Asking for Lemon Law protection on Monday

surfingslovak said:

Sure, the invoice contains this line item:

Code:

B P1274  LEAF VCM TCU REPRO  NTB12-015  PERFORM FACTORY RECALL  29034  W40  14214  REPROGRAMMED VCM & TCU AS PER CAMPAIGN

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So, looking at the three campaigns that were done, I conclude that they were likely for three different VIN number ranges:

P1272/NTB12-013: Perhaps for the newest LEAFs. NTB contains 31 pages of instructions.
P1273/NTB12-014: For a group of LEAFs including mine: 5926. NTB contains 52 pages of instructions.
P1274/NTB12-015: Perhaps for older LEAFs, including surfingslovak's. NTB contains 42 pages of instructions. surfingslovak, can you confirm whether your LEAF is older or newer than mine?

Nissan recently told my dealer that sometimes these firmware updates did not "take" and that they should try to reapply it. Looking at the instructions, I can see that it would certainly be possible to miss a step. I'm not saying that is what happened here, but the work is done by humans, so it should be considered a possibility.

RegGuheert said:

So, looking at the three campaigns that were done, I conclude that they were likely for three different VIN number ranges:

P1272/NTB12-013: For the newest LEAFs. NTB contains 31 pages of instructions.
P1273/NTB12-014: For next oldest LEAFs, including mine. NTB contains 42 pages of instructions.
P1274/NTB12-015: For the oldest LEAFs, including surfingslovak's. NTB contains 52 pages of instructions.

Nissan recently told my dealer that sometimes these firmware updates did not "take" and that they should try to reapply it. Looking at the instructions, I can see that it would certainly be possible to miss a step. I'm not saying that is what happened here, but the work is done by humans, so it should be considered a possibility.

Click to expand...

Very interesting! To corroborate what you said, my Leaf had to stay at the dealership overnight and it was out of my possesion for nearly 24 hours. The software update must have take considerably longer than they originally estimated. I believe the service manager mentioned something about a failed download or the download taking longer than anticipated.

surfingslovak said:

Very interesting!

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I'm sorry, but there are mistakes in my post that you quoted. Please read my edited version and comment. Sorry for any confusion!

RegGuheert said:

I'm sorry, but there are mistakes in my post that you quoted. Please read my edited version and comment. Sorry for any confusion!

Click to expand...

Manufacture date is 04/2011. I wasn't part of the first wave, but the Leaf is likely one of the older ones in the fleet.

RegGuheert said:

Code:

B P1274  LEAF VCM TCU REPRO  NTB12-015  PERFORM FACTORY RECALL  29034  W40  14214  REPROGRAMMED VCM & TCU AS PER CAMPAIGN

So, looking at the three campaigns that were done, I conclude that they were likely for three different VIN number ranges:

P1272/NTB12-013: Perhaps for the newest LEAFs. NTB contains 31 pages of instructions.
P1273/NTB12-014: For a group of LEAFs including mine: 5926. NTB contains 52 pages of instructions.
P1274/NTB12-015: Perhaps for older LEAFs, including surfingslovak's. NTB contains 42 pages of instructions. surfingslovak, can you confirm whether your LEAF is older or newer than mine?

Click to expand...

I've done some more reading and sleuthing on these three campaigns and it seems clear that the campaigns are, at least partially, keyed from the VCU Part Number in the car. You can determine the current Telematics Part Number for your LEAF by following these steps:

1) Go into navigation system diagnostics (turn off radio, press Map three times, Radio Power two times, Map once).
2) Select Confirmation/Adjustment.
3) Select Version Information
4) Record the Part Number entry: XXXXX The next to last X in your VCU part number tells whether or not your LEAF has a battery heater: 0=No Battery Heater, 1=Battery Heater

So here are the VCU Part Numbers that these three campaigns were supposed to have been applied to:

P1272/NTB12-013:
Vehicle configuration ASCD: 273D0-3NA0B, 273D0-3NA0C, 273D0-3NA0D, 273D0-3NA0E
Vehicle configuration ASCD with Battery Heater: 273D0-3NA1A, 273D0-3NA1B, 273D0-3NA1C

P1273/NTB12-014:
Vehicle configuration ASCD: 273D0-3NA0B, 273D0-3NA0C, 273D0-3NA0D, 273D0-3NA0E
Vehicle configuration ALL: 283B0-3NA0A, 283B0-3NA0B, 283B0-3NA0C, 283B0-3EM0A, 283B0-3EM0B
Vehicle configuration ALL: 293A0-3NABA

P1274/NTB12-015:
Vehicle configuration ASCD: 273D0-3NA0B, 273D0-3NA0C, 273D0-3NA0D, 273D0-3NA0E
Vehicle configuration ASCD with Battery Heater: 273D0-3NA1A, 273D0-3NA1B, 273D0-3NA1C
Vehicle configuration ALL: 283B0-3NA0A, 283B0-3NA0B, 283B0-3NA0C, 283B0-3EM0A, 283B0-3EM0B

The prefixes listed seem to be:

273D0: EV/HEV
283B0: Telematics
293A0: HV Battery

So, looking at this, it appears that P1273/NTB12-014 may apply to older LEAFs without the option for a battery heater. P1272/NTB12-013 and P1274/NTB12-015 seem to apply to two later groups of LEAFs, but perhaps they are divided by VIN numbers or SL versus SV since it appears P1274/NTB12-015 gets a telematics update that P1272/NTB12-013 does not get.

Anyway, if we can confirm/correct the decoding of the VCU Part Number, this might be useful information to add to the Wiki.

Edits: Corrected my misunderstanding here.

Just an FYI that you can not determine the part number rev from the diagnostic screen of the center display as it does not update when firmware updates are done. It will stay at whatever rev the car came with from the factory... I've had two updates done on my car (A/C and then the voluntary) and it is still at A on that screen, as shipped...

RegGuheert said:

Code:

B P1274  LEAF VCM TCU REPRO  NTB12-015  PERFORM FACTORY RECALL  29034  W40  14214  REPROGRAMMED VCM & TCU AS PER CAMPAIGN

So, looking at the three campaigns that were done, I conclude that they were likely for three different VIN number ranges:

Click to expand...

Yep, the center diag display info is only useful to look at specific firmware versions of the "infotainment" system. It will not tell you the state of other modules in the car, and what updates you have ("new" GOM/bar behavior, open door warning, "A/C" fix, etc.)

TomT said:

Just an FYI that you can not determine the part number rev from the diagnostic screen of the center display as it does not update when firmware updates are done. It will stay at whatever rev the car came with from the factory... I've had two updates done on my car (A/C and then the voluntary) and it is still at A on that screen, as shipped...

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O.K., thanks, Tom!

That implies that what the dealer told me was correct: When they applied P1274/NTB12-015 to my car, that it did not take when updating Part Number 283B0-3NA0C to 283B0-3NA0D. I have the sheet showing them doing that more recently.

So, the question becomes: Did they successfully update 273D0-3NA0C to 273D0-3NA0D back on 29 February 12 when P1274/NTB-015 was first applied, or not. In other words, did I have mismatched versions since my 8 Aug 2012 visit or do I have mismatched firmware revisions now?

grommet said:

Yep, the center diag display info is only useful to look at specific firmware versions of the "infotainment" system. It will not tell you the state of other modules in the car, and what updates you have ("new" GOM/bar behavior, open door warning, "A/C" fix, etc.)

Click to expand...

Thanks! That makes sense, and I have gone back and cleaned up my previous mistakes.

So, back to the original issue:

surfingslovak said:

TonyWilliams said:

Sure, the invoice contains this line item:

Code:

B P1274  LEAF VCM TCU REPRO  NTB12-015  PERFORM FACTORY RECALL  29034  W40  14214  REPROGRAMMED VCM & TCU AS PER CAMPAIGN

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

I misspoke before, and our LEAF also got P1274, just like surfingslovak's.

Looking at what is modified, the one that seems most likely to result in a driving issue if there is a problem with the update is P1273/NTB12-014. Why? Because that one modifies BOTH the EV firmware AND the HV battery firmware. The other two ONLY update the EV firmware, so if that step was skipped, no change would occur to the EV drive system. But what if ONLY the EV firmware OR the HV Battery firmware got updated during P1273, but not the other one? In that case, since they are both specified, assumedly updating only one may result in an untested configuration.

According to my dealer, the ONLY way he can find out the part number for the various units in the car is to attempt to update them and IF the system allows the update, then it will show the old and new versions.

While this hypothesis does not apply to surfingslovak, we do not know about OP unless he can tell which of the three updates were applied. Perhaps it was P1273.

It sure would be nice to be able to read the part number from each of the pieces of equipment in the LEAF to confirm that these updates are being applied correctly. Perhaps LEAFscan will provide this functionality.

Consult can display the firmware part number for any module on any other car without re-programing, I dont know why LEAF would be any different.

Also, while the printing of data for the file is great and all, do we know if the techs working on these cars have been calling Techline so that they can use Citrix to connect to the dealer's toughbook and use the admin mode of Consult to pull 'super-secret' data for the engineers?

I have not seen the complaints this thread is about on another car, but im in a small-town dealer in central IL. We've only sold like 10 cars in the last year, and aside from the recalls the only thing ive had to do was replace 1 onboard charger.

Just a followup, I did file with BBB's Autoline and started a case. Someone at Nissan called me two days later. Nissan is sending a dealer rep to check out the car on the 13th. Sounds more like they want him to run "the tests" to say there's nothing wrong, instead of sending an engineer to find out what's wrong.

saintyohann said:

Just a followup, I did file with BBB's Autoline and started a case. Someone at Nissan called me two days later. Nissan is sending a dealer rep to check out the car on the 13th. Sounds more like they want him to run "the tests" to say there's nothing wrong, instead of sending an engineer to find out what's wrong.

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What is wrong?

Tony, see the first post of this thread.

Nice sarcasm Tony. Saintyohann, according to Nissan, there is nothing wrong so why would they send someone out to verify something they already "know".

Here are some points:

There is no way the firmware reflash "went wrong" or is corrupt. The images are encrypted and signed in such a way that if even one bit is altered it will not flash. If the flash memory in the ECU had failed in such a way to alter it's code, the checksum algorithm would catch it and it would hard fault.

The dealer computer tool (Consult III+) will not allow a firmware regression, nor will it "reflash". (even if this could help) It's basically automatic, and out of the dealer's control. Only Nissan Engineering with special development access can manually perform any ECU flashing/reading.

Consult III+ will list all firmware versions (ECU part #'s).

While the reverse lockout problem is indeed an apparent firmware bug, and Nissan is likely very aware of it, these other problems sound like something else. My bet is one of the devices on the CAN bus is flaky and creating errors on that bus which is causing the strange intermittent symptoms. As pointed out, simple module swapping would eventually correct the problem, but a detailed CAN analysis would probably reveal the problem pretty fast. However, Dealer techs are not able to do more than basic go/no-go testing using Consult III+. This would require a visit from the Nissan Engineering Team. It may be that because they have already labelled this case the "known reverse incline lockout bug", they are ignoring further information that is indeed a new and different problem.

Keep in mind most customers are poor at providing good information and there are also many layers between a customer and someone at Nissan that is an actual Engineer, so it's not surprising that this is happening. Most customers simply make a bunch of noise and are poor sources of information, so Dealer Techs and even Nissan corporate learn to generally filter much of what is heard and form their own opinions which means even if you know what you are talking about, and give good information, you will probably not really be heard.

So in summation: There may be a small known problem with the reverse lockout thing, and I'm sure Nissan will fix it in an upcoming firmware update, but they are very careful about updating code, and only do it after many, many hours of testing. Don't expect fixes any more than once a year at best unless it's a total emergency. I do not think this problem is a firmware-related issue, and while it coincided with the update, I do not believe regressing to an old version (even if it were possible) would fix this. I'm fairly confident it will need module replacement. It's possible there was something as trivial as an ESD (Electro-static discharge) that might have damaged a module. (Maybe while in the Dealer's care for the update)

I would persist with the Lemon Law claim to force them to act on this. It's inexcusable, and this combined with how Nissan has been treating the Phoenix battery issue definitely lowers my opinion of them. I am very dismayed and disappointed in this kind of surprising poor performance from a Major Japanese automaker. I hope they step up soon.

-Phil

Ingineer said:

While the reverse lockout problem is indeed an apparent firmware bug, and Nissan is likely very aware of it...

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I don't recall anyone else reporting this bug, is it a known problem that others have encountered?

Stoaty said:

Ingineer said:

While the reverse lockout problem is indeed an apparent firmware bug, and Nissan is likely very aware of it...

Click to expand...

I don't recall anyone else reporting this bug, is it a known problem that others have encountered?

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I saw something weird shortly after getting the update. I didn't realize that it could be related then, and I haven't seen other reports anywhere.

I spoke with a Nissan rep and a Leaf tech (corporate not deanship tech) on 9/13 and they went over all the times the car had been in and found something from my April visit. They found two codes (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.

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 scheduled as a guest for a National Plugin Day event, but really I don't think I could get through it without totally venting on Nissan in front of the crowd. I think I should cancel and keep my mouth shut.

Do you have a mobile phone charging device installed in a power port of this car?
Do you have a building security pass chip device on your key ring or on your person?
Do you have music stored on a flash drive/chip attached to the car?

If you have any of these devices, keep them away from your car and see what happens.

I've seen this issue.