Carwings oddities, interesting tidbits, and problems

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TomT

Well-known member
Joined
Aug 8, 2010
Messages
10,656
Location
California, now Georgia
So after 3 days of Carwings I have noted an interesting problem. Even though both the car and Carwings are setup to send me charging notification, I have yet to receive one. In fact, I've received no notifications of anything from Carwings except that I had changed my requested notifications...

I wonder if this is normal for the first few days or so of ownership...
 
Yes, it could be normal. I assume you are talking about email notifications ? (TXTs are a separate issue and depend on provider.)

BUT ... you also need to turn on several options in the car (the CarWings Settings Menu) to get these notifications, including (oddly) setting at least one location (for example your home) for Charging Stopped messages.
 
I've done all that and actually finally got an email today that charging had stopped... Except it was sent about 6 hours after it actually HAD stopped... But it is an improvement so we'll see what the next days bring.


LEAFer said:
Yes, it could be normal. I assume you are talking about email notifications ? (TXTs are a separate issue and depend on provider.)

BUT ... you also need to turn on several options in the car (the CarWings Settings Menu) to get these notifications, including (oddly) setting at least one location (for example your home) for Charging Stopped messages.
 
Fellow LEAF drivers,

I just got off the phone with LEAF "customer service" (3/7/2011, 1:55pm California time), and they tell me "they have no complaints about the lack of updating of Carwings chargepoint information."

HOW can that be?

We have a number of owners who now recognize that there is ZERO information on chargepoints in their Carwings database. Have none of you complained directly to Nissan?

PLEASE everyone with a LEAF, call LEAF "customer service" and demand that the chargepoint location information be updated at least weekly for these early adoption stages. Well, we could accept, maybe monthly, but what others have reported about "quarterly updates" should not be acceptable.

Without those more frequent updates more of us will have to compromise the actual use of our LEAF, or risk "turtle mode" ourselves.
 
Carwings stopped working tonight on a drive when I was checking a traffic RSS. I just figured out how to send routes from Google and the RSS stuff, useful fun stuff. Now I'm home to log into Carwings and suddenly my PIN and Password do not match my VIN. Says I entered them in another LEAF nav system :?: :?:

My first call to CS and I find out it's not 24 hour, what was i thinking :shock:
 
If you need Carwings before you can get the car to a dealer:

You could try to re-boot the car (NOT WHILE CHARGING) to reset the Carwings communication hardware.

ONLY if you are sufficiently CAPABLE:
Unbolt the cable from the 12v battery's negative terminal clamp (no need to disturb the actual clamp around the battery terminal). Use a 13 mm wrench, leave off for about 5 minutes. Reconnect and wait for a minute or two.

Then, turn the car ON and check for a Carwings connection, furst in the car, and then via the PC and the Owners Portal.
 
garygid said:
If you need Carwings before you can get the car to a dealer:

You could try to re-boot the car (NOT WHILE CHARGING) to reset the Carwings communication hardware.

ONLY if you are sufficiently CAPABLE:
Unbolt the cable from the 12v battery's negative terminal clamp (no need to disturb the actual clamp around the battery terminal). Use a 13 mm wrench, leave off for about 5 minutes. Reconnect and wait for a minute or two.

Then, turn the car ON and check for a Carwings connection, furst in the car, and then via the PC and the Owners Portal.

Like reseting my phone! :D Well that was fun and easy. I use aircards to connect our automation systems at work so I understand why this works. I just did the same thing I tell my customers, "Reboot the aircard". At least ours are on Verizon. :D

You can use a 10mm on the battery clamp or a 13mm on the terminal.

Thanks for the quick advice!!! This forum far exceeds any Nissan support, especially at 00:20 in the morning. :D :D :D
 
I was away for three weeks on vacation and discovered that after 14 days of inactivity (neither being charged nor turned on) the car ceases communicating with Carwings and its status can not then be queried.
 
IF YOU can do so SAFELY:

Use the key to enter the car (when the fob does not work), pop open the hood, and measure the voltage on the 12v battery.

If the 12v battery is too low, parts (or all) of the internal electronics might not work. If so, you might want to arrange to charge the 12v battery to get "going" again.

However, once each 5 days, the HV battery should have "come on" to use the DC-to-DC converter to charge the 12v battery.

Possibly that 12v recharge was too late, and never happened because the 12v battery was drained by some unexpected load?
 
mogur said:
I was away for three weeks on vacation and discovered that after 14 days of inactivity (neither being charged nor turned on) the car ceases communicating with Carwings and its status can not then be queried.
garygid said:
If the 12v battery is too low, parts (or all) of the internal electronics might not work. If so, you might want to arrange to charge the 12v battery to get "going" again.
No, I think mogur is talking about a Carwings software or car firmware design issue, not a low battery condition. I got an error message from Carwings mentioning the 14 day limit the first time I tried to use it after getting the car.

Ray
 
I have been trying to use the carwings on the laptop app to send-a-route to the car.
It lets you name it, but then the name doesnt appear in carwings in the Leaf.
Worse, every time I send a new route, it wipes out the last one, even though there are six slots for routes.

anyone have a fix for this?
 
Yep, the battery was fine. Carwings itself said that it could not contact the car and that it might be out of cellular range or it might have been more than 14 days since it was last turned on. So, apparently it stops communicating after 14 days of no activity. When I got home, I plugged it in without turning it on and it immediately started communicating again.

planet4ever said:
mogur said:
I was away for three weeks on vacation and discovered that after 14 days of inactivity (neither being charged nor turned on) the car ceases communicating with Carwings and its status can not then be queried.
garygid said:
If the 12v battery is too low, parts (or all) of the internal electronics might not work. If so, you might want to arrange to charge the 12v battery to get "going" again.
No, I think mogur is talking about a Carwings software or car firmware design issue, not a low battery condition. I got an error message from Carwings mentioning the 14 day limit the first time I tried to use it after getting the car.

Ray
 
Thanks for posting about lack of info from Carwings after 2 weeks.

The message - see below--- from Carwings is probably the same one you got:

"Your request to update vehicle status for Wattsun (name of our car) failed. There was a problem detected communicating with the vehicle. Please try your request again. Also ensure your vehicle is located in an area with cellular reception and it has been driven with the last 14 days."

I am assuming that there is no problem with the car just with the software. But I would feel better watching the battery level.

Any thoughts on why they would use a 14 day limit.
 
Perhaps a "dreaming" LEAF slumbers for 14 days with enough electronics on to communicate, but then, if not used (disturbed), it goes into a deep-sleep mode with "everything" turned OFF?
 
There are several notifications that CarWings has:

Plug-in Reminder
Charge On
Charge Complete
Vehicle Status
Climate Control

So far the only one that I have been able get is the "Vehicle Status" notice. I have had my Leaf for less than a week, so I may not have something configure correctly. The fact that I am getting one of the notices lets me know that I have the contact info correct.

Do you know what I need to do to enable this?
 
patrick0101 said:
There are several notifications that CarWings has:

Plug-in Reminder
Charge On
Charge Complete
Vehicle Status
Climate Control

So far the only one that I have been able get is the "Vehicle Status" notice. I have had my Leaf for less than a week, so I may not have something configure correctly. The fact that I am getting one of the notices lets me know that I have the contact info correct.

Do you know what I need to do to enable this?
You need to go into e->settings->charging messages in the car and turn on the two "send to data center" options. Then these notifications will work.
 
davewill said:
You need to go into e->settings->charging messages in the car and turn on the two "send to data center" options. Then these notifications will work.
Thanks. I did this and I got a message at 12:01 saying that the charge was complete, even though it has been complete since ~5PM. At least I am getting messages now.

When I was looking at the settings, I saw an unplug notice, but the shortest time range was 5 minutes. I'd like to know as soon as my car is unplugged. Why the minimum of a 5 minute delay?
 
That one is to remind you to plug in if you forget when you arrive home. 5 minutes is so you have time to park and plug in before being nagged. For that one to work you have to get your home charger registered in the nav.

The notice that you've been unplugged is immediate.
 
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