dealer never registered the telematics unit with Nissan. I went into the dealer and they were very apologetic and said they'd take care of it in 10 or 15 minutes. 50 minutes later the service rep came to get me with a paper in his hand and explained that on 11/30, one day after they did the work on my car, a service bulletin came out requiring both a software upgrade and new hardware module for the telematics in cars in my VIN range. They don't have the part and have ordered it. He showed me the sheet and it was dated 11/30 and had a chart with three rows of VIN numbers with different part numbers listed next to them. He was very embarrassed and apologetic, but the bottom line is that I'll have to take it back and start from scratch after they get the new part. FWIW, he said they have registered my car's telematics with Nissan now. I'm not sure how they can do that without the new part, but maybe that will save a step. Ironically, before I brought the car in last week, I called to be sure they had the part.

So if you are planning to upgrade, be aware that this bulletin just came out and there are three different parts involved, so check to make sure they have the right one for you before you go in. If you've been having problems with your TCU unit, you may want to take it back now that they have supposedly fixed both software and hardware problems.
 
Any chance you can get a copy of that notice? I'm about to go in for the same change on a 2011 I just purchased and would like to know if the part numbers have changed from the part numbers listed earlier in this thread.
 
I got a call from the dealer this morning that the part had arrived. I don't know if I'm going in today, but I'll try to get a copy of the notice. Since the dealer originally told me they "always have the part in stock" and yet did not have this one, I understood that the new part for mine at least (maybe all three VIN ranges) was brand new, so would certainly be different from things posted here before.
 
I have a copy of the Service Bulletin which is captioned CUSTOMER SATISFACTION INITIATIVE 2G TELEMATICS HARDWARE REPLACEMENT dated November 30, 2018. Ref. No. NTB17-015b

It says TCUs are year range specific and cannot be interchanged. Those parts are all for the 2011 - 2015 range and listed as follows:
Built Date range part #
11/1/2010 - 9/19/2011 283B0-3NA1B
9/20/2011 - 11/30/2012 283B0-3NA2B
12/1/2012 - 9/30/2015 283B0-3NF2B
 
The saga continues... So I took the car in to replace the old (8 days old) part with the new one. Then I got a call, expecting for them to tell me the new part has been registered with Nissan and I can pick up the car. Instead they told me they put in the new part, but when they tried to register it with Nissan, they couldn't. Somehow Nissan NA wasn't able to recognize that part. So it's still not working. I'm leaving the car overnight hoping they can get it handled before I need it tomorrow. If they can't, I'll have to pick up the car as is and either give up and get a refund, or bring it in a 4th time.

Bottom line: I suggest waiting to get this done until your dealer has done a few of them successfully under the new protocol and new parts.

Edit 12/7: the dealer called me this morning and told me that Nissan (Tenn.) sent them an email saying it can take up to a week to register these new 3G devices. The dealer couldn't tell me whether it would spontaneously start working after a week or so, or whether I might have to bring it back in at that time. This sounds like a sitcom story arc or maybe comic strip. It would be funny if it were happening to someone else.
 
Just thought I'd add my ConnectEV experience here. I bought a 2012 in November 2018. 3G was installed back in 2017. I installed the app and checked the owners portal website, but both weren't updating car data. After 2 weeks of phone calls with the Nissan Connect specialists (great customer service btw) and two visits to different dealerships (not great service), I was set to bring in my car for a third visit to have the software updated with NTB18-045A.

However, I happened to check the app again and it worked, but not all the time. After a few days of testing, I found out that the app was able to refresh data but only when the car was powered on or plugged in. I'm also able to remote start the climate control.

I would love to have the app work perfectly, plugged in or not, but bringing the car into the dealership and being without my car was starting to be a hassle. I was told that the software might already be up to date but they couldn't tell unless I brought it into the shop. And if it was up to date, it might be a hardware issue and that could take several days to do. Even then they might not be able to figure things out without getting in touch with the dealership that did the 3G install, who might not have the info they need because the install was done over a year ago, yada yada yada.
 
The good news is that my EV connect app finally worked for the first time. I was able to start the climate control remotely. The bad news is that it took three weeks, three trips to the dealer, three calls to/from the Nissan Connect EV people, and 15 minutes today and some bizarre car behavior before I was able to succeed. A very polite and helpful woman (Sierra) at the help line handled my second and third calls but was not able to get it working even after the new part had been installed and registered. She said my problem was being "escalated." That was two weeks ago. I never heard from her or Nissan again, but several tries to connect failed in the interim.

Today I tried again and this time I got a message screen I'd never gotten again. It told me to login to the car and it provided me with a "Nissan Connect EV PIN" and a "Nissan Connect EV Password." The message said these are unique to my telematics unit. They were both meaningless jumbles of letters and numbers, not based on my name or the car name or anything I chose. Fortunately during troubleshooting Sierra had walked me through to where the login screen is in the car, as I would never have remembered it from the one time (2011) I used it before. That screen in the car asks for a User ID and Password, not a PIN. I entered the PIN as a User ID and the password, and the car seemed to accept both. It made the "Connect to Information Center" announcement. I tried to start the climate control with the app to test it. I got an error saying it couldn't start the climate control because "the car may be running or plugged in" The heater won't run when the car is on now or plugged in? I turned the car off and tried again and this time it worked - sort of - the car charging lights started flashing as they do when you hit the dashboard button to kill the timer, but the climate control lights did nothing. I had only hit the "try again" button that popped up for climate control, not the app charging button. The car is on timer for overnight charging and I had NOT hit the dashboard kill timer button, either.

I plugged the car in and the lights showed that it was charging. I unplugged it to stop the charging and then plugged it in again. I tried to start the climate control again and it didn't work because it was plugged in. I unplugged the car and tried again with the car off and unplugged, and this time the app started the climate control. With the old Carwings 2G connection I could start the climate control while the car was still plugged in, so that the range wasn't reduced by using battery charge. Now that seems to be impossible and a big drawback, although for me it's not bad since I never need full range. I only use the Leaf for short trips. I don't like having to go out to the garage in my gym clothes when it's low 30s to unplug the car so I can heat it, though. I also don't want to have to start the car, log in, and then turn it off again every time in order to use the app, but hopefully that won't be necessary again. I also feel sorry for those who want to start climate control from their office while the car is plugged into the company charging station in the parking lot. I guess they have to go down to car and unplug it and stand by or sit in the car before starting it in order to get it to proper temperature. That rather defeats the purpose, IMO. I haven't tested the remote charging function since I only charge at home on time, and that works fine without the app. All I can say is that the new STU is not ready for prime time.
 
^^^
FWIW, w/the 3G TCU on my '13 SV w/premium, I can definitely trigger both remote climate control both when plugged in (still charging and not charging) and not plugged in.

As for your activation issues, yes, I went thru a whole bunch of problems once I got my 3G TCU installed. It's a long story and I have some old posts here about it. Involved at least one trip back to the dealer, a bunch of phone calls to Nissan EV support, etc.
 
Rat said:
three trips to the dealer

Me too. However, the first two the dealer installed the wrong part, for a different year of LEAF, according to the Nissan help line.

Third one worked before I left the parking lot.
 
WetEV said:
Rat said:
three trips to the dealer

Me too. However, the first two the dealer installed the wrong part, for a different year of LEAF, according to the Nissan help line.

Third one worked before I left the parking lot.
Per NTB17-015a, there are three different part numbers for 3G TCUs that they might install. See https://imgur.com/a/AYGltKA.

When I wanted to have the work done, one dealer wanted me to make two trips from the get go: one to determine which part was needed and order it, then another to install it. The second dealer (much further away, not convenient to get to, only has a 1 way shuttle but I like them better) had all the parts in stock. However, I still had issues (part was correct though) which I already mentioned.
 
FWIW, today I started the heater before going for an early morning run at the park. It worked perfectly the first time without the need to enter in a password. A Christmas present for me. For those of you in the South Bay Area, Rancho San Antonio was the emptiest I've ever seen it on a sunny holiday morning.
 
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