Limited Power - Motor power is being limited (Error with full charge)

I have the same problem with my 2015 Leaf. A week ago i have send my car to my local nissan dealer. After reading this topic, i told them it could be a problem with one of the cells. After reading out the computer, they had to agree. The car is now send to a company near Brussels, the only place
In Belgium where they are allowed to work on the battery's.

I got my Leaf back, yesterday.
It was a short circuit, in one of the cells.

My 2015 Leaf (with 4500+ miles on it) was towed to the local Nissan dealer last week with the turtle light illuminated and the EV warning light also illuminated. Tech tells me that they believe a cell is bad, but have to confirm this with Nissan on Monday. More to follow.

javan said:

My 2015 Leaf (with 4500+ miles on it) was towed to the local Nissan dealer last week with the turtle light illuminated and the EV warning light also illuminated. Tech tells me that they believe a cell is bad, but have to confirm this with Nissan on Monday. More to follow.

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Do you have Leaf Spy? If so, you could've confirmed the DTCs and whether any cell was totally out of whack in terms of voltage.

cwerdna said:

Do you have Leaf Spy? If so, you could've confirmed the DTCs and whether any cell was totally out of whack in terms of voltage.

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Nope, don't have Leaf Spy (but my neighbor does). I'll see what the dealer comes back with on Monday. This Leaf is our second car (and second Leaf), so it doesn't get used much, but we like to have it for short jaunts to the grocery store if needed. I'll consult with my neighbor about Leaf Spy.

I just bought a used 2015 with 15K miles. I live near work, and work has solar with excess capacity. So I charge for free ! My friend Joe has a 2013 Leaf and let me drive it, so I knew I wanted one. Mine displayed this code at the used car dealer (not Nissan dealer) who had gotten it from an auction. I took it back from test drive, mechanic did something to it, codes went away. Then I got codes on the way home in Turtle mode.
Today I showed it to Joe, and he used the set of 4 menu buttons at the left of the console. The one that looks like 2 squares clears the Power is Limited message, but the turtle and the EV alarm are still there. The DOT button scrolls through menu until we get to Factory.
Do a Factory Reset and car is back to happiness ! Obviously if there is a real failure of cell or other item, codes will come back and dealer attn. is required. But if it's just a glitch setting off alarms, do a Factory Reset and you are back online ! Nice Forum. GREG

Check the 12 volt battery voltage at rest. If you are lucky, the car just has a low or failing accessory battery that may need to be charged or replaced. If the battery reads 12.5 volts or higher, that isn't the problem, although it should be charged up if reading 12.3-12.5. Below about 12.3 volts and that may be the only problem. The Leaf doesn't always keep that battery charged properly, so if it's low, invest in a little battery maintainer, and use it at least twice a month.

Personally I wouldn't buy a car that was throwing a code that was simply reset. They do have a way of coming back!

Leftie Biker, you are correct. Battery is 12.2V at rest. When I connect a small charger, 4 amps takes it up to 14.5V right away. It should only go to about 13.5 until almost overcharges, then 14.4V, which is gassing. After an hour, it is above 15V. That is a dried-up high-resistance battery. Sad for only 2yr old.
I have a little jumpstart thing that is like a lunchbox with 2 ft jumper cables. Lead-acid gel cell in a little box with charger. When I connect that at ignition, turtle mode and Limited Power go away and car is at full power. Then I unhook, stow it, and drive away. Leaf has an appt w/ dealer on Tues, and they can replace 12V battery and check charging system.
It is absurdly amusing that it looks like I have to jump-start my all-electric car. Thanks ! Greg

My cars been at the dealer for a month while they replaced a faulty battery module. They put it back together, went for a test drive and now the motor power is limited message displays.

Ideas? Another bad cell?

Phatcat73 said:

My cars been at the dealer for a month while they replaced a faulty battery module. They put it back together, went for a test drive and now the motor power is limited message displays.

Ideas? Another bad cell?

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Hey, was this ever resolved? I'm dealing with a similar issue and the dealer doesn't seem to know what the problem is. They have had my car for the better part of 2 months now. Similar issue - they replaced a battery module and gave it back to me. The next day it was in low battery mode.

I'm here as my Leaf just started doing this as well. The 12v battery died and I just had it replaced a week and a half ago. I've driven the car few times since, no problem. Then yesterday I drove it to an appt. The EV battery (not the 12v) was low, about 22 miles, and 2 white lines above the red lines when I turned the car back on to come home, then it threw this message. Since it said service required I called the dealer before going anywhere and explained it to them, their answer was it was in turtle mode because the charge was low and that the service required was just probably because I hadn't driven it and it was the "standard" service message. Hmm, ok. So there was a nearby Mercedes dealer that happens to have Chargepoint station so I went there, charged it up a bit to make sure I could get home and the message was gone. Got home, and charged the car up. This evening we get in to drive it and this same message came on even with the full charge. Turned if and back on and still the same message.

I have posted before that I have a 2017 with just under 22k miles that has already lost 2 bars. I am convinced that something isn't right but the dealer just tells me nothing to see here..... Is this an indicator that there is something wrong with the lithium batteries?

Sounds like you have one or more bad cells in your battery pack. I'd suggest downloading Leafspy and purchasing a compatible OBDII adapter. Note your Nissan dealer should be able to see what you'd see in Leafspy and more but it might help them looking more into it if you showed them what you are seeing.

For an EV it is a good practice to fully charge a new auxiliary 12V battery on an external charrger. Even though you bought a "new" one, it may not be full, and the limited driving of your EV is not sufficient to keep it full. Lead acid should be kept fully charged at all times, it is not a good practice to leave it in a depleted condition as sulfation will occur.

so before spending wad$ for dealer service, check the voltage of the aux battery when OFF, then post it up here and put the battery on a charrger that will pull it up to no more that 14.4V, hold it there for 15 minutes and then it's full. Wait an hour and measure the OFF state voltage again, and post that.

I suspect with a full aux battery that your error message issue will be solved.

jjeff said:

Sounds like you have one or more bad cells in your battery pack. I'd suggest downloading Leafspy and purchasing a compatible OBDII adapter. Note your Nissan dealer should be able to see what you'd see in Leafspy and more but it might help them looking more into it if you showed them what you are seeing.

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I have LeafSpy Pro, not sure how to read all the screens I did take screen shots and can post them if needed.

tfernandezleaf said:

jjeff said:

Sounds like you have one or more bad cells in your battery pack. I'd suggest downloading Leafspy and purchasing a compatible OBDII adapter. Note your Nissan dealer should be able to see what you'd see in Leafspy and more but it might help them looking more into it if you showed them what you are seeing.

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I have LeafSpy Pro, not sure how to read all the screens I did take screen shots and can post them if needed.

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Yes that would help. I'm no expert but what you want to look for are one or more graph lines to be much lower than the rest. Note a little deviation is normal.

Just had it towed over to the dealer. (turtle mode would not be fun in traffic!) The dealer is who replaced the 12v battery, asked if that could be the issue and he didn't think so. Probably won't know anything until Monday.


Let see if this works: here's a couple of links to screenshots.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/n5qWxXS8ticgYiPq9
https://photos.app.goo.gl/vxLDC33EK1eYeeXG7

tfernandezleaf said:

Just had it towed over to the dealer. (turtle mode would not be fun in traffic!) The dealer is who replaced the 12v battery, asked if that could be the issue and he didn't think so. Probably won't know anything until Monday.


Let see if this works: here's a couple of links to screenshots.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/n5qWxXS8ticgYiPq9
https://photos.app.goo.gl/vxLDC33EK1eYeeXG7

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137 mV delta between min and max while at 64% SoC is way too high. The blue bar near the left is quite an outlier in voltage.

BTW, your pics show the lower right being in yellow. Hopefully, there was a valid connection with green and the numbers changing in the lower right, at some point. My dongle is regular Bluetooth, not Bluetooth LE, so I don't know in your case.

If the car's stopped while in READY mode at that SoC, if it were above 40-ish mV delta, I'd say that's too high.

I was in the garage and turned the car on to see what LeafSpy would show so that was at idle, no driving (cold or "room temp" battery so to speak).

I got a call from the dealer and they said it was showing some cell error code they hadn't seen before so they have a call in to the Nissan engineers. Wish I could state what the error code was, but I was running errands so didn't write anything down. Probably won't know anything more until Monday or Tues. but it does sound like it's probably a bad cell or something.

tfernandezleaf said:

I was in the garage and turned the car on to see what LeafSpy would show so that was at idle, no driving (cold or "room temp" battery so to speak).

I got a call from the dealer and they said it was showing some cell error code they hadn't seen before so they have a call in to the Nissan engineers. Wish I could state what the error code was, but I was running errands so didn't write anything down. Probably won't know anything more until Monday or Tues. but it does sound like it's probably a bad cell or something.

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I see. For valid readings of this sort, you should be in READY mode (green car with arrows) and Leaf Spy should show a green rectangle in the lower right w/numbers cycling (it does for me on standard BT dongles).

cwerdna said:

tfernandezleaf said:

I was in the garage and turned the car on to see what LeafSpy would show so that was at idle, no driving (cold or "room temp" battery so to speak).

I got a call from the dealer and they said it was showing some cell error code they hadn't seen before so they have a call in to the Nissan engineers. Wish I could state what the error code was, but I was running errands so didn't write anything down. Probably won't know anything more until Monday or Tues. but it does sound like it's probably a bad cell or something.

Click to expand...

I see. For valid readings of this sort, you should be in READY mode (green car with arrows) and Leaf Spy should show a green rectangle in the lower right w/numbers cycling (it does for me on standard BT dongles).

Click to expand...

Ready mode meaning car is on, but in park? That's what I was in.