2011 Leaf SL suddenly stops charging and shows "--- miles"

Twice over the last three days my 2011 Leaf SL has suddenly stopped charging (and the air conditioner stopped, and the dashboard showed "--- miles") after about three hours of me sitting in the car charging (120VAC) and running the air conditioner. Both times, the problem was fixed by me briefly disconnecting the 12V battery's negative power cable.

Would a failing 12V battery explain this? Am I draining the 12V battery somehow? I started the car by pressing the power button once while pressing the brake pedal. As soon as the problem happened, I disconnected the J-1772 plug and turned the car off and on a couple times-- the 12V battery clearly had enough power to restart the car, but the dashboard still showed "--- miles" until after I disconnected the 12V battery's negative power cable.

This morning it happened again. I drove a few miles, without running the air conditioner, and shut the car off. Half an hour later, I tried to start the car and got the "--- miles" display. Had to disconnect the negative cable to get it to start.

Also, while the negative cable was disconnected, I used my analog multimeter to check the 12V battery. It showed about 14.5 volts between the terminals.

Do you have a battery tender or 12v charger of some sort?

in years passed the 12v battery has caused issues for our 2012. We resolved them by using a battery tender and then replacing it all together once it was over 5 years old.

Leave it charging over night at least and see if this helps. don't have the car plugged into to the charging station while this is happening though, just the 12v battery charger/tender.

As of a few minutes ago, even after I disconnect/reconnect the negative cable on the 12v battery, the car stops J-1772 charging after 45 seconds, so I can't even charge the li-ion battery. Are these all things that normally happen when the 12V battery is dying?

I have the 12V battery on a battery charger now.

pmac said:

As of a few minutes ago, even after I disconnect/reconnect the negative cable on the 12v battery, the car stops J-1772 charging after 45 seconds, so I can't even charge the li-ion battery. Are these all things that normally happen when the 12V battery is dying?

I have the 12V battery on a battery charger now.

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Excellent, leave it on for a good 12 hours or so. and yes, things like this can happen with a weak 12v battery. the, especially the eariler ones where notorious for not charging the 12v battery enough.

pmac said:

...Also, while the negative cable was disconnected, I used my analog multimeter to check the 12V battery. It showed about 14.5 volts between the terminals.

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Get the 12V battery load-tested. Parts stores like Autozone will do this for free if you don't want to buy a tester.

Nubo said:

pmac said:

...Also, while the negative cable was disconnected, I used my analog multimeter to check the 12V battery. It showed about 14.5 volts between the terminals.

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Get the 12V battery load-tested. Parts stores like Autozone will do this for free if you don't want to buy a tester.

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+1 to what Nubo said. He knows what he's talking. mostly, right?

After leaving the 12V battery on a battery reconditioner for 19 hours, the reconditioner shows 12.9V (LeafSpy shows 11.76V). After reinstalling the 12V battery, the car stopped charging 53 seconds after plugging in the J-1772 (no improvement from yesterday). And then I noticed a new symptom-- after disconnecting/reconnecting the negative cable, I turned on the car without first trying to J-1772 charge, and the dash showed "--- miles" (until today, disconnecting/reconnecting the negative cable would always solve the "--- miles" problem). Without trying to J-1772 charge, I turned the car off and on a few times, and the new behavior is that about half the time the guessometer shows "8 miles", and the other half of the time it shows "--- miles".

LeafSpy Pro screenshots are attached. (It is the $14.99 LeafSpy Pro, but there are only four dots in lower left, and no service screen, and I don't know why.)

I'm thinking that without a load tester or known DTCs, the next step is to test-connect a known-good 12V battery, and probably buy a replacement 12V battery and a trickle charger. Since Leaf doesn't need much starting power, then a cheap undersized (smaller dimensions than fitment code 11) deep cycle battery should be fine if I made some shims, right? Recommendations? BTW, the current 12V battery is a Costco Interstate purchased Aug 2018 by the car's previous owner. He gave me the receipt, but Costco says they don't honor the 36-month warranty if the car is sold. Besides buying a trickle charger, I'm wondering if my use of an 300W inverter for an hour at a time, together with Leaf's 12V recharging algorithm, was a 12V-battery killer?

The service screen only appears when you toggle the service screen button in the Settings menu. I think it resets to off every time the app is closed also.

I do suspect you might have killed the 12V battery by running the inverter off the cigarette lighter. I don't know much about the early charging algorithm but if the 12V battery was kept at a low voltage for even a week, it may be permanently damaged.

Wow, there are 39 DTCs. Is there any way to tell how old they are, and does this still look like 12V battery? I never before checked LSP's service screen.

You will get a lot of codes that would be fixed by a new (or working) battery. Do you have another vehicle that you connect to to "jump" yours?

if so, remember to have the helper vehicle's engine off when you connect it and try to start up your car. people get away with it all the time but it only needs one thing to go wrong and you could fry electronics in both cars. you are just connecting up the battery to borrow it's amps power.

Also keep in mind that a really dead 12 volt battery will act as a resistor and can't be jump-started.

I just cleared all the DTCs, and the car is now successfully J-1772 charging while turned off. Apparently the traction battery won't charge if there are uncleared DTCs?? Assuming the traction battery fully charges and doesn't shut off prematurely (yes, that did happen for the first time a few days ago), would it be a bad idea to try to drive the Leaf to the auto parts store to buy a new 12V battery? I have a Winplus Type S Jump Starter Portable Power Bank that I can use to boost the 12V battery if the car shuts off en route, and I've run the old 12V battery through the trickle charger's reconditioning cycle for a total of about 20 hours.

pmac said:

I just cleared all the DTCs, and the car is now successfully J-1772 charging while turned off. Apparently the traction battery won't charge if there are uncleared DTCs?? Assuming the traction battery fully charges and doesn't shut off prematurely (yes, that did happen for the first time a few days ago), would it be a bad idea to try to drive the Leaf to the auto parts store to buy a new 12V battery? I have a Winplus Type S Jump Starter Portable Power Bank that I can use to boost the 12V battery if the car shuts off en route, and I've run the old 12V battery through the trickle charger's reconditioning cycle for a total of about 20 hours.

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Yes, some (but not most) DTC's will block charging until cleared. Typically these DTC's are the ones that indicate problems with the high voltage system of the car, and prevent energizing for safety reasons. However, if you're reasonably sure that these DTC's are being thrown for low 12V reasons (and not actually valid codes), then clearing them poses a minimal safety risk.

If I were you, I would not drive this Leaf to the store. I would remove the 12V battery and use a different car to get to and from the auto store. Low voltage from the battery could cause all sort of electronic failures, most likely just having the car quit and leaving you stranded on the road.
In the worst case, it could cause you to lose nearly all braking power. IMO, your car is not currently safe to drive given the 12V battery caused charging issues after 53 SECONDS.

I'm pretty sure you have a bad 12V battery and swapping it will likely resolve all your issues. Multiple DTC's indicate low voltage as the root cause. Get a new 12V battery, install it, and put it on your trickle charger until full. Then drive and enjoy your car.

P.S. Trickle charge your battery with an external trickle charger every 1-2 months. The 2011 does a quite poor job of maintaining 12V battery voltage.

Also, and this is important: fully charge the new battery before installing it - or at least before starting the car again.

LeftieBiker said:

Also, and this is important: fully charge the new battery before installing it - or at least before starting the car again.

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Yep.. your car is not going to maintain it's 12volt battery... we have battery tenders at our house for this very reason.. especially winter.. we give the 12volts some extra juice on nights when we are not charging the traction battery.

Good luck.

Update: I bought a new Costco 12V battery and fully charged it with an external charger, but the DTCs have continued:
B2820 0028 CHARGER Quick Charger VC-63
P31E7 00C0 EV/HEV Restart Inhibition EVC-310
P0AA6 00C0 Hybrid Batt Volt Sys Isolation EVC-157
P3173 00D2 On Board Charger Sys EVC-236

Also, while I was charging at a J-1772 station (after replacing the 12V battery), the station totally lost power, and I got a ChargePoint: Overcurrent" email saying "The station at which your vehicle is charging... has detected that your Vehicle is drawing more current than the station's rating, and has suspended charging to prevent the circuit breaker from tripping. This typically indicates an issue with configuration of the vehicle or an issue with the battery management system on the vehicle. Please contact the manufacturer of the vehicle if you receive this notification again." However, I later charged at another J-1772 station without any problem.

Possibly this is related to a rear side collision back in January, but I doubt it-- the damage appears limited to body panels, I never stopped driving the car, a 4-wheel alignment check showed no problems, and there hasn't been any tire scrubbing or strange noises. The first electrical problem was in June, when the car shut down while I was charging (I had been running the air conditioner for several hours, and most, but not all, of the subsequent DTCs have happened when the A/C is running). Also, I think an electrical short inside the battery can be ruled out-- Leaf Spy Pro shows that after 24 hours of not driving or charging, all four battery temperature sensors are within 2°F of each other, and SoC hasn't decreased (it actually went up from 36.3% to 36.7%, due to the battery cooling?).

P31E7 00C0 EV/HEV Restart Inhibition EVC-310
P0AA6 00C0 Hybrid Batt Volt Sys Isolation EVC-157

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An isolation fault is essentially a short. It's probably in the BMS, given the circumstances and behavior of the car.