2013 Leaf - Dead 12-Volt Battery every 2 Weeks

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69800 said:
RegGuheert .....any comment?

http://www.amazon.com/YTZ12S-Z12S-Lithium-Sealed-Battery/dp/B00DCXEY7C/?tag=myelecarfor-20&/ref=pd_sim_sbs_auto_2?ie=UTF8&refRID=02QT1Z4M1HS4GNHA7YJA
First of all, I am not in the market for a lead-acid battery for any of my vehicles right now. While the LEAF does not properly charge the 12-V battery in our usage pattern, I hope and expect to achieve a very long life with the OEM battery by occasionally charging it with the BatteryMinder 1500. That battery is 4.5 years old today and I would not be surprised to still be using it five years from now. I routinely get 7-8 years from Pb-acid batteries in our other vehicles in this climate with very little attention. We'll see how it goes.

As far as the Li-ion 12-V replacements go, I fully expect they will eventually win the 12V market, but it appears those products have some maturing to do. In addition to the comments provided by LeftieBiker and GerryAZ, I see several issues with Li-ion 12-V replacements:

- High-quality ones are very expensive.
- Low-priced ones do not appear to have much capacity, as GerryAZ pointed out. That's needed in the LEAF if the vehicle sits for a while.
- The battery you linked only has a six-month warranty. Pb-acid batteries warranties have gotten much worse in recent years, but none are that bad and some are still much better.
- Many small Li-ion batteries today are manufactured from the cells from used laptop batteries. If you purchase 18650-size cylindrical cells from anyone other than the top-tier suppliers, then you are likely getting old laptop cells with new ends. They typically have a capacity of only about 1000 mAh, in spite of labels which indicate as much as 6000 mAh. I suspect some of these Li-ion motorcycle batteries are made from old laptop cells, as well.
- Personally, I have never gotten more than about six years out of ANY Li-ion battery, but they are clearly getting better as time marches on. In the early 2000s I remember some Li-ion batteries which failed to perform after only about six months of use. In contrast, the iPad 1 I am typing on right now is about four years old and the battery still has plenty of capacity. I expect it will last for several more years with proper care. I have three identical HP laptops here from 2009. One still indicates battery capacity above 70%, but the other two are below 40% and in need of replacement.
- If automotive OEMs could purchase Li-ion 12-V replacement batteries with better performance/cost ratios than their Pb-acid counterparts, they would do it. Tesla is a perfect example. I have read that the Model S eats Pb-acid batteries for breakfast, lunch and dinner, and the battery is not so simple to replace. Clearly they need a better solution in that car, and it would seem that application is not as price-sensitive as the one in the LEAF. If Li-ion can address the issues there, then I expect to see one specified in the Model X. (Anyone know?) Otherwise, perhaps we need to wait a bit longer for the technology to mature.

Li-ion chemistries with very long life and lower costs are becoming available now. If they can be coupled with true-automotive-grade power electronics they should eventually make affordable, high-quality Pb-acid replacements. For now, I get very good service from Pb-acid batteries.
 
Ok guys. Good responses. The theory looked good but for now I have decided buy the cheapest lead acid and charge weekly until the technology changes.
 
69800 said:
I am starting to lean toward the $99 L-ion ... It says this on amazon.

IMPORTANT MAINTENANCE INFORMATION
These batteries only need charging if they drop below 50%, they have a built-in meter that will tell you the health of the battery with led lights. Battery Tender has some chargers that will work fine with this battery. HOWEVER, you may NOT use a charger/tender if it has an automatic "desulfation mode",

Evidently these batteries can sit at a slightly discharged state forever which is what the leaf does. And at that price. You may not ever have to charge it but I would check it once a month to see what it is doing.

I already commented on this battery on page 16 of this thread. Basically, if it doesn't list amp-hours, it's probably not a good choice. It may work fine starting motorcycles but not for supplying days worth of dark-current to a modern automobile.
 
69800 said:
Ok guys. Good responses. The theory looked good but for now I have decided buy the cheapest lead acid and charge weekly until the technology changes.

I wouldn't get the cheapest one. Get a name brand with a good warranty, and charge it twice weekly. A hardwired connection for the maintainer makes it easy.
 
Been seeing a new charging routine. Now that's it's freezing and my garage has gotten down to 40 degrees I have noticed that the normal ramp down from 14.5 volts doesn't happen. Haven't had any long trips but have noticed this for at least 15 minutes. I'd guess the change is temperature related and not the result of my battery condition changing as Another local LEAFer reported their 2013 was doing this for 40 minutes.
 
Seems to me like it would be best to get an Optima yellow-top deep cycle battery. I have the red one in my gas car and its been great so far. Got a deal on it and it was only 20 bucks more than a local discount store battery.
 
My new-to-me 2013 S leaf left me stranded the other day, at home thankfully, due to this issue. Using the references here I was able to charge the 12v battery and clear the codes with LSP.

I have a couple thoughts on why/how this happened, maybe some of you could share some insight or venture a guess with me?

I had left my OBDII wifi thing in there all the time, and LSP was set to stay connected. Last night LSP updated and I looked at the changelog and it said it now includes a message regarding battery life and "stay connected" feature. They didn't specify which battery: mobile device, 12v, traction? Come on guys.

It has been near freezing and the car had the climate control timer on, was plugged in with charging set to no timer/100%, and sat for about 3 days in that state before I went out to it dead. I have since read about leaving it plugged in, which is apparently a no-no as it will kill the battery via no DC-DC switching? Or something. This is ridiculous. I love this car, but if that's the case, I can not wrap my head around that one. Unplug the car so the battery doesn't die? UH, wat?

So, I will no longer leave it plugged in, I won't use climate control timer unless I go out and set it to run right before I leave, and I've unplugged the OBDII and turned off "stay connected"

I think the prudent thing to do would be replace the 12v battery. It looks like a group 24 size case to me, but I haven't found a reference to it. Does anyone have any insight into which battery format fits the tray and such? I will probably go Optima Yellow or similar as the previous poster says.

I do these systems for a living in the marine trades, which is one reason I'm struggling with the charging protocol. I can fix it to work the way I want, but I would like to know what it is doing. My theory is that there is a voltage sensitive relay that connects the traction and 12v batteries when the 12v needs charging, with the exception of the aforementioned lockout period. Oh, maybe I get that. If it were to bring the DC-DC online during traction charging, the sense circuit that tells the traction charger what to do would be reading the load from the converter and responding to that instead of battery state. Hmmm, perhaps. Secondly, in my systems the VSRs are always triggered by the lv side, so I imagine that just like in my boats, once the 12v battery is compromised, it is in Low Voltage Lockout, whether by design or the logic goes haywire at low voltage which is what usually happens with my VSRs. Once they drop low and are disconnected, a physical recharge via jumpers or an external charger is the only way to get them back.

Okay, that was a brain dump of my theory, but maybe it will get the discussion going. Anyone have any more insight into all this?

Oh yeah, and what size 12v battery please?
 
Go 12 volt lithium and don't look back. Replaced my 12v lead when it was going bad earlier this year (2013 model also) and now on two winters with my 12 volt lithium and not a single blip regardless of charging cable plugged in for days or not. I can come out in below freezing weather and the battery still has a 13.5 v reading.
 
knightmb said:
Go 12 volt lithium and don't look back. Replaced my 12v lead when it was going bad earlier this year (2013 model also) and now on two winters with my 12 volt lithium and not a single blip regardless of charging cable plugged in for days or not. I can come out in below freezing weather and the battery still has a 13.5 v reading.

That's a pretty great review. Do you have a link to a battery of the size and type you purchased, please?
 
If you haven't seen this other thread I would recommend upsizing the 12v battery to a 34N

http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=18129
 
Certainly do!
http://nissanleaf.guru/forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=6

forestrider said:
knightmb said:
Go 12 volt lithium and don't look back. Replaced my 12v lead when it was going bad earlier this year (2013 model also) and now on two winters with my 12 volt lithium and not a single blip regardless of charging cable plugged in for days or not. I can come out in below freezing weather and the battery still has a 13.5 v reading.

That's a pretty great review. Do you have a link to a battery of the size and type you purchased, please?
 
Thank Knight, that's a great write up!

Brock, I started on that one thread but those first replies were pretty discouraging......going deeper though you provide some great insight there. Thanks for that.

I just went ahead and ordered the Optima Yellow 51r that is a factory fit for the car. Good to know about the bigger SLA option as well, thanks for that. Knight, your Li-Ion looks really cool, I've used them in my cycles and love 'em. I may do that next time, but it was a bit pricey for me this time around.

I imagine you guys were correct in your speculations on internal resistance and such. Also, SOC has a huge impact on how much current can flow during charging, obviously, but I imagine the small, compromised battery was really never taking much charge. Voltage might be up, but it couldn't deliver any current to speak of.

Anyway, I think I've worked myself through this one. A bit silly from a design standpoint that this is an issue. Like I said, I design multi-voltage/multi-source/ AC/DC systems for boats that involve many different sized and voltage battery banks and AC gennys and shore power and on and on. There are solutions for all of this stuff, this really shouldn't be an issue in this car. Oh well.
 
Well, crap. The upgraded Leaf spy pro won't clear the codes. The Ipad version drop down menu that is supposed to let you select codes to delete is unresponsive, so you can only keep clearing the same one over and over. That's new, as of last night's upgrade.

Ugh. Stranded, dealer is 120 miles away.
 
forestrider said:
... The upgraded Leaf spy pro won't clear the codes.
...
Ugh. Stranded, dealer is 120 miles away.
What codes did dead 12V create that had to be cleared to get the LEAF functional :?:

I have experienced dead 12V at least three times on 2011 and nothing had to be done other than jump the LEAF off and then let the main pack power power the DC to DC power supply to charge the 12V back up (happens pretty quick starting around 100 amps) and then to get 12V back to properly charged put it on a battery maintainer for long time.

A few that experienced dangerous braking behaviour or mysterious LEAF shutdown may have had codes, but most dead 12V haven't created codes :?:

I didn't think the LEAF had any Low Voltage Lockout.
If you leave the LEAF on past high voltage pack disconnect, the 12V stays in service till it gets to a non-functional point.
Might light interior light down to 8.5V, but LEAF will not start unless it is above something in 10.0V to 10.8V range.
 
Thanks for the input Tim. Here's some of the codes:

IMG_0048.png
 
TimLee said:
forestrider said:
... The upgraded Leaf spy pro won't clear the codes.
...
Ugh. Stranded, dealer is 120 miles away.


I didn't think the LEAF had any Low Voltage Lockout.
If you leave the LEAF on past high voltage pack disconnect, the 12V stays in service till it gets to a non-functional point.
Might light interior light down to 8.5V, but LEAF will not start unless it is above something in 10.0V to 10.8V range.

I wasn't referring to a function of the LEAF per se, Just relating that in my experience most VSR/ACR type paralleling solutions from Cooper Bussmann and the like typically lockout at low voltage. I think it's half to protect the good bank and also that the sense logic goes haywire, even on the dual sensing vsr units.
 
Hey y'all, i was having this problem as well. It didn't seem like the software was sufficiently charging the pb-acid to cover the full range of my usage patterns and sometimes it would go dead.

I started monitoring it with a battery monitor plugged into the cig. lighter and got a feel for the 12V charging algorithm - and would sometimes click on the wiper blades just to kick it up to 14.4V for a while..

I just took the car in to get recall work done (pass. airbag, etc). One of the items they listed was "reprogram VCM". The service guy didn't know what this did, but when i got it back, the 12V charge algorithm is different - and better. It now does a 14.4V charge most of the time during drive, where before it would hold at 13V.

I haven't had the problem again yet, but it's only been a few days - i'll let y'all know if i do, but at least it seems better.
 
Hi Everybody,

Looks like this thread is due for a bump, which I may as well provide with my little story of dead 12V batteries.

A week into owning our 2013 SL, my wife arrived at the car after work to find it completely dead. No locks, no lights, no anything. A jump started everything up just fine. The traction battery was somewhere around 20% charged at the time.

The next week I brought it into the dealer and had them test the battery. It came back a little weak, so I had them replace it with a new one.

One week later, I came out to the new battery dead just like the first time. The traction battery was similarly at around 20%.

Neither time was the car charging, in accessory mode, lights left on, OBDII port being used, nor key in the car. The dealer has it right now, and is going to keep it overnight to test it when it's asleep. They did mention that there were no error codes when they checked.

The suggestion from the tech was that perhaps the short daily drives of a couple of miles or so were not enough to charge back up the 12V during operation. This seems a little wrong, and wanted to know what anybody thinks of this explanation. We've been charging once a week at L2, driving in either 2-3 mile or 10-20 mile spurts, with the 12V turning up dead two times out of two just before recharging.

This is a stupid problem to have. Can anyone help? I'd like to at least have other suggestions/questions for the dealership when I talk to them again tomorrow.

Thanks!
 
Snlj said:
Hi Everybody,

Looks like this thread is due for a bump, which I may as well provide with my little story of dead 12V batteries.

A week into owning our 2013 SL, my wife arrived at the car after work to find it completely dead. No locks, no lights, no anything. A jump started everything up just fine. The traction battery was somewhere around 20% charged at the time.

The next week I brought it into the dealer and had them test the battery. It came back a little weak, so I had them replace it with a new one.

One week later, I came out to the new battery dead just like the first time. The traction battery was similarly at around 20%.

Neither time was the car charging, in accessory mode, lights left on, OBDII port being used, nor key in the car. The dealer has it right now, and is going to keep it overnight to test it when it's asleep. They did mention that there were no error codes when they checked.

The suggestion from the tech was that perhaps the short daily drives of a couple of miles or so were not enough to charge back up the 12V during operation. This seems a little wrong, and wanted to know what anybody thinks of this explanation. We've been charging once a week at L2, driving in either 2-3 mile or 10-20 mile spurts, with the 12V turning up dead two times out of two just before recharging.

This is a stupid problem to have. Can anyone help? I'd like to at least have other suggestions/questions for the dealership when I talk to them again tomorrow.

Thanks!
On my 13 SL the 12V battery would have to be hooked up to a trickle charger on a regular basis (monthly) as the charging algorithm was not adequate , ( this was purchased new and remained the same for 3 plus years).
Many threads and various problems on this. I suggest you measure with a meter and hook up a trickle charger or optimizer when the resting voltage reaches 12.6V.
The charging algorithm on my 16SL is much improved and have only had to trickle charge twice now in 5 months.
 
Snlj said:
Hi Everybody,

Looks like this thread is due for a bump, which I may as well provide with my little story of dead 12V batteries.

A week into owning our 2013 SL, my wife arrived at the car after work to find it completely dead. No locks, no lights, no anything. A jump started everything up just fine. The traction battery was somewhere around 20% charged at the time.

The next week I brought it into the dealer and had them test the battery. It came back a little weak, so I had them replace it with a new one.

One week later, I came out to the new battery dead just like the first time. The traction battery was similarly at around 20%.

Neither time was the car charging, in accessory mode, lights left on, OBDII port being used, nor key in the car. The dealer has it right now, and is going to keep it overnight to test it when it's asleep. They did mention that there were no error codes when they checked.

The suggestion from the tech was that perhaps the short daily drives of a couple of miles or so were not enough to charge back up the 12V during operation. This seems a little wrong, and wanted to know what anybody thinks of this explanation. We've been charging once a week at L2, driving in either 2-3 mile or 10-20 mile spurts, with the 12V turning up dead two times out of two just before recharging.

This is a stupid problem to have. Can anyone help? I'd like to at least have other suggestions/questions for the dealership when I talk to them again tomorrow.

Thanks!

The 12v battery has a constant drain on it. Not a large one, but a constant one, as do all modern cars loaded with computers. The 12v battery is charged whenever the traction battery is charged. It is also topped off when the car is in run mode. The Leaf charging algorithm is not the best, and driving many short trips and only charging once a week work against you. The tech may not understand why, but he is not wrong.

Since you have a 2013, set the charge timer for 80% and charge at least every other day. Charge it to 100%, at least once a month (I would suggest every two weeks), to keep the cells balanced on the traction battery. Lithium batteries don't do well with constant low or high charge levels. It is better for the battery to have a 10 minute charge cycle every night that brings it up to 80%, than it is to let the level get low and only charge once a week.

It is also possible you have something failing, that is drawing a higher load than it should. One user reported an ABS unit that started having a constant draw on the 12v system that never stopped, even when the car was off. If you have not upgraded your telematics unit, it could also be causing an excess drain trying to connect to a network that is no longer active.
 
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