Nissan Connect EV Problems for 2016 Leafs

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karaub

Member
Joined
Feb 6, 2016
Messages
6
Location
Near Kansas City MO
I took delivery of my 2016 Leaf SL on Thursday, February 11th. That evening, I tried to use the Nissan ConnectEV app to see what it did. I couldn't get it to work, so i called Customer Support. They walked me through some troubleshooting steps,including entering the ID and password they provided from inside the car. The car could not connect to their data center.

I called Customer Support back, and they told me there were only two possible causes: either the cellular data signal was too weak (the display showed full signal, as did my AT&T smart phone, so that doesn't seem to be it), or the Telematics Control Unit (TCU) was not activated. I took the car back to the dealership the next morning. I started with my salesman, and was quickly handed off to the service department.
They had seen very few Leafs, and seemed unfamiliar with the technology in the car. They kept the car over the holiday weekend, and called me back today. They had torn the dash apart and re-assembled it, verified the connections on the TCU, and re-set it. They said it repeatedly passed all the diagnostic tests. They had me get in the and try the ID/password again. Still no luck. With the service guy still in the car, we called Customer Support again. After checking some settings, they "escalated" the problem, because, it turns out, the problem is affecting all new 2016 Leafs.

So, the net result is, i still can't use any of the Nissan Connect features, either in the car (Pandora,etc), or using the app (remotely controlling charging, climate control, and viewing the remaining miles/state of charge, among other things.

The car itself works fine. it charges,it drives, and is still a dream car. However I don't get to take advantage of the extra features that made the car even more attractive.

The Customer Support rep told me they'll call back with a status update within 48 hours. We'll see. Google search reveals a myriad of Nissan Connect problems with European Leafs, supposedly so bad that Nissan halted sales of new Leafs entirely.

I'd be curious to know if any other '16 owners have experienced the same kind of trouble, and if anyone has made it far enough through the process,and if they got the desired results...
Thanks

Ken Raub
Centerview, MO
 
I recently leased a new 2016 Leaf SV and the Nissan ConnectEV app does work but does not work correctly. All I really care about is remote climate control since I live in ice cold Minnesota. The only way I can get the remote climate control to work is to turn it on....wait a minute....then turn it off....wait a minute then turn it on again through the app on my smartphone. If I just turn on climate control through the app I will go out to a cold car even though according to the app the climate control says it's on. You can imagine how annoying this little routine is every time I want to do remote climate control!

Doing a status update (like how many miles left on the battery) will work but it takes FOREVER!

I tried remote climate control through the Nissan owner portal on their website and it worked even though the pop-up box got stuck at 20%

Even though mine sorta works there are definitely tons of bugs that need to be worked out.

I also read that this whole Nissan ConnectEV thing is a problem with all 2016s
 
After 10 days of fiddling I was able to get most of it working.

The climate control start/stop problem exists as described above. Another less annoying way I found is just set it by the timer & it will fire up in 5 minutes.

I am able to receive/read text messages from my iPhone 5, but it is not able to send text messages.

Apart from that climate control glitch, the fact that it takes for ever to update status & this text message glitch, I could get everything else to configure & fire up.
 
rcm4453 said:
I recently leased a new 2016 Leaf SV and the Nissan ConnectEV app does work but does not work correctly.
...
Doing a status update (like how many miles left on the battery) will work but it takes FOREVER!

I tried remote climate control through the Nissan owner portal on their website and it worked even though the pop-up box got stuck at 20%

Even though mine sorta works there are definitely tons of bugs that need to be worked out.

I also read that this whole Nissan ConnectEV thing is a problem with all 2016s
FWIW, the bolded part has ALWAYS been on slow '13 Leafs (and probably all other years before and after) even when it was under the old app and when it was called Carwings. With the new app and name, there's been no difference on that part.

For remote climate control reliability, I've also seen no difference between Carwings and NissanConnect w/my '13. I only use their phone apps (Android and iOS). I don't bother w/the web site for that.

If your car can't get good cell signal, then nothing will work (e.g. remote climate control and battery status updates). That's the case if I parked in the lowest level of the (underground) parking garage at my old building. I don't work at that building anymore and no longer have a reason to park down there.
 
mihird said:
I am able to receive/read text messages from my iPhone 5, but it is not able to send text messages.

This is Apple's fault, notNissan's... they have not enbabled full Bluetooth functionality in the I-Phones. i would love the ability to send a quick, pre-formatted reply to texts... something like... "Can't reply now... i'm driving. Will contact you later."
 
Oh, yes, one other thing, I haven't managed to make all the Nissan Connect Apps to work...except for Google search none of the other apps work for me. I think, this is a problem with the Apps, and Nissan will eventually address it.

Okay, I am an IT Engineer, so managed to dig a bit deeper into the settings than the average Joe would. Fiddling meant, no hacking...just fiddling with all the various settings in the telematics system & the Nissan Portal.

I can't remember all the steps off the back, since I did it about 5 weeks ago...but, I think, you need to start off first by properly registering your car at the Nissan Connect Portal.

It will generate a Username and Passcode that you next need to enter into the car's telematics system.

The Portal needs to know about your car's telematics system and the telematics system needs to know about your portal account. Once the two are aware of each other, the connected services will start to work.

And the Nissan EV smartphone app. uses your portal account to connect to the car.

Hope that helps...I might go in today evening and try and retrace all the steps..and can post more detailed instructions.

--
Another experience worth mentioning:

If you get your car today and try to do it tomorrow, it won't work. There is a software that the dealer has that they use to register your ownership of the car with Nissan. Until that happens, registration attempts on the Nissan Connect portal will fail with cryptic error messages. I initially tried and gave up for a week, once it popped a vague error that said "ownership could not be verified". I guessed, it is the dealer step that hasn't been completed. After waiting for one week, it just worked.
 
This is funny (not hah, hah but weird) ... the thing works for the 'old' LEAF's (those which had the much older CARWINGS system) but doesn't on the brand new ones ???

On my '12, I'm using the remote pre-heat all the time as its winter; all the other features not so much as they deleted any history prior to the switchover to NissanConnect; some screens are a bit better but everything does take a while for it to get to and it will occasionally 'fail to connect' even though I have an unobstructed line of sight and decent AT&T 2G signal.

It just seems weird that the newest cars that from the factory and designed to use this updated software are having issues; its like Apple having their 6s series phones having issues with iOS 9.2.1 and nothing earlier having trouble ... it simply doesn't happen.

Still bugs me that the earlier cars can't read text messages back (using iOS phones) without a lot of intervention (using Siri) that causes you to take your eyes off the road but that's another story ... hopefully Nissan has a fix for the '16's soon
 
Well, include my wife and I in the club of having a '16 Leaf with connectivity issues. :?

We took delivery of an SL on Feb 6, which was missing the SD card and took almost a week to get. We now have the card, but NissanConnect does not work at all with our iPhone 6 phones. We can receive text but not send.

No matter what we do, the car says "No Service" when we try NissanConnect or any online functions. iPhone 6 is connected by USB, tried both of our phones.

Also having a problem with the heat, sometimes takes 15+ minutes to provide any heat at all when turning on Auto climate control, sometimes never does in a 25+ minute drive. Other times it works. Very erratic, but whenever we turn it on, fan blows ice cold air immediately (?), that we have to manually turn the blower down waiting for it to start providing warmth and not make us colder than we already are when it is -25C this weekend. Clearly something wrong here... Shouldn't the blower only activate when there is warm air to blow (like my 2006 Prius)?

Planning to go back to the dealer soon. Has anyone else had issues like this?

Very disappointing experience so far. Had such high hopes...

Kevin
 
Kevin,
KSarge said:
We can receive text but not send.
I believe this is due to a lack of functionality in I-Phones, period. They don't support the full range of bluetooth functionality. See Nissan's list of phone compatibility at http://www.nissanusa.com/bluetooth. I, too, have an I-Phone (6Plus), and i knew before i bought the car that:
1. it would receive/read incoming texts
2. it could not send the "pre-formattted" response texts
3. To use many of the Nissan Connect functions, the phone would have to be tethered, rather than using bluetooth connectivity.


KSarge said:
Also having a problem with the heat, sometimes takes 15+ minutes to provide any heat at all when turning on Auto climate control, sometimes never does in a 25+ minute drive.
I have not experienced this problem. Although the fan does turn on immediately, blowing cold air, it's always warmed up quickly for me, ususally toasty within 5 minutes. I recognize, however, that winter in Kansas City is not the same as winter in Ontario. ;)

I, too, am disappointed with the lack of promised features. I was promised a response on the issue within 48 hours, and that should be today. I will post again, either relaying their response, or the lack thereof.

I'm not sure how strongly i feel about this issue. I love the car, and don't want to give it up, but was promised features (that are important to me) that Nissan seems unable to deliver. The real question for me will be, if Nissan is unable to deliver the promised features, should i pursue returning the vehicle under state "Lemon Laws?" :?:

Ken
 
KSarge said:
Also having a problem with the heat, sometimes takes 15+ minutes to provide any heat at all when turning on Auto climate control, sometimes never does in a 25+ minute drive. Other times it works. Very erratic, but whenever we turn it on, fan blows ice cold air immediately (?), that we have to manually turn the blower down waiting for it to start providing warmth and not make us colder than we already are when it is -25C this weekend. Clearly something wrong here... Shouldn't the blower only activate when there is warm air to blow (like my 2006 Prius)?

Planning to go back to the dealer soon. Has anyone else had issues like this?

Very disappointing experience so far. Had such high hopes...

Kevin

This is exactly what happens with my Wife's 2012 SV. It always starts out blowing cold air, and you never know when that warm air will come out. Sometimes it starts within a minute, other times you can drive a half hour and never get warm air to come out. The climate control is a disgrace. Other than that we love the car.
 
KSarge said:
Also having a problem with the heat, sometimes takes 15+ minutes to provide any heat at all when turning on Auto climate control, sometimes never does in a 25+ minute drive. Other times it works. Very erratic, but whenever we turn it on, fan blows ice cold air immediately (?), that we have to manually turn the blower down waiting for it to start providing warmth and not make us colder than we already are when it is -25C this weekend. Clearly something wrong here... Shouldn't the blower only activate when there is warm air to blow (like my 2006 Prius)?
Re: your heat issue, what trim level do you have? (You're in Canada, so your trim levels are different than ours, which means anyone discussing this will need to look at what's in each of the Canadian trims.)

Don't use auto then. I've almost NEVER used auto in my Leaf nor my 06 Prius. I want to directly have control over what's going on and not having unknown things happening behind my back.

On my '13 Leaf SV, it's obviously nowhere near as cold as for you, maybe 50 F (~10 C) at the lowest when my Leaf's in my garage, but if I turn on the heat, by the time I back out onto my driveway, I have warm air. I don't use auto.

You could try pre-heating via timer in the car or NissanConnect via timer/remotely.
Darrenf said:
This is exactly what happens with my Wife's 2012 SV. It always starts out blowing cold air, and you never know when that warm air will come out. Sometimes it starts within a minute, other times you can drive a half hour and never get warm air to come out. The climate control is a disgrace. Other than that we love the car.
Well, you have the crap power pig slow to heat water heater. If you're using auto, as I said, I wouldn't and don't.
 
Darrenf said:
cwerdna said:
Well, you have the crap power pig slow to heat water heater. If you're using auto, as I said, I wouldn't and don't.

I never use auto.

I always use "Auto", and my heat gets hot within minutes.
Oh, and I don't have any issues with (the new) NissanConnect :geek:
 
cwerdna said:
KSarge said:
Also having a problem with the heat, sometimes takes 15+ minutes to provide any heat at all when turning on Auto climate control, sometimes never does in a 25+ minute drive. Other times it works. Very erratic, but whenever we turn it on, fan blows ice cold air immediately (?), that we have to manually turn the blower down waiting for it to start providing warmth and not make us colder than we already are when it is -25C this weekend. Clearly something wrong here... Shouldn't the blower only activate when there is warm air to blow (like my 2006 Prius)?
Re: your heat issue, what trim level do you have? (You're in Canada, so your trim levels are different than ours, which means anyone discussing this will need to look at what's in each of the Canadian trims.)

Don't use auto then. I've almost NEVER used auto in my Leaf nor my 06 Prius. I want to directly have control over what's going on and not having unknown things happening behind my back.

On my '13 Leaf SV, it's obviously nowhere near as cold as for you, maybe 50 F (~10 C) at the lowest when my Leaf's in my garage, but if I turn on the heat, by the time I back out onto my driveway, I have warm air. I don't use auto.

You could try pre-heating via timer in the car or NissanConnect via timer/remotely.

We have the 2016 SL (30KWh :) ), which is the fully loaded model in Canada, with leather, LED, around view, etc.

If this heating behaviour is 'normal' for Auto, that is a complete failure. I still don't believe this can be possible. We have just been too busy to get to the dealer yet, but I have brought it to the sales reps' attention.

Regarding the timer, I have set it and in the one or two mornings I have checked it seems to have warmed nicely, but like I said, it seems hit or miss, so too early to tell.

Regarding the app, well, no luck there at all. 'No Service' at all, so we cannot get the app to do anything yet.

I will provide an update once we get back to the dealer. Sigh.
 
Update, Friday, 2/19/16. i've been trying (twice a day) to get the car to connect to their data center - no luck there. Also, no response from NissanConnect EV Customer Support (they promised to call me back by "yesterday" with a status update, so i called them back today. There's still no resolution to the problem. The lady who answered the phone told me the case was still opened and un-resolved, but that they would continue to follow the case. She said i should expect a call tomorrow (Saturday) from 'David," the rep responsible for my case. She indicated they were still awaiting a response from the "Escalation Team" before instructing me to return the car to the dealer to replace the Telematics Control Unit. Given that the dealership already tested the unit and 'it passed,' I question whether that will do any good, especially if the issue is 'affecting all new 2016 Leafs." :roll:

Needless to say, I'm not impressed.
 
Some folks in MN are getting some part replaced that is correcting the issue. Escalate to corporate?
Relevant folks/discussion are in the FB group https://www.facebook.com/groups/mnpevowners/
 
Well, we finally got to the dealer today, and they reset the TCU and we can now register the car with NissanConnect, so that's good.

However, NissanEV app took a while to let us log in (maybe the servers had to sync or something?) and now that we can log in, it takes an extremely long time for the app to refresh status (1 hour+? No idea), and the result is it still does not show our state of charge (always zero), and if it try a command like start the heat, it seems to do nothing.

Is there something else we need to do to make the EV app work?
 
karaub said:
Kevin,
KSarge said:
We can receive text but not send.
I believe this is due to a lack of functionality in I-Phones, period. They don't support the full range of bluetooth functionality. See Nissan's list of phone compatibility at http://www.nissanusa.com/bluetooth. I, too, have an I-Phone (6Plus), and i knew before i bought the car that:
1. it would receive/read incoming texts
2. it could not send the "pre-formattted" response texts
3. To use many of the Nissan Connect functions, the phone would have to be tethered, rather than using bluetooth connectivity.


KSarge said:
Also having a problem with the heat, sometimes takes 15+ minutes to provide any heat at all when turning on Auto climate control, sometimes never does in a 25+ minute drive.
I have not experienced this problem. Although the fan does turn on immediately, blowing cold air, it's always warmed up quickly for me, ususally toasty within 5 minutes. I recognize, however, that winter in Kansas City is not the same as winter in Ontario. ;)

I, too, am disappointed with the lack of promised features. I was promised a response on the issue within 48 hours, and that should be today. I will post again, either relaying their response, or the lack thereof.

I'm not sure how strongly i feel about this issue. I love the car, and don't want to give it up, but was promised features (that are important to me) that Nissan seems unable to deliver. The real question for me will be, if Nissan is unable to deliver the promised features, should i pursue returning the vehicle under state "Lemon Laws?" :?:

Ken
Hi Ken,

I missed your earlier message in the thread from last week, sorry.

Yes, I had heard about the iPhone text sending limitation and USB wiring requirement in advance, so it was not a surprise, just a confirmation. :-/. Hopefully Apple does something about that at some point, but I won't hold my breath. Kinda like sharing a contact or address book over Bluetooth, which would be helpful in my older Prius, like my previous 2008 Windows Mobile phone could do, 2 phones ago. But I digress....

Back on topic, looks like we got our NissanConnect issue sorted. As mentioned in my post above, we had to go to the dealer and they said the TCU "was turned off". The service guy then proceeded to ask "where did you buy this car??". Uhhhh.... Here? Not too impressed with this dealer. Anyway, they didn't really help with the NissanConnect stuff and sent my wife on her way, since she was the one who brought in the car (she's the primary driver).

Now, the NissanConnect app could see and register the car, but the NissanEV app just came up with zeros after taking a very long time to update. We figured out today we had to choose the "Initialize NissanConnect settings" (or whatever it is called) in the car itself to clear everything, the log in again in the car, and it linked up and works now.

The updating is still quite slow (seems often 30 seconds to a minute?) but it seems that is pretty "normal"...

Cheers.
 
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