Dysfunctional “Charge Timer only at home” setting

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LeafyBubba said:
Yes the timers work as expected at home, regardless of the "home only" setting.
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That would seem to suggest that the car is stuck in a 'home only' config.

In the olde days of cars a long disconnect of the 12v battery would wipe the user prefs and a default config would be reinstated.
 
It is not that simple. If the car thought it were home, it should either charge normally if within the time window or wait to start charging until programmed start time. Instead, it starts charging then stops if I open and close the doors (only if not at home).
 
GerryAZ said:
it starts charging then stops if I open and close the doors (only if not at home).

My car does this as well when I am not at home, it's very frustrating to have to re-initiate charge if I open and close the doors after charging starts.
 
Gerry/NotATesla --

I reproduced the "shuts off if you open the door" problem today. However, mine also shuts off if you leave the doors shut and let it charge for a while.

Have either of you tried that experiment? Leave the doors closed for 30 minutes or so when not at home and see if it stops charging?

Paul
 
Mine charges OK without stopping as long as I don't open/close doors. I did have to use the override button once when it failed to start charging (got the 3 light blinking sequence showing it was waiting for timer even though it was not at home).
 
Same here, mine will charge fine if I don't open and close the doors during charging. I did have to hit the clear timer button to initiate charging last night when I was not at home and outside the charging window I have set. It's quite annoying at best.
 
All --

I find this really interesting, and I am making a 150 mile trip Sunday, so more information is good.

Now what? Do we convey this information to Nissan and see what they say?

Thanks for helping,

Paul
 
I deleted all saved locations and then resaved HOME location and WORK location. I also deleted and resaved the location of my workshop as an ADDRESS BOOK entry and cleared/reentered charge timer settings.

I drove a few miles after all of this reprogramming, stopped at my workshop, and tried to charge. Charging started immediately and then stopped when I closed the driver door after opening it. This charge was at a time when the charge timers would prevent charging at home.

I arrived at home a few minutes before timer start time and plugged in the car. The charging indicator lights began blinking in sequence to show that the car was waiting to charge. Charging started automatically at programmed start time without incident. I locked/unlocked and opened/closed doors several times with no impact to charging.

Based upon all of my testing, I conclude the charging timers in my car work correctly at home. They also allow charging away from home without overriding except that charging stops when a door is closed after opening. Locking/unlocking seems to have no impact and doors can be opened, but charging stops when a door is closed. I plan to call the EV Customer Service line to discuss this issue. I also want to ask some questions about the navigation system concerning settings I could change on the older systems that I have been unable to change on the new system.
 
I have also had problems with the charge timer away from home, plus one problem at home. I've had the charging stop on 2 different occasions while away, one time was when I really needed the charge to return home and I lost 2 hours of charge time (I assumed my text notification was telling me that charging had started, I did). My issue with charging at home is that I've indicated that I wanted charging to finish at 8:30am. I received notification that charging finished at 7:30am. I reset the timer to finish at 9:30am and again, it finished at 7:30am. I'm pretty ticked about this and will bring it up to my dealer. Thanks for all the testing you've done. It shouldn't be up to the user to beta test something that should be a foolproof finished product...but here we are.
 
Has there been any resolution to this or response from Nissan? I'm also going to give Nissan Customer Service a call next week about my 2020 Leaf SV that I've had for about a month.

I'm working on a rental property about 50 miles away that has an L2 charger installed. Everything was OK until I set the charging timer to 12am to 3pm for our PG&E low rate period and then enabled the "Charge Timer only" at home thinking (foolishly) that it would work as designed. I've experienced both situations described in the thread.
  • The charging begins and then stops a few minutes later probably because I opened and closed a door after I plugged in - I was lucky that I had enough battery to return home - thank goodness for the extra range
  • The charging stops at the end of the timer period even though I'm not at home and the home address is registered in the nav - I just had this happen yesterday
Otherwise I love the car (previously had a 2015 FIAT 500e for 39 months). Quite distressed to see all the issues reported on the forum (hopefully older models) and keeping my fingers crossed that she'll hold together for the 2-year lease.
BTW, could this just be affecting Smyrna-built Leafs? My VIN begins with 1N.

Cheers, Joe
 
Joe --

I've heard nothing from Nissan about this, but I have not contacted then directly. Perhaps someone else on the thread has contacted them.

You can remedy this by pressing the "cancel timer" button next to the "open charge port" button, then close the door and leave it closed during the charge. That seems to work 100% for me.

Cheers,

Paul
 
I'm going to both call Nissan and email them with a link to this thread. Just weird that this hasn't been fixed since it is such an obvious coding error.
 
I did mention this issue to Nissan EV Customer Service in the fall of 2019 and also discussed issues with the navigation system. They gave me some hints about the navigation system along with links to some videos describing the operation of the system. The videos are available on the Nissan publications web site. The customer service representative did not know anything about the timer issue and suggested that I take it to my dealer. I did not want to take it to the dealer just for that because I had my doubts that they could do anything about it. Since the main reason I use timers is to keep the car from charging on peak at home, I decided not to worry about it. If you have time of use power rates and want to avoid on peak charging, I recommend the following timer settings:

1. Set timer 1 and timer 2 (if needed) for desired off-peak charging times and days and enable the timer(s).
2. Make sure "Chg. Timer Only at HOME" is OFF (ON indication is not highlighted).
3. Make sure "Full charge has priority" is OFF (ON indication is not highlighted).
4. Press charge timer override button when starting a charge away from home unless entire charge cycle will be during off-peak times.

If weekends are off-peak, you can use both timers together to allow charging only off peak weekdays and all weekend as follows (using my peak times of 3:00 PM to 8:00 PM Monday through Friday for example) and using 24-hour time to avoid confusion (3:00 PM is 1500 and 8:00 PM is 2000):
1. Set timer 1 to start at 2010 (ten minutes after off-peak rate starts in case car clock does not match meter clock).
2. Set timer 1 to stop at 1450 (ten minutes before off-peak rate stops in case car clock does not match meter clock).
3. Set timer 2 to start at 2010 and stop at 2010.
4. Enable timer 1 for Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.
5. Enable timer 2 for Friday and Saturday.
 
I contacted Nissan EV Consumer Affairs which transferred me to Nissan Consumer Affairs (Phillip K) who opened a case. I included a link to this thread. It would help if All of You would also take the time to open a chat or make a call to Nissan Consumer Affairs to report this problem because only if many people make a report will they take action. They want me to bring the Leaf into the dealer to have them run diagnostics on this even though they could take any car off the line in Smyrna and see the same thing. Annoying!

Please contact Nissan Consumer Consumer Affairs by phone: 1-800-647-7261 (1-800-Nissan-1) | Option 7, or through the online chat on Nissan website. This is the regular Consumer Affairs line, not the EV Consumer Affairs. My case number is Case 43023880 so please reference that so they can start accumulating how many people this is affecting.

Phillip K (2/3/2021, 11:42:43 AM): Yes, this does sound like something that we need to address. I understand that this is not how the Vehicle should function. If other Customers are also experiencing this concern, please refer them to Consumer Affairs so that we can document this and evaluate it further. At the present time all that I can do is to refer you to a Dealership to have it diagnosed but I do assure you that your feedback is very important to us and this has been documented in the case.
 
Has else anyone on this thread noticed that this problem has disappeared?

I've tried reproducing it on several occasions recently and did not succeed.

Is it possible that Nissan updated the charging software wirelessly?

Paul
 
I have a 2022 LEAF now and this thread saved me from much frustration. I followed all the instructions in the manual because I could never get one of these car timers to work including my 2018 and 2020 Bolts. After I put in the time for start and stop, the days, Home button after putting my address into the Navigation, and the 120V EVSE, I was very disappointed that it didn’t work as it started charging right away and on the instrument panel was Charge Now. I tried two more times and even set a second timer to see if it would be any different but no, it was the same. So if I hadn’t read on here that you have to take off the home charging button to make it work, I probably wouldn’t have figured it out. I’ve been away for about six years because when I went to lease a 2018 LEAF, they wanted over $500 a month for three years/12,000 miles. It was the same place I leased my 2011 and 2013. Dealers also wanted around $500 and some dollars a month for a 2018 Bolt though so I leased a Bolt from California for around $300 a month for three years. Anyway, I’m glad to be back and grateful/thankful for the post about the charging timers.
 
LEAFfan,

Welcome back! I hope you enjoy your new SL Plus. Any plans to set a record for miles on one charge with this one? (just kidding) As noted earlier, I gave up on trying to use the "Home" setting on the timers and have had no more timer issues on my 2019.

Gerry
 
Thanks Gerry! LOL, my hypermiling days are over, and because of the Pandemic, there’s only about 2500 miles on the 2020 Bolt after one year and am waiting on GM to finish the buyback process. I’m surprised though that NISSAN hasn’t fixed that Home charging problem by now. But it’s a minor inconvenience and not that big of a deal. I never had to use the LEAF’s timer with the 2011 or the 2013 because I had that free 240V BLINK EVSE which I’m still using only in the fall/winter because once the temperature gets in the high 80s it no longer functions. It’s nice to see all the improvements that the LEAF has made in 11 years.😃
 
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