LEAF won't go into Drive

My Nissan Leaf Forum

Help Support My Nissan Leaf Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

kolmstead

Well-known member
Joined
Aug 9, 2010
Messages
479
Location
Ridgecrest, California (100 miles east of Bakersfi
I suspect that this problem is operator error/lack of understanding, but it will affect others, so here's the description:

Monika took the LEAF to work today. First drive on her own. Problem arose right away; the car refused to go into Reverse or Drive. It came out of P, into N, but that was all. I watched and gave suggestions through the window (door open gives door ajar alarm, and we already had enough red and yellow warnings). I noticed that both caution triangles, red and yellow, were remaining lit in the upper (speedometer) display. After Monika gave up, I climbed in, went through my usual startup routine, and the LEAF responded perfectly. I had Monika get in, and she drove away.

I called her when she was two blocks away and asked her to stop and restart the car. It had occurred to me that one big difference between us was the fob. The one she was using hasn't been used before. She complied, and the LEAF again wouldn't go into Drive. I drove over and swapped fobs. No improvement. I got in and the car behaved normally on my second try. So it did fail for me, also.

I have occasionally had problems before, always when I "rush" the start sequence. It usually works; I can be in Drive and moving long before the startup chime ends. But once in a while I get errors and the car won't go. And I got one battery error by leaving car "on" but in Park too long while I used an ATM. Don't understand that one at all. It cleared on restart.

Anyway, lacking any more data right now, I'm guessing that Monika attempts to move the shifter to Drive a little sooner than I usually do, and the LEAF doesn't like it. I verified that she had her foot on the brake and seatbelt fastened when she pushed the go button; that definitely wasn't the problem.

If you encounter something like this, watch the displays for clues. The two triangles in the upper display are your first hint, and there may or may not be something down in the message area under the bubblemeter. You will have to put the car in Park, turn power off and then back on. When I waited until all warnings or meter tests had finished before I shifted to Drive, the car was happy, and Monika went on her way. Needless to say, I'll keep my phone with me today!

-Karl
 
any shift attempt without foot on brake goes to neutral. i suspect this is the problem. the other would be that she is not in "ready" mode.
 
i frequently shift the car before its ready but i just wait a few seconds and reshift and its fine. i also found my habit (works with my Prius) of shifting twice quickly does not work. it simply ignores the 2nd one as well.

once i had to push the start button again. i pretty much figured out the first push happened before my foot made it to the brake pedal.

as far as dash, you should have that car symbol up if ready to drive.
 
Something like this happened to me the other day when getting onto the ferry, but I just attributed it to my "starting" the car by doing the double-Start button press (without the use of the brake pedal). I had done this to roll down the windows a few minutes before and, since everything looked like it was up and running, I patiently waited until the final second to put the car in drive, only to find it only going into neutral instead. Needless to say I was a little embarrassed having held up the line.. :oops:

Putting a foot on the brake and pressing the Start button a third time cleared up the problem.
 
Is it possible she's not pushing hard enough on the brake? (I don't know how much force is required, but yours might be set a little off)

Is the rear brake light turning on?
 
Pushing start without the brake pedal depressed can put the car into accessory mode much like turning a traditional key a quarter turn. This would cause the condition. If you are 100% certain the brake pedal is depressed, then the plastic switch that senses the brake pedal depression is a likely culprit.
 
mossyleaf said:
Pushing start with the brake pedal depressed can put the car into accessory mode much like turning a traditional key a quarter turn. This would cause the condition. If you are 100% certain the brake pedal is depressed, then the plastic switch that senses the brake pedal depression is a likely culprit.

You mean WITHOUT the brake pedal depressed, right?

This is one of the reasons I don't like the idea of letting Mrs. W. have a go....she has enough trouble getting our kitchen appliances to do what she wants. I love her dearly, but you should see her wrestle with the toaster oven sometimes. :?
 
OK, I think you folks figured it out. What I didn't observe is that she wasn't putting her foot on the brake BEFORE pressing the go button. She just called again and was stranded. Based on what you told me, I walked her through the procedure, foot on brake before pressing go button, and the car responded perfectly. And special thanks to Dave, who was the first to point this out to me. How's my LEAF's brother doing, now that Carwings is working, Dave?

Again, many thanks for all the thoughtful responses. I think you were right on the money; if I learn differently, I'll let you know!

-Karl (humbled by the reservoir of knowledge available here)
 
This is the second post here about unexpected behavior seemingly based on startup process. I posted a startup issue a little while back. I haven't been able to duplicate my yellow light scenario but I've also stopped doing the rapid fire: brake pedal -- push button -- release PB -- slap the shifter routine.
 
hey glad everything has been worked out. that is the beauty of an online forum; there are few things that are unique in this world. whatever you are seeing, someone has probably already been there.

as far as Carwings, finally got it going and it was NOT

1)Rairdons fault
2)Nissans fault

it was Carwings fault. they most likely entered in my VIN # incorrectly into their system. So we simply deleted my account, re-entered in the "same" info as before and it works like a charm!
 
Sparky, I saw your other thread after I started this one yesterday. Yes, it appears that we can generate all kinds of random errors by accelerating the boot up and go sequence. I thought that a text error message would always show up in the display, but that doesn't happen. Monika noted yesterday that the little green "ready to go" car shows up long before all the gauge check and caution lights go away. I believe that I was once able to get going without passing through the Carwings agreement screen. That would be a good trick to learn.

As I was fiddling with the car yesterday, I found another one: I had turned the car on so I could read SOC. When I went to turn car off, it thought that I wanted to go, so it kept chiming at me and displaying the plugged-in warning. (Can't go into D or R when plugged in.) I had to get out and unplug the car before it would let me turn it off. I'll try and reproduce that one; you shouldn't have to unplug to shut off.

I discovered on my second day of LEAFing that you need to close the rear hatch firmly. I drove most of way to work with a yellow master caution light and door ajar icon on dash. Latch has two stages; it won't come open on the first stage, but it rattles on bumps and the car complains.

Maybe owning a Prius should be part of training for LEAF? I skipped that step, so I'm learning the hard way.

-Karl
 
kolmstead said:
As I was fiddling with the car yesterday, I found another one: I had turned the car on so I could read SOC. When I went to turn car off, it thought that I wanted to go, so it kept chiming at me and displaying the plugged-in warning. (Can't go into D or R when plugged in.) I had to get out and unplug the car before it would let me turn it off. I'll try and reproduce that one; you shouldn't have to unplug to shut off.
Your problem here is that you had your foot on the brake. When in ACC mode, to turn off the LEAF you CAN NOT have your foot on the brake. Simply press the start/stop button.
 
ENIAC said:
kolmstead said:
As I was fiddling with the car yesterday, I found another one: I had turned the car on so I could read SOC. When I went to turn car off, it thought that I wanted to go, so it kept chiming at me and displaying the plugged-in warning. (Can't go into D or R when plugged in.) I had to get out and unplug the car before it would let me turn it off. I'll try and reproduce that one; you shouldn't have to unplug to shut off.
Your problem here is that you had your foot on the brake. When in ACC mode, to turn off the LEAF you CAN NOT have your foot on the brake. Simply press the start/stop button.
Although ... if you have your foot on the brake and push "power" to read the SOC ... then the car would attempt to go into "start", which it can't since it was plugged in. Turning it OFF with the foot on the brake at that point ... hmmm ... not sure what it would try to do ... a second attempt to "start" (again unsuccessful) ?

Also: the status of the e-brake ("handbrake") ... which requires foot in brake to release ... may come into play in either a) causing confusion; or b) causing "bugs" (odd behaviour).
 
Back
Top