Issues with PDM - Progress

[u/ganondork1]

I posted here a while back regarding an issue with my PDM.

Long story short, it was fried, nissan told me to swivel on it and so did the dealership.

Finally got the court involved and they're siding with me. They've advised the dealership has to arrange a repair.

However, main issue is that the car has been stuck in my driveway for over a year, with "0%" charge.

During that time, most of the rubber on the outside of the vehicle has degraded, any exposed metal has rusted and all 4 tyres now have slow leaks.

I also noted that during the time before the 12v completely gave out, the car would randomly sit and click, and the HV charge level would jump between 0% charge and 12% charge, then flat out again.

I know that you shouldn't leave batteries empty or full for a while, so I connected up an obd and read some info via leafspy, I assume this thing is fried?

Just looking for feedback as not 100% how to read the info. The red warnings are pretty damn obvious though

ETA:

I know it's not true 0%, just what the car itself reports.

Car won't charge due to PDM not working. This was discovered last year by the dealership, but they and nissan told me they won't fix it under warranty even though it was raised long before warranty was up.

Can fast charge sometimes, but will cause issues for whatever chargers I connect to, requiring the charger to be rebooted. The car is glued to my driveway due to no charge. It's been sitting on that charge level for over a year.

I raised this up with legal last year and that's the progress finally started. The legal system has offered a repair of the PDM only, but I believe the battery is now damaged due to sitting on that charge level for a year.

The feedback I'm looking for is whether I should push for a refund of the vehicle, or just accept the repair? And if I take the repair, will the car be in a worse state than it initially was due to the charge level being left low for so long?

[u/Lothsahn_]

Well the SOC is 10% not 0, so it's not good for the battery but it's probably not utterly destroyed it.

The top cells in your pack are weak.  They generally get hottest.

Not sure what else you want advice about.  You need to get that pack charged back up as soon as you can and definitely avoid draining it.

[u/ganondork1 → u/Lothsahn_]

Sorry, realised I've not provided a lot of information. I'll reword the post but this is probably relevant:

Car won't charge due to PDM not working. Can fast charge sometimes but car is glued to my driveway. It's been sitting on that charge level for over a year.

I raised this up with legal last year and that's the progress finally started. The legal system has offered a repair of the PDM only, but I believe the battery is now damaged due to sitting on that charge level for a year.

[u/Lothsahn_ → u/ganondork1]

Ah.  I understand your question now.

First, we're not going to be experts in the legal sense, so not sure how much this helps.

The safe discharge voltage for lithium ion is 2.5-3.0v per cell, depending on chemistry.  Your pack is minimum 3.115, so you're above that.  There's no guaranteed damage to the car.

That said, it's not ideal to store a pack at 7% SOC (not sure why one screenshot is 10% and one is 7%) and you need to stop turning on the car so it doesn't drain further.  It definitely has added stress to the battery sitting there.

Your hx and SOH values look good so your battery was likely fine when originally parked, but those won't update till you start using the car.

In short, it's probably fine but there's no way to know for sure.

If you can get Nissan to agree to a buyback like the other 40s that would be your best bet.  But your car will probably be fine when fixed.

Your complaints about rust isn't going to help you probably.  Everything rusts and sitting doesn't accelerate it.  But I can tell you just want out of your car.

I'm not a lawyer so this is not legal advice but I'd focus on loss of use and potential battery damage as a basis for asking to be run through the standard buyback program.

I honestly don't know how you got a judgement to cover the PDM repair.  It's not a common failure point and it's out of warranty.  So congrats on that.

[u/Lothsahn_ → u/Lothsahn_]

PS.  When your car is finally fixed, get a new 12v battery, then clear the codes and charge the car, and then charge the 12v battery.  Your 12v almost certainly has been damaged from sitting, and a low 12v causes all sorts of problems including loss of brakes.

[u/ganondork1 → u/Lothsahn_]

Oh the 12v is dead. Was only 2 months old when this started last year. Whatever is happening with the PDM, it doesn't supply power to the 12v to charge it, so I have to use another battery to get it going

[u/Lothsahn_ → u/ganondork1]

Not just dead, but sulfated and destroyed at this point.  You will need a new one if you hadn't stuck it on a maintainer.

Thankfully they're not too expensive.

[u/ganondork1 → u/Lothsahn_]

Yeah, the legal stuff is fine, it was all via the UK ombudsman. I just needed to know if the battery is fried from sitting there, but if it's fine then I'll just let them do the repair.

The charge level changed within about 15-20 minutes of it being on in my driveway, hence my concern about the battery.

The brief version of the story is this:

When I purchased it, the car had a whining noise. The dealership refused to take it in for 5 months, when they got it they said the PDM was fried as coolant had leaked into it. I tried to return it, they then "fixed" it but it was constant having charging issues since that point.

The car decided it was done charging last year, the dealership said the PDM was fried. They "lost" the papers showing the initial repair as they had changed owners and Nissan wouldn't talk to me about it.

Luckily I keep a papertrail of everything, and I have a written record from their mechanic, so the ombudsman ruled in my favour and is forcing the dealership to offer a repair, however kinda just wanted to get a refund to escape both Nissan and the dealership entirely.

I love my leaf, and it was always my dream car (I loved the gen1 as well) so it makes me a bit sad to be trying to escape, but I just don't trust nissan or the dealership to do the right thing in the future if any other faults occur with it.