2018-2019 Leaf 2.0 "Service EV System. Unable to restart after power off"

Looks like I'm part of this club now. I'm currently experiencing the same warning message and will need to get my 2018 LEAF (65,172 miles) towed tomorrow. Good thing the car is parked on my driveway and did not happen at work!

For those who got it fixed, please definitely let us know what they did to fix it.

My LEAF did get fixed. They replaced some cells (pretty much like what others were writing about earlier). All in all, it took 6 weeks to get my car back! I missed it sooo much!

I had my car towed to the dealer the next day (May 8). They had it for 20 days. They didn't know anything about how to troubleshoot or repair the problem, so they had to consult with corporate engineers. They were told first to open the battery pack and check each cell for shorts. They said that would take 2-3 days. I'm an EE, and I'm pretty sure something like that should take 2-3 hours, but I don't know these systems.

Before they could do that they had to order special gloves.

They found no shorts, nor anything else to indicate a problem. They had to drive the car to discharge the pack completely, then fully charge it, then I think discharge it one more time (then charge it before returning it to me). Nothing came up.

They fixed a few other recall items. They were unable to find anything wrong to explain another problem I'd had, where the car decides the front radar sensor is malfunctioning and disables adaptive cruise and related functions. The only way to get out of that is to power-cycle the car.

Yeah. A whole lot of time for a whole lot of nothing. Also took them a few days to agree to give me a loaner car.

Universal City Nissan in Los Angeles, CA.

My wife's 2018 leaf with 12200 miles come up with Service EV system message a week ago, whilst wife driving. She drove home without any issue approximately 11 miles. had to turn vehicle of as unable to secure. As others unable to select drive or reverse when you turned back. Also unable to charge.

RAC attended following day and cleared fault codes and managed to clear Service EV system message long enough to drive 50 yds before it came back on, RAC followed me to dealers, and arranged hire car and taxi from dealers to home so cannot fault RAC.

Dealers called 2 days later to say vehicle will need to go to Swindon specialist for repair.

A week later I have been called to be informed that cells were leaking in battery and caused a short and module needs replacement. Parts not available in the UK so will be 4 to 6 weeks for parts to be shipped to uk. Then a week to fit. So that will be 8 weeks without the car if all goes to plan.

Hire car on loan from Enterprise is petrol is least being paid for by Nissan.

But Cannot charge the car from my newly installed solar panels for free. as I do with the Leaf.

Do not think I will be buying Nissan again. :x :x

Mine was done in April 2019. Same error, diagnosed very quickly as HV leakage to ground from one of the cells. Basically internal cell to case leakage. It takes a few days to diagnose as they had to take things apart quote a bit. You can dial it to the battery itself vs other systems in a few hours, but then you start dropping the pack and all that.. It took three weeks to get replacement parts, mainly since you can only ship cells ground from TN. Sofar so good, except my pack has never reached proper balancing on the new ones. They are always 60mv or so above the rest, and I feel it's affecting the range. I should do a full write up on this one of these days

OK, here is a quick post documenting my experience with this repair http://kuzyatech.com/nissan-leaf-service-ev-system-error
Comments welcomed!

Reagle said:

Mine was done in April 2019. Same error, diagnosed very quickly as HV leakage to ground from one of the cells. Basically internal cell to case leakage. It takes a few days to diagnose as they had to take things apart quote a bit. You can dial it to the battery itself vs other systems in a few hours, but then you start dropping the pack and all that.. It took three weeks to get replacement parts, mainly since you can only ship cells ground from TN. Sofar so good, except my pack has never reached proper balancing on the new ones. They are always 60mv or so above the rest, and I feel it's affecting the range. I should do a full write up on this one of these days

Click to expand...

Are they 60mv above at bottom, or at top? The new cells are likely large capacity than the rest. This means that their voltage swing should be *less* than the rest of the pack.

If you bottom balance, that means that the cells will match when the pack is discharged. But when the pack is charged, they'll have lower voltage than the rest, because the new cells have bigger capacity and aren't fully charged.

If you top balance, that means the cells will match when the pack is charged. But when the pack is discharged, they'll be higher voltage than the rest, because the new cells have bigger capacity and haven't fully discharged.

Neither of these states should affect range, as the cells will neither max out the charge or max out the discharge. However, if they didn't bottom or top balance, it's entirely possible that the cells are out of balance, which could affect range until the BMS adjusts over the course of months of driving/charging.

In short: a large mv difference will occur at various times if the cells don't have exactly matching capacity. If one or a few cells has lower capacity than the rest, this will affect range. If one or a few cells has more capacity than the rest, it won't affect range--provided they were balanced with the rest of the pack during installation.

It appears in my case they were not well balanced- I see them sticking up above all in all cases- empty pack, full pack etc. And my full range on GOM has not returned to 150 miles since then. That's in 8k miles and 18 months..

Joining the club

2019Leaf SL with 6900 miles. This morning my wife decided to drive to the corner store and got the warning message. I told her over the phone don't power down but drive it home immediately. She gets home, noticing no A/C, just fan. So I called Nissan dealer 10 miles away and they can receive the car but Service is closed on LaborDay. We drive it to dealer, me in my Tesla. Filled out the papers and dropped the key off. The receptionist complained not to leave the car were we parked, but we had already shut it off and now it won't move but the dash lights came on with the warning notice.

We just got out Leaf out of service for a forward Camera / Radar failure 2 weeks ago. This only disabled the ProPilot so we drove it while we waited 3 weeks for the parts.

Thanks to others posting in this thread so we know what he may be expecting.

Just got the diagnosis and it's the same problem others in this thread had, The technician advised Nissan Tech support the error codes and was advised to remove the battery and disassemble it for thorough inspection and replace all bad parts and internal cell packs. Said that may take a day or two before they will have estimate on parts ordering.

They got me in a 2020 Rogue Loaner so I am not stranded.

I can't complain so far how professional this is being handled.

Hello everyone.... first post after finding this wonderful resource. Unfortunately I also received the Service EV and No Power warning signs necessitating a tow to the dealer for my new Leaf.

DC Inverter failed on mine. Not a bad battery module/cell according to dealer. They install a new 12V.

Took way too long to diagnose properly and frankly felt like the Leaf "specialist" was learning on the job with my car, lol. Car seems to be operating normally now. But boy what a PITA the entire process has been and did not reflect well on the local dealer service dept and Nissan Corp.

Now that I have a Leaf I see quite a few of them driving around in Denver!

Here in NY you can see stats from Drive Clean rebate to see which dealer sold the most cars of a particular make. Helps to pick one that's more experienced servicing these things..

Friday afternoon the Nissan Leaf mechanic found the problem after testing each cell in the battery. Just one cell had short circuited and will need replaced. Now waiting for Nissan Support to authorize the repair and order the parts.

Update-

I spoke to Nissan today for an update. The new cell has been replaced in the battery pack. Nissan overnighted it to the service center. They also ordered a new piece of equipment to charge the battery pack that balances all the cells in the pack. This is being done today. Once that process is complete they will plug in the battery and give it a full DC charge and do final testing. If all goes well, They said I should have the Leaf back tomorrow afternoon.

Update-

Just picked up my Leaf from Nissan fully repaired.

A single 8 cell module was replaced after one of the cells shorted out. The Leaf was in the shop since Labor Day but they gave me a new Rogue to drive as a loaner. The Service advisor called me daily with a progress report.

After replacing the bad module they spend 2 days rebalancing the cells in the pack.

I saw the service invoice and the Module cost was $800 and the total bill was $1902 but as it was under warranty, My out of pocket was zero.

Fully charged up to 100% shows a new range of 180 miles. I never got that high even when new.

Note- Originally I could have picked up the car yesterday but I was unable to get to the dealer so we scheduled pickup for today.

Hi fellow Leaf owners, after reading some of these posts I almost wrote fellow Leaf victims.
I have a new leaf under 1 year old with 5045 km on the clock and it is outside waiting for the tow truck monday to pick it up.

Unfortunately my local dealer doesnt have a mechanic that has experience and I fear it will have to go to Brisbane for the battery repair/replacement. I just hope they dont screw me over on such a new car. Same SERVICE EV SYSTEM UNABLE TO RESTART.

I thought long and hard about buying this car and it looks like I should have waited ahh well.

Cheers guys

Hello herveybayleaf,
As noted above my issue was a bad DC Inverter and not battery but the ordeal was still a huge PITA. I would not want any of the major EV parts to fail outside of warranty as the repair charged to Nissan by the dealer was almost $7k (although this included the powertrain power control module which needed to be replaced to correctly assess the DC Inverter). I shudder to think what "retail" would be...... however, in scanning these pages and reddit I seem to be that one special person with this part failure.

That being said, it's been rock solid since and I actually really enjoy driving it. However, since the ordeal, my wife refuses to drive it by herself. I can't blame her.

My effective cost is under $20k so I'm willing to suffer a little........ I'm sure you got a great deal as well so take solace in that? Best of luck!

Hi coleafer. I tried calling nissan they cant say anything till the dealer looks at it, problem is leaf dealer 300 km from here, so it left yesterday at 7am but they cant tell me where it is or if the dealer can deal with a high voltage problem. So I will rent a car for a week at my cost give them a couple of days. But wont hold my breath, apparently I have to go and get it back they wont return it so I am up for costs regardless of warranty.

Cheers mate

Day 11 Nissan refuses to return my calls the leaf is being moved from dealer to dealer I have started the process of finding out my rights as a consumer under Australian law to see if I am eligble for a refund.

I think its on a truck to Marooka now about 350kms from my home town, feeling pretty pissed off they wont even return my calls.

Another week another hire car expense they have not confirmed if I can claim, however ACCC in Australia is pretty strong.

Cheers