T/M Vehicle System Malfunction Warning

Took it back to the dealer. I'll update when I can. Hopefully getting it back tomorrow.

Yes, just bought the car, but it was used. It's a 2015 model. Probably the original 12 volt battery which is now about 4 years old. Hopefully that solves it. It drove to the dealer fine this afternoon.

To confirm what others have said here - It was the battery and it was due to the battery being older. Got another Nissan battery because it seemed better than the Autoparts store batteries when they were talking about cranking amps and ICE engine concepts. As I understand it, deep cycle batteries are needed as they are designed to have a constant draw and not big draws to start an engine then very little after that. It also had a 5 years warranty on the battery. Hope this helped others.

The OEM battery isn't rated as deep cycle. It just has cell water caps that actually open so you can add water to them, as in the last century. It is acceptable, but not great.

prhorner said:

As I understand it, deep cycle batteries are needed as they are designed to have a constant draw and not big draws to start an engine then very little after that. It also had a 5 years warranty on the battery. Hope this helped others.

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The deep cycle battery is recommended as the Nissan Leaf doesn't have a big draw from a starter motor and it has known issues where it may not keep the battery fully charged. A deep cycle battery is intended to be used in applications where the battery is heavily depleted on a regular basis. Normal lead acid batteries should be discharged only a little and stored at full charge. As the Leaf doesn't always keep the battery charged, a deep cycle battery may last far longer than a standard lead acid.

I don't know if the battery issues only affect some Leafs, but mine (2011) is on the OEM battery and every time I've checked with an external charger, the battery has been full. So it is keeping my 12v battery charged despite leaving it plugged in overnight every day.

That said, I did leave the car plugged in during a 2 week business trip and the 12v was empty when I returned. The fact that Nissan didn't do a firmware update to keep the 12v and HV batteries topped off when plugged in boggles the mind.

2015, 29k miles, Leaf S. Local driving only (DFW), short trips...3-20 miles.

Add me to the "T/M System Malfunction" list/12V battery failure list. My wife saw the warning, car wouldn't turn off, after repeated attempts. Finally turned off, wouldn't turn on. Charged the main battery overnight, GOM only went to 19 miles. Put 12V on BatteryTender Plus (1.25amp) overnight, showed fully charged, got into the car, attempted to start, heard all sorts of clicking/buzzing, ending with a constant high-pitched steady hum/whine, which didn't shut off after leaving the car, locking/unlocking several times. Finally, after 35-40 seconds, the whine stopped.

Installed Champion AGM last night (PepBoys, $151. Tried to buy Bosch, but the 51 series they had had the terminals reversed, wouldn't fit!)
When car "booted" up, there was a variety of clicks/buzzes behind the dash, maybe 3-4 seconds worth, sounds I've never heard before. Then everything settled down. Reset my radio presets, my start-up "effects", and all seems to be well.

Warning: When you go to buy a battery, double-check the production date. The first battery they tried to sell me was 22 months old. Evidently these batteries don't sell that often, and they sit. Also, strongly recommended that you have the shop fully charge the battery prior to the sale.

I have a 2015 Nissan Leaf SL with 65k miles on it. Yesterday my Leaf wouldn't turn on and flashes this T/M Vehicle System malfunction warning. I read all the comments on this thread and most were saying it's their battery, so I went to Costco and bought a Fitment 11 battery, 5 year warranty, for my car for $72. I installed it and it started back on. So, typically OEM batteries last anywhere from 3-5 years, so my 12V battery lasted almost 4 years, so this fixes my problem. To date, I've spent $19 on cabin air filter, $200 on a full size spare (I had an unfixable flat), and now $72 for new 12V battery. My vehicle still gets around 113 Miles full charge in summer and 98 miles full charge in Winter. I have solar panels, and I charge at work, so cost of electricity is pretty much zero for me.

I suggest you fully charge that new 12 volt battery with an external charger, as the car may (or may not, since it's newer) be slow to do it.

Just replaced the 12 v battery with interstate equivalent. It was at 12.4 resting voltage - not good!! Do follow Leftie's advice and fully charge with external charger when replacing with lead acid. BTW, it was the original battery ~ almost 7 years old.

Would have been nice if I had seen this recently. Had a LEAF do the same thing with T/M error. Wouldn't turn off. Holding power button down several seconds shut it off and after that, it worked normally. But this was on LEAF with new battery (in Jan) but had sat for 9 days due to "inconvenient" road conditions.

This happened to me recently after needing a tow following a pothole incident (groan). The AAA guy caused it by pressing the power button a few times without pressing the brake pedal. I didn’t know it was a battery issue so we had to “slide” the car up the ramp on the tow truck because we couldn’t get it into neutral. I went on the forum here (thanks!) and at the tire place I was able to use their portable charger to charge the 12v battery up. Off I went and there have been no issues since!

I want to thank this forum for leading me to the right answer. Like many posters have already said, my 2015 Nissan Leaf got this error code all of the sudden. The car won't start, the screen went spastic, with the "T/M Vehicle System Malfunction Warning. See dealer." error intermittenly showing.

After reading this forum's experiences, I concluded that the battery was the most likely issue.

Thankfully the car was in my garage at the start of the weekend, so I didn't need to tow to a dealer. I went to Costco, brought in my old battery, purchased a new one for $82 (which included the $15 core fee / recycling fee, and taxes), and changed out the battery myself. It worked! I'm grateful that this all happened on a weekend and at home, and for the guidance this forum game.

Thanks, everyone.

2015 Nissan Leaf
It is now Nov 2019, so the 12V battery was ~4-5 years old
Total cost: $82
Total time: 3 hours, including initial diagnosis using a multi-meter to measure the battery voltage and confirming that it was at 11V, taking out the old battery, going to Costco, coming home, and swapping out the battery

jhuangwithnmr said:

I want to thank this forum for leading me to the right answer. Like many posters have already said, my 2015 Nissan Leaf got this error code all of the sudden. The car won't start, the screen went spastic, with the "T/M Vehicle System Malfunction Warning. See dealer." error intermittenly showing.

After reading this forum's experiences, I concluded that the battery was the most likely issue.

Thankfully the car was in my garage at the start of the weekend, so I didn't need to tow to a dealer. I went to Costco, brought in my old battery, purchased a new one for $82 (which included the $15 core fee / recycling fee, and taxes), and changed out the battery myself. It worked! I'm grateful that this all happened on a weekend and at home, and for the guidance this forum game.

Thanks, everyone.

2015 Nissan Leaf
It is now Nov 2019, so the 12V battery was ~4-5 years old
Total cost: $82
Total time: 3 hours, including initial diagnosis using a multi-meter to measure the battery voltage and confirming that it was at 11V, taking out the old battery, going to Costco, coming home, and swapping out the battery

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Great news and sounds like you garage the car which will help prevent the battery from suffering thru temperature extremes. Take my advice; make sure this battery lasts. During the Winter months, I put my battery on a charger for a few hours "every so often" (the plan was every two weeks but... ) on my days off. I usually spend at least 2 hours online before doing anything unless I have something planned out of town.

I started doing this when I noticed my battery would be as low as 12.1 volts even when I was driving 25,000 miles a year. So Nissan's method of maintaining good 12 volt health was not working. Now I will admit having only leased, I have had no battery issues OR old batteries but I still see a lot of instances of dead batteries in cars well under 3 years of age.

Thank you DaveinOlyWA and everyone else above! Problem solved!!!


Like many posters, my 2013 Nissan Leaf got this error code all of the sudden: "T/M Vehicle System Malfunction Warning. See dealer." The car would turn on as if I had not pressed down on the brake (wouldn't drive, but radio, etc. worked) and the brake pedal actually felt like it had retreated so that trying to turn the car on felt atypical and was actually not possible. Basically I was stuck in our garage and on the edge of calling to tow it to the dealer.


Based on the posts above, I hoped it was just a 12v battery issue. I watched a simple YouTube clip on switching out the battery here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oymqG1xqpUI
You can cut to about 4:40 - 8:10 for the actual instructive install.

I took the 12v battery out. Took it to Costco (just like Dave above) and for $82.67 had a new replacement battery in hand (Costco keeps the old one). I installed the new battery and everything is all fixed and working!!! Yippee!

From first reading this forum to a fixed car was about 1.5 hours total (7:00pm - 8:30pm, including driving to and from a Costco in our other car) and $82.67, and I know almost nothing about working on a car, car batteries, or anything else mechanical. If I can do it, so can you.

Based on some other reading, the 12v batteries last about 5 years or so. The new one I purchased says it has a 3 year warranty. The original battery in my 2013 Leaf was going on 7 years old, so it all kinda makes sense in the end.

Thanks, everyone!

JohnnyRockstar - I just now had the exact same thing happen. Fortunately, I decided to look up and read this thread. So instead of a tow to the dealer and pay them to diagnose and put in an overpriced battery plus their labor, I did a quick trip to the auto parts store and am back up and running just fine.

BTW - my original battery made it 6.5 years before it needed to be replaced.

Thanks guys for putting lots of useful tips in here.

I wish Nissan had engineered something into the car to let us know the battery is getting bad and should be replaced. Having it go without any warning and leave you stranded is really not cool. I'm not an engineer, but I can't see that as that hard to put in. Instead it stops running and puts up an inaccurate message that attempts to fool you into going to the dealer and throwing money at them. :x

I'm just glad it happened at home and we were able to take a different car until I could sort it out. It easily could have happened at much worse places and times.

BTW - my original battery made it 6.5 years before it needed to be replaced.

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Beyond 5 years - assuming no run-dead events to shorten life, and at least two water top-offs - you are gambling with an old accessory battery. It's like gambling that the timing belt in a non-interference engine won't break years and many miles after the recommended replacement interval. There should be a list of things to replace even if they haven't failed at 5 years:

* Accessory battery

* Tires

* Brake fluid

* Wiper blades.

* ?

LeftieBiker said:

BTW - my original battery made it 6.5 years before it needed to be replaced.

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Beyond 5 years - assuming no run-dead events to shorten life, and at least two water top-offs - you are gambling with an old accessory battery. It's like gambling that the timing belt in a non-interference engine won't break years and many miles after the recommended replacement interval. There should be a list of things to replace even if they haven't failed at 5 years:

* Accessory battery

* Tires

* Brake fluid

* Wiper blades.

* ?

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Very true. On a regular car, you usually get 1, maybe 2 starts where you get a warning about the battery going before it won't start. But on these, you don't. So adding battery replacement to the maintenance schedule at the 4 or 5 year mark would be good to do - would really help with reliability and reduce the risk. Going forward, I think I will adopt that on any modern car as so much is dependent on those batteries.

^ great advice. I'd add the key-fob battery. That one does give you a warning and I'm getting it intermittently now after 2.5 years. I'm surprised it is so low already since I never use the key fob buttons to open the doors. I guess it must still transmit to open the doors and start the car but I never push the buttons on it, at least not intentionally.

I'd add the key-fob battery. That one does give you a warning and I'm getting it intermittently now after 2.5 years.

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I'm not sure I've ever heard of one lasting for 5 years, but sure, why not?

goldbrick said:

^ great advice. I'd add the key-fob battery. That one does give you a warning and I'm getting it intermittently now after 2.5 years. I'm surprised it is so low already since I never use the key fob buttons to open the doors. I guess it must still transmit to open the doors and start the car but I never push the buttons on it, at least not intentionally.

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The key fob transmits all on it's own. That's how the car knows if the key fob is in the car or not. Pushing the buttons activates certain functions but the key fob sends out a signal all the time. That's why you can leave the fob in your pocket when you start the car.