2013 S Not Charging at Some Stations

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nsainfreek

Member
Joined
Mar 23, 2013
Messages
19
Location
Honolulu, HI
Wanted to see if anyone else out there with a 2013 S is experiencing a similar problem. I've gone to about 5 charging stations around town and my S charged ok on 3 of them but did not charge at all on 2. The stations were all made by a local company named Volta and uses the same Eaton charger on all of them. The stations that did not charge were not broken. There was a 2011-12 leaf charging at one of them and I unplugged that to test on my car. It still did not work. I called my dealership and they said that they've had a few complaints about that with the 2013s and are trying to figure out what's going on. I'm a little concerned because some of the key charging stations for me don't work. Anyone else experienced this?
 
Can you update your location info via User Control Panel (near top) > Profile (left side)? That way, we don't need to ask in future posts/threads or do sleuthing to deduce it.

Are you charging at L1, L2 or doing QC (DC fast charge)?
 
Also, be very careful when unplugging other people. I know you were just trying to diagnose a problem, but one issue that could have come up is if that other Leaf's charge timer had to be overridden to get it to charge, if you unplug it, it will not charge again upon re-plugging unless the timer override is again activated. If the car is locked, you won't be able to do that.

Some charging networks like ChargePoint or Blink can notify you of unauthorized unplugging, but only if you enable it and submit a valid cell# or email address that you can view while away from the car. Same with the Leaf's CarWings system, but only if you have CarWings and have enabled this feature. Otherwise, the result could be that car's owner returning with far less of a charge than they expected.

And even if that Leaf owner did subscribe to notifications, you could find yourself having to 'splain yourself to a 6 foot 5, 300 lb Leaf driver why you unplugged him :oops:
 
Sorry, yes I am in Honolulu, Hawaii on the island of Oahu. And sorry about the unplugging too. I really didn't think there would be a problem if I just unplugged it temporarily, but you're right. I didn't think about the charge timers. When I plugged the evse back in, the leaf did start charging again so no harm there. The charging stations were all L2s.

Anyone else experiencing this?
 
^^^
Make sure either your dealer reports it to Nissan or report it yourself to them directly.

I believe if you unplugged a Volt, the horn would go off.
 
cwerdna said:
^^^
Make sure either your dealer reports it to Nissan or report it yourself to them directly.

I believe if you unplugged a Volt, the horn would go off.
And (even if the horn-alarm function is turned off) the Volt also has a temporarily-override-timer function that could get messed up just like the LEAF.
 
nsainfreek said:
Wanted to see if anyone else out there with a 2013 S is experiencing a similar problem. I've gone to about 5 charging stations around town and my S charged ok on 3 of them but did not charge at all on 2. The stations were all made by a local company named Volta and uses the same Eaton charger on all of them. The stations that did not charge were not broken. There was a 2011-12 leaf charging at one of them and I unplugged that to test on my car. It still did not work. I called my dealership and they said that they've had a few complaints about that with the 2013s and are trying to figure out what's going on. I'm a little concerned because some of the key charging stations for me don't work. Anyone else experienced this?

no error messages, recognition of any kind from charger or car? whether the charger is charging or not, you should see an indicator on the dash that "something" is plugged in. if you are not seeing that, then your proximity sensor is not working correctly. you should not be able to engage any drive modes.

i have seen reports where some people have had issues getting the charger going. some had to unplug and replug a few times to get it to work. others simply gave up and moved to another plug. I have made a few runs to various stations in my neighborhood only to find out they worked fine for me. some did require some "cussing and kicking" but they were able to give me juice
 
I didn't get an error message on the car but I did get the charger recognition. The dash lights up that green icon to show that something is plugged in. I did try removing and replugging it in multiple times. What are you recommending I kick/cuss out? The evse or the car?

DaveinOlyWA said:
no error messages, recognition of any kind from charger or car? whether the charger is charging or not, you should see an indicator on the dash that "something" is plugged in. if you are not seeing that, then your proximity sensor is not working correctly. you should not be able to engage any drive modes.

i have seen reports where some people have had issues getting the charger going. some had to unplug and replug a few times to get it to work. others simply gave up and moved to another plug. I have made a few runs to various stations in my neighborhood only to find out they worked fine for me. some did require some "cussing and kicking" but they were able to give me juice
 
No, nothing like that. I have reset power to stations, flipped breakers, wasted time calibrating screens etc in order to get a charge.

So the car recognizes the plug then seems like we need to go back to the station. So the station does not recognize its plugged in?
 
I think it does. One of the station has some indicator lights. When I plugged in my car the "Fault" light went off on the station. That tells me that something is wrong.

On another note, someone recommended that I contact Nissan directly. How would I do this? Just through their website?

DaveinOlyWA said:
No, nothing like that. I have reset power to stations, flipped breakers, wasted time calibrating screens etc in order to get a charge.

So the car recognizes the plug then seems like we need to go back to the station. So the station does not recognize its plugged in?
 
My 2013 leaf did the same thing except I was not able to find a station that would let it charge. I tried a level 2 and 1 charger and when I plugged in the leaf the lights on the dash would light up and beep and the indicator on the level one charger would glow orange indicating that charge is starting and then it would suddenly quit. The car is currently at the dealer being diagnosed.
 
We've had customers report this issue fairly often. #1 cause is charge timer misconfiguration, and #2 cause is some unknown issue in the Leaf's VCM. The good news is this is correctable by disconnecting your 12v battery negative lead for 5 minutes.

-Phil
 
I am having exactly the same problem here in Honolulu with our 2013 Leaf SL. Charge timers are both off. The charger at the local mall (Kahala) works, but not at Koko Marina, the Ala Moana Mall, or my wife's offices. According to our dealer, we are the "only ones who are having this problem," and I am glad someone else is having it too.

The manufacturer of the charger at my wife's office claims that this is a problem with the 2013 Leaf, and not their chargers. The dealer claims that the chargers aren't being fed enough power to charge the Leaf. So, both fingers are pointing at each other.

It will be interesting to see which is true, because this problem is annoying and kind of defeats one of the main reasons we bought the car.

I'll try Phil's suggestion about disconnecting the 12v battery negative lead for 5 minutes and see if that works.
 
@Briny, I could see where it might be the EVSE since your '13 has the 6.6 OBC and maybe the EVSE can't supply correctly. But the '13 S by OP should work anywhere the 11/12 Leafs work since it's the same OBC.

Am I right guys?
 
ksnogas2112 said:
@Briny, I could see where it might be the EVSE since your '13 has the 6.6 OBC and maybe the EVSE can't supply correctly. But the '13 S by OP should work anywhere the 11/12 Leafs work since it's the same OBC.

Am I right guys?

The onboard charger should draw only what the pilot signal from the EVSE allows. If the pilot signal only allows 5 amperes (for example), either the 3.3 or 6.6 kW onboard chargers should only draw 5 amperes, regardless of the voltage. The 3.3 kW charger in the 2013 S is different than the chargers used in 2011 and 2012 models.

Gerry
 
ksnogas2112 said:
But the '13 S by OP should work anywhere the 11/12 Leafs work since it's the same OBC.

Am I right guys?
I doubt it. For the '13 Leafs, AFAIK, even w/the S trim, the OBC is under the hood and since they did more integration of the OBC w/other components, I highly doubt it's the same as in the '11 and '12. And, it's been stated that Nichicon, maker the OBC for the '11/'12 Leaf doesn't have the contract for the '13.
 
cwerdna said:
ksnogas2112 said:
But the '13 S by OP should work anywhere the 11/12 Leafs work since it's the same OBC. Am I right guys?
I doubt it. For the '13 Leafs, AFAIK, even w/the S trim, the OBC is under the hood and since they did more integration of the OBC w/other components, I highly doubt it's the same as in the '11 and '12. And, it's been stated that Nichicon, maker the OBC for the '11/'12 Leaf doesn't have the contract for the '13.
LKK had a thread on changes for the 2013.
LKK said:
From the SAE website:
"For the 2013 MY Leaf, Nissan integrated the motor, inverter, and charging unit into a single stack under the hood, freeing up space and reducing mass."
http://www.sae.org/mags/aei/11993" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
 
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