My issues started when I got the voluntary software update from Feb/March.
When I took my car in, they said they had to download the update and install it, maybe 1.5-2 hrs. The car was done and washed in 40 minutes. The car started dropping bars when powered off almost immediately after the update. I charged to 100% at the Walgreens in Poway and drove 1.1 miles. The dash said 10 minutes to 100% (at 240V) and I powered off. 5 minutes later I turned on the car and I lost a bar and it said 1 hour of charging to full. I went into the dealership 3 times with questions in the month after the update, because of various weird things going on (Nav system freezing, re-booting, or windows freezing, loosing bars on power off, regen "bubbles" always available, losing bars while off, forgetting my bluetooth phone), but I never left the car because it was usually minor and I needed the car.
Then about three weeks after the update, the car completely froze. I could put the car in Park or Neutral, but not Drive or Reverse. I also could not turn off the car. Nissan sent a tow truck and towed the car to El Cajon Nissan. The car was still stuck on, but after a few tries with a salesperson (it was after service hours) it did turn off, but some of the dash warning lights were still on. After turning the car on there was an i-key fault error and I still could not shift into D or R. After a few more power off/on cycles, it would go into both D and R. A few days later they called me back in. The service writer told me there was nothing wrong with the car and it passed their diagnostics with no codes. But I had gone in the day after I dropped off the car to speak with their Leaf Tech and I saw the almost 3 pages of fault codes, I wrote down as many as I could before they took the pages away from me. Only when I pressed the service writer on the fact that I had seen the pages of codes, he said they were all un-related, and there was nothing wrong with the car.
Issues:
- Dropping capacity while parked and off (I can lose 3-4 bars in a matter of hours after I park). One time I parked at work with 5 bars and came out with only 1 left (and the car was off, I'm positive).
- Nav system freezing or rebooting*
- Bluetooth would forget my phone 1-2 times a week*
- Car goes into a "safe mode." Car will go into Neutral and I will not be able to shift it into D or R for about 30 minutes. Sometimes while in this mode, car can not be turned off either. Service writer at one Nissan dealership said he had seen this and it can happen the first time(?) after the update, and by powering the car off and leaving the driver door open for a minute, it will reset it (doesn't work every time, especially if the car won't turn off).
- Sometimes after charging to full, all re-gen "bubbles" are available and car will use them, charging and possibly damaging a fully charged pack.
- Range meter (GOM) will lock onto a number a number (ie 59 or 74) and will not change despite driving 70+ miles and going from 12 bars to 2.
- Car will drop a bar whenever powered off (park car at dropping to 9 bars, check online it reads 8, move car 40 feet to garage, park at 8 bars, check online 7 bars, put back on street, 6 bars.... I've lost 4 bars in less than 150 feet (and again the car was off, I'm positive). It doesn't do it everyday, but when it does, it will do it all day.
That update, for me at least, was actually two. One for the car and one for the Nav. The Nav update went wonky too and they had to re-flash it to fix it. That fixed the Nav and bluetooth issues (marked with the * above).
Since the middle of April, I've gone to three different Nissan Dealerships, all ran tests and said there were no issues (but only one drove the car). But if I bring the car in, in a mode where they can't even get it to turn off, how could they give it back to me and say nothing is wrong? I've been dealing with Nissan corporate, but despite all the promises they've made, they've yet to keep one of them. The last time I took it in, Nissan corporate said they'd call and tell them exactly what they wanted the dealership to do. I arrived, Nissan never called, but tech support called the next day and told them it was user error. They said I was doing something to put it into this mode. I told them I was having ankle surgery the next week and they could keep the car until they fixed it. So they refused to give me a loaner car (even after promising me one all day) and after making me wait 1.5 hours told me they din't know if the shuttle was coming back. Basically they were saying I could walk home on a broken ankle or take my car.
I have asked everyone of the dealerships to re-install the software, but apparently that is not possible.
I'm pretty sure they know what the issue is because (these are in relation to the biggest issue, the unit going into a safe mode for about 30 minutes):
1) I was immediately given a work-around (the door open thing, which does work occasionally)
2) Being told they had seen this with some cars after doing the update on some Leafs (but it was implied that it only happened the first-time [started?] and the door thing fixed it and it never came back for anyone so customers never saw it, or just saw it once).
3) When describing it to Service writers or Nissan Corporate, they finish my sentences or ask very specific closed-ended questions that relate perfectly to the issue.
4) Nobody wanted to even test drive the car, they just ran their diagnostics and telling me it found nothing.
Nissan asked for another chance to fix the car and they picked it up at 10AM 9/13/12. I spoke with a Nissan rep and a Leaf engineer (corporate, not dealership tech) on in the early afternoon and they went over all the times the car had been in and found something from my April visit. They found two codes from April (out of 2.5 pages of codes) related to an interlock? system. The tech also said he wished the dealership would have sent them the codes back then so I wouldn't have deal with this for so long. And now they had something to go on.
Cut to later that afternoon, I got a call back with more questions from the corporate leaf tech. The last question was "how often does it happen." When I told him it was about every three weeks, he straight out said, "well we're not going to be able to recreate that." Basically I was told they don't see anything wrong so there's nothing to repair and they weren't going look any longer. When I chimed in that I had photos and video of these occurrences, the Nissan rep came on and said to give him to this afternoon to come up with something. It's the end of business, he hasn't called and isn't answering his phone.
I got the car back 5 days later, they would not talk to me about it, they just gave it back. The paperwork showed that they had run the diagnostics, unplugged and replugged all the high voltage cables and test drove the car 47 miles. They spent a total of 3 hours doing that, but found nothing wrong. They even went so far as to say that there were no codes from April again. I tried calling Nissan's DTS, but he would not answer his phone nor return my calls.
Nissan finally contacted me and offered a service contract but not to fix the issues, and read me verbatim the text from the dealership. I told her that Nissan's engineer said there were two codes and they needed to be investigated. I told her that I found it ridiculous that when I get the car back the descriptions of what is wrong are completely messed up. It seems no one is taking notes on what I say until later and it's very wrong. I also said I have pictures or videos of it happening, but no one wants to see them (I thought they would help). She offered to follow-up with the leaf engineer. She called me back later saying that he did confirm the codes, but the first tech from April may have re-seated the cables and that's why I hadn't seen that issue since then. I told her that it had happened 5 times since then, so nothing was fixed. She declined to do anything but offer me a service contract. I told here that I wanted them to buy back the car because they are un-willing to fix it and my wife refuses to ride in it for fear of being stranded randomly (we have not used the car since early August, except to go to National Plug-in day) and ended the call.
At this point even if they could fix the car I don't want to own anything with the Nissan name on it. I'm still in the Lemon Law process with the BBB and I am waiting on the next steps from them and I've contacted some people in the media (hopefully they like the Nissan found out he was disabled so they refused him a rental car and shuttle so he'd have to take his car back angle).
