2011 Leaf unable to charge at public stations

[pii100]

So after 2 years of driving my leaf the dreaded unable to charge fault struck. I am only able to charge with an AV unit or the included panasonic L1. The car shows no error and the coulomb stations report plug removed. So far I have tried 7 public stations all CT2000's, my DOE supplied CT500(my primary home charger), and a SPX EL-50600(backup and portable). The Coulomb units all report "plug removed" and the SPX unit flashes the status light red. I have tried the remove battery for 5 min trick and the start charging while car is on trick with no success.

It took two weeks to get an appointment set with the local Nissan dealers, there is a one week backlog and they canceled our first appointment at 7:30 AM the day of the appointment and did not reschedule us. This was further complicated by the fact they don't have loaner cars and state they do not offer rental cars. I called Corporate and they offered rental reimbursement which I took. This was 12 days ago. So far the dealer has replaced the J1772 receptacle on my car which has not resolved the issue.

On friday I got a call from corporate saying they would no longer cover my rental and that I should only expect the car to charge with an AV unit. So now I am back at square one.

I was able to test the pilot to ground and ground to pilot resistance at 8K ohms and 13K ohms respectively after the receptacle was replaced on the car. This seems wrong, since the diode should give a infinite ohms reading on at least one of those.

Any ideas?

 

[z0ner]

There are several threads on the on-board charger's diode failing, which would cause exactly what you describe.

The Nissan Panasonic portable EVSE doesn't check for the diode. Neither does AV.

Practically every public L2 manufacturer does however.

You need to shove this down Nissan's throat and expect them to fix it. It believe Nissan has been replacing the entire OBC.

http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=165594#p165594" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

 

[pii100]

I've never really figured out if the diode and resistors are in the receptacle or the charger. The nissan people keep saying its in the receptacle. Yep, I'm aware of the problem however it seems the leaf tech at the dealer and the tech line guys are not aware of it and would rather try to get rid of me than talk to me and figure out what is really wrong. What's most worrying to me is they way nissan is handling this. Both the dealership and corporate seem to act as though my car not working properly is an annoyance for them and i should be happy to have the car. I'm not sure I will ever be buying another Nissan at this point and I will have to start warning friends about how awful the service and support i'm getting is on a leased vehicle, I can only imagine how this would be if I actually owned the car.

 

[surfingslovak]

Sorry to hear about your trouble, this is very disconcerting.

Oddly enough, ChargePoint stations have been the bane if my existence ever since I joined the ActiveE field trial. I believe that I was the first one to document the issue (frequent and persistent GFCI faults), which led to broader investigation and corrective action. Both on the part of the OEM and ChargePoint. Have you tried pumping? Inserting and the reinserting the plug couple of times within a second or two to see if a charging session can be initiated? ChargePoint allegedly developed a new firmware version, which allows for some of the session parameters to be set differently when this approach is used.

That said, I too had similar experience with BMW recently, but they subsequently changed they attitude and went out of their way to make it right. It sounds like you have a legitimate problem, and need to escalate it properly. If you are not having luck with your current points of contact, it might be worth approaching it differently. Also, what helped me were very detailed records of all failures, frequent communication and persistence. The dealer I worked with has AV as well and would initially dismiss the problem and not test with a ChargePoint station. I found this very troubling in a field trial, where things can go wrong.

I your case, I think you can expect the car to function as advertised during the warranty period. I would tend to agree with the opinions and diagnosis expressed above. Best of luck with, and please keep the board updated about your progress.

 

[pii100]

I have tried to reinsert the plug up to three times with no change. I'm going to be escalating the issue to both the dealership manager and with whoever the manager is at nissan corporate tomorrow. I'll be dropping the car back of in the morning and will report what happens.

 

[z0ner]

I have tried to reinsert the plug up to three times with no change. I'm going to be escalating the issue to both the dealership manager and with whoever the manager is at nissan corporate tomorrow. I'll be dropping the car back of in the morning and will report what happens.

Any word, pii100? Hopefully the dealership didn't silence you

 

[KillaWhat]

They really had the "formal dances" to tell you that it will only charge on an AV, and tough luck, you are on your own?

I think I might have driven it through the showroom due to some fault with the accelerator pedal.

So, no public charging?

Seriously???

I think your dealer kind of sucks dude!

 

[pii100]

Update so far. So after making me pick the car up to test on friday, dealership had no idea I was coming and car only had 4 bars, got home with 5 miles on the dash and no bars. Sucks not being able to recharge at any of the 6 or so stations on the way home.

Car went back in on monday. Nissan ev support called me at 2 and asked how things were going? I Explained the car still wont charge anywhere(i tried 3 more stations over the weekend) and that I wanted the case escalated. I was told a Supervisor would call back within 4-8 business hours.

I called Nissan ev support today at 4PM and asked what happened to a supervisor calling me within 8 hours? Apparently case got escalated to a second tier of supervisors who were looking into things with the tech guys. I asked to speak to someone about the quality of customer service I was getting(piss poor). Got Paul Smith who proceeded to tell me Nissan did not guarantee the leaf will work at all public stations and referred me to the customer disclosure firm where it says non-compatible charging stations may not provide a complete charge. This appears to be their got to "get out of jail free" card. I should note that this is under the quick charge section and not the standard or trickle section which is where my problem lies. After going around for 15 minutes of me saying the car was not complying to the j1772 signaling in about 10 different ways I guess it clicked and he finally said that is a problem. He called the tech line which was about to close, on the east coast I guess. They reported they had "just" asked the dealer to report the pilot to ground and ground to pilot resistance. Remember I measured those on Friday at 8K and 13K, my ex330 isn't the greatest multimeter but it can sure as hell get within 50%. Paul said he would take over the case call the dealer to get the skinny and call me back within two hours.

I consider myself a patient guy, heck I gave them two weeks to get this sorted. But the way Nissan continues to handle this is bad enough to make me never buy Nissan again which is a shame because the car isn't half bad.

Edit:

I think your dealer kind of sucks dude!

I do not think the dealer is the root of the problem, the leaf techs at the dealer can only be expected to do basic tasks and act as remote hands for the EV tech line. This is a CS and basic tech support fail at Nissan.

 

[pii100]

I got my daily update call last night and not surprisingly the car tested out of spec. They don't expect a replacement part until Saturday and the car to be ready earlier than Monday. We will see if the third time's the charm.

 

[KillaWhat]

I got my daily update call last night and not surprisingly the car tested out of spec. They don't expect a replacement part until Saturday and the car to be ready earlier than Monday. We will see if the third time's the charm.

Love my dealer, but this is the exact reason I get frustrated with Leaf service.
It's all done by remote control, and WE don't have any access to those actually doing the control.
The OP knew what the problem was weeks ago; hell, most all of us knew weeks ago.
But it took Nissan HOW long to "realize" what the problem was?

Mine is in right now for something.
I know what is wrong with it.
My dealer knows I know what is wrong with it, but it doesn't matter.
Every time I call for an update, they are "waiting to hear back from Nissan".
How about we work on it until its fixed?
Just frustrated.....