Charging Port Weirdness

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.

delsen66

Member
Joined
Mar 28, 2022
Messages
5
Hello All…I’m in the process of buying a 2014 Leaf SV from Carvana. Everything looks to be in order on it except one very odd thing, the charging port. Please see attached photo and let me know what you think is going on. This Leaf is not equipped with rapid charge but it appears somebody has mounted a clip of some sort to that area and even stranger, a common male end plug is sticking out from that port. What is going on?!

https://1drv.ms/u/s!Au_UBjFlmG4ish1cbhgG666wBeYc
 
My wild guess is that they hid away a level 1 or 2 EVSE under the hood somewhere and wanted to charge the car by plugging it into a NEMA 5-15 extension cord.
 
Welcome. My guess is that if you follow that plug, you will find a battery maintainer at the other end, wired to the 12 volt battery. Many of us hardwire a SAE connector from the battery to the charging port compartment, but this is the first time I've seen it done this way. It does make sense, though, as it lets you charge the 12 volt battery anyplace there is 120 volt power. Why is that even necessary? The Leaf doesn't always do a good job of maintaining a full charge on its accessory battery.

Bottom line: this may be harmless or even helpful, or it may indicate a problem with a phantom 12 volt power drain, and/or a weak 12 volt battery. Talk to the seller about it, and do make sure that my guess was correct.

Cwerdna slipped in. Maybe, but I'd bet on my guess.
 
OP says Carvana is the seller. Not clear if they can ask questions or get decent answers. Good point about the 12 volt maintainer. I hadn't thought about that.

OP may have to take the car, check it out and return it (they have a return policy) if it's not up to snuff.
 
Thank you all. I take delivery on 04/07/22 and will report back my findings. I do have a 7 day window in which to return vehicle.
 
LeftieBiker said:
Welcome. My guess is that if you follow that plug, you will find a battery maintainer at the other end, wired to the 12 volt battery. Many of us hardwire a SAE connector from the battery to the charging port compartment, but this is the first time I've seen it done this way. It does make sense, though, as it lets you charge the 12 volt battery anyplace there is 120 volt power. Why is that even necessary? The Leaf doesn't always do a good job of maintaining a full charge on its accessory battery.

Bottom line: this may be harmless or even helpful, or it may indicate a problem with a phantom 12 volt power drain, and/or a weak 12 volt battery. Talk to the seller about it, and do make sure that my guess was correct.

Cwerdna slipped in. Maybe, but I'd bet on my guess.
This, and it's a nice idea. I doubt it's an EVSE as where would they have hooked it up under the hood, that would be kind of sketchy.
The OP should be able to follow the wires or even just look around the 12v battery. If they see some obvious newer wiring hooked to the 12v battery, it's a 12v battery maintainer.
I've also never seen this done, but not a bad idea if you don't have QC port :)
 
Most likely, there's one of these under the hood somewhere...

Flux_Capacitor_Time_Machine_750x.jpg
 
Back
Top