NissanConnect EV / Telematics Hardware Update, for the post-2G world

[lkkms2]

ALRIGHT BOYS AND GIRLS, LISTEN UP

Nice Hypothesis and Experiment!

Yes, Good connections and proper voltages can make a difference!

 

[lorenfb]

ALRIGHT BOYS AND GIRLS, LISTEN UP

I have some information YOU want to know about.

A. We all know Leafs have just received a new TCU for 3G connectivity. Many people have been having trouble getting their Carwings to work as reliably as before with the 2G TCU. Nissan tech support cannot seem to fix the issue on certain cars.

B. Some owners have reported pulling their fuse resets their Unit ID info to *******. Others have said only pulling the battery reset it to ******* and the fuse does nothing.

C. In my own experience Carwings was working for me from the day I had the TCU upgrade until last Thursday, when my apps stopped working. On around Thursday I also received an EV system warning light, the code was for the 12v battery system.

D. On a whim, last night I pulled the AUDIO/MIRROR fuse for 5 mins and returned it. All my Unit ID data changed to ******, and a few moments later was returned to normal. After about 20 mins Carwings functioned normally. NissanConnectEV website, app, and Leaf Manager all functioned normally. I did not note my 12v system voltage.

E. Today I used Carwings to preheat my car before my lunch break approximately 12:45pm, it worked. I then noticed on Leaf Spy that my 12v battery was pretty low, in the low 12v range while I was about to drive away. I drove and got some food and ate it at a CHAdeMO charger and then ran some errands. While I ate for about 20-30 minutes on the charger I had the full car systems on, heaters, and bluetooth audio. I returned and parked at work and did not plug in.

F. At approximately 5pm I sent commands to preheat my car, but both my apps timed out.

G. NissanConnectEV web and app, and Leaf Manager stopped working some time between lunch and leaving to go home.


Hypothesis: low 12v system battery is causing the 3G TCU to fail to connect, and continuing to cause non-response even later on when the 12v system is at proper voltage.


Tonight I had me an experiment. It was as follows:

1. I parked after about 1 hour's drive home and the 12v system voltage was around 13v.

2. I pulled the AUDIO/MIRROR fuse and returned it after 5 mins. After that time the Unit ID data was NOT reset to *******. After 30 mins none of my apps worked.

3. I pulled the same fuse again. I also pulled the negative terminal off the 12v battery and put the 12v battery on a charger for 1 hour. After this time I replaced the battery and replaced the fuse and started up the car. My Unit ID data was now reset to ********. I also pressed Sign In, and I signed in to Carwings in the car again.

4. After approximately 15 minutes, EVERYTHING WORKED!!!!!!!

Hypothesis confirmed. As noted in C above, Carwings failed for me at around the same time I received the EV system warning light for the 12v system. In D above, pulling the fuse did reset my Unit ID info, while later on in 2 above the fuse did not reset my Unit ID info, then in 3 pulling the battery did. This suggests that the reason pulling the fuse did reset my Unit ID info in D suggests that my 12v system battery was already very weak and there are two separate components (3G TCU and XM receiver possibly?) and one functions off the AUDIO/MIRROR fuse and the other does not, but the one that does not was already failing due to low 12v system voltage.

Chronic 12v battery weakness and failures, a new 3G TCU that possibly has more power consumption, or requires a higher voltage to function properly, and it being winter causing the batteries to be more prone to failure or have weak voltage, all combine to cause this mystery problem.

Is it a mystery any longer? Your input would be great to hear! Try it yourself!

Sounds like in your case, you need to replace the audio fuse with a toggle switch.

 

[VitaminJ]

Well no, what I need to do is make sure my 12v system doesn't drop below a certain voltage which I think is around 12v exactly, I'm going to try an narrow that down. And when/if it does drop that low I now know how to reset my Carwings and get it working again all on my own without Nissan tech support (who don't seem to know the underlying issue).

 

[lorenfb]

Well no, what I need to do is make sure my 12v system doesn't drop below a certain voltage which I think is around 12v exactly, I'm going to try an narrow that down. And when/if it does drop that low I now know how to reset my Carwings and get it working again all on my own without Nissan tech support (who don't seem to know the underlying issue).

Hopefully the 3G TCU modules don't have a power voltage sensitivity problem, i.e. most automotive ECUs are
designed to operate with a power voltage as low as 10 volts.

 

[VitaminJ]

What I hoped to prove is that they do have that problem. I'm going to be recording my 12v system voltage and any future Carwings failures from now on. I also hope other people will follow my procedure and give their results.

 

[VitaminJ]

Guess what it's cold outside!!!

Guess who's Carwings stopped responding!!!

Guess who's 12v battery is low!!!

Car is being used I will let you know if my reset works again.

LifePO 12v replacement should arrive tomorrow.

Let's see what happens!

 

[VitaminJ]

Guess who's Carwings is working again!!!

 

[LeftieBiker]

Don't let a lead-acid battery drop to 12.0 volts - that's "plate damage" (via permanent sulfation) territory. Anything below about 12.4 should be addressed ASAP.

 

[Stanton]

Guess what it's cold outside!!!

Guess who's Carwings stopped responding!!!

Guess who's 12v battery is low!!!

Car is being used I will let you know if my reset works again.

LifePO 12v replacement should arrive tomorrow.

Let's see what happens!

I bet the 12v battery replacement "fixes" your TCU woes.
I am interested to hear your LiFePO stories, but please post them in the 12v Lithium battery thread I mentioned earlier.
Of course, post your modem stories here!

 

[VitaminJ]

Don't let a lead-acid battery drop to 12.0 volts - that's "plate damage" (via permanent sulfation) territory. Anything below about 12.4 should be addressed ASAP.

I mean, yeah that's great advice on a every other car forum. On this forum there are 4 threads just on the first page of the Troubleshooting section regarding problems with the 12v battery. For reference my car drove just fine and didn't throw any errors except once last week. I've also seen a bunch of people on this thread, other forums, and at least 20 people on Facebook having trouble with their 3G TCU, so I'm just guessing this is a widespread problem.

I made a little video documenting my procedure last night. I did not remove the fuse this time, I only pulled the negative battery terminal for 5 minutes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYiwBG9887Y

 

[lorenfb]

I've also seen a bunch of people on this thread, other forums, and at least 20 people on Facebook having trouble with their 3G TCU, so I'm just guessing this is a widespread problem.

If it turns out that the 3G TCU is sensitive to the 12V battery being as low as 12.00 volts, then there's a design problem
with the 3G TCU. No automotive ECU should be that sensitive to a power supply voltage especially in an application
where the battery voltage can easily vary +/- 20%.

Remember, a sample of few hardly makes for robust data in arriving at a conclusion.

 

[VitaminJ]

Which is why I posted about it here, so others can see if they are having the same issue. You, in fact, could test this also!

 

[jdcbomb]

Different symptoms now. I have not tried any fuse or battery pulls. 4 weeks after 2nd TCU replacement. Two days ago it was working (app and website), about 6 hrs after calling Nissan with an escalated case. Now it doesn't connect, but "appears" to be trying each time. It does not give me the "failed to connect" issue instantly during sign-on and actually gave me a "Telematics communication device is busy. Please try again later."

I'm wondering now if it really is the battery voltage issue...as the temperature outside when it finally out of the blue worked...was around 72 F. Last couple nights temperatures dropped to 35-40F. And now it's not working again. Bizarre!

 

[VitaminJ]

Pull the battery terminal and see if it fixes it for you! Sounds like similar symptoms.

 

[oak]

Pull the battery terminal and see if it fixes it for you! Sounds like similar symptoms.

Wonder why pulling the battery terminal helps? Or do you only reset it after you've fully charged the car with a battery tender?

I'll give this a try in a couple hours and report back.

 

[Stanton]

Different symptoms now. I have not tried any fuse or battery pulls. 4 weeks after 2nd TCU replacement. Two days ago it was working (app and website), about 6 hrs after calling Nissan with an escalated case. Now it doesn't connect, but "appears" to be trying each time. It does not give me the "failed to connect" issue instantly during sign-on and actually gave me a "Telematics communication device is busy. Please try again later."

I sure hope you guys are confusing Nissan's service being down with a "potential" TCU issue? I couldn't talk to my car today either, but I know that's because CarWings/NissanConnect is down. It's well documented that CW/NC isn't exactly high availability (but good enough for "free").

 

[northernleaf]

Is there any downside to pulling the 12v battery terminal? Does the car loose any important pre-sets?

 

[Stanton]

Is there any downside to pulling the 12v battery terminal? Does the car loose any important pre-sets?

Just some things in the dash (not center console), like:
1) clock
2) start-up sound

 

[VitaminJ]

Different symptoms now. I have not tried any fuse or battery pulls. 4 weeks after 2nd TCU replacement. Two days ago it was working (app and website), about 6 hrs after calling Nissan with an escalated case. Now it doesn't connect, but "appears" to be trying each time. It does not give me the "failed to connect" issue instantly during sign-on and actually gave me a "Telematics communication device is busy. Please try again later."

I sure hope you guys are confusing Nissan's service being down with a "potential" TCU issue? I couldn't talk to my car today either, but I know that's because CarWings/NissanConnect is down. It's well documented that CW/NC isn't exactly high availability (but good enough for "free").

Are you sure it's down? Does Nissan announce that or something? I used Carwings 3 or 4 times today. If it still doesn't work tomorrow, yank your battery cable and see what happens.

Also just saw you have a LifePO battery, what size? I assume it works well and doesn't get much lower than 13v ever, is that right?

 

[Stanton]

Are you sure it's down? Does Nissan announce that or something? I used Carwings 3 or 4 times today. If it still doesn't work tomorrow, yank your battery cable and see what happens.

Also just saw you have a LifePO battery, what size? I assume it works well and doesn't get much lower than 13v ever, is that right?

That's my point: the service has gone down for days at a time over the last several years...and messing with things (like pulling fuses, re-entering account info) often creates more problems than it solves. I guess the TCU/modem upgrade has just brought this topic to the forefront lately.

Yes, I replaced the 12v lead-acid battery with a 20 AHr (although I've tested < 10 AHr) Lithium battery a few years ago...and yes, it pretty much stays just above 13v. My particular battery (https://www.lithiumpros.com) has a max charge voltage of 14.6v, but that's not a problem since the Leaf doesn't apply more than 14.4v. The best part is: I've never had a dead battery!