12v battery discharge again

[PeteTranter'sSister]

I posted a while ago about my 12V battery discharging completely overnight when it was programmed to charge on cheap rate night time electric.

Well it's just done it again. The previous night charged but when I started yesterday morning to check it had behaved, I very briefly had a 'catastrophic failure' notice and all the seat settings and the home screen had reverted to other settings. I was on a warning.....

So last night it was on for a timed charge to top up to 100% but this morning the 12V battery was completely flat, again, second time. The 12V battery is in the boot (trunk) which, of course, doesn't open when the battery is flat so having observed the nice man from the RAC fix it last time, I used a 12V lithium ion battery on the terminals in the bonnet (hood) to get 1 second's response from the computer brain which was enough time to press the boot lift button and the boot to lift about an inch before all the electrics collapsed again. The 12V lithium ion battery pack isn't enough to start the vehicle to get it to self-charge.

So at the moment I have the 12V battery in the boot connected to a traditional battery charger. I'll give it a few hours. Then I'll be able to get the 12V battery to start the software and it will fully charge from the lithium ion traction battery.

What a 'king palarva. It is totally unacceptable for the 12V battery to discharge overnight with no warnings or signs, wtf are Nissan doing about this. What a stupid system. The traction battery may be fully charged but the car can become completely immobile if the 12V battery discharges beyond a certain point. And there are no indicators other than weird stuff happening.

And I just discovered that the windscreen demist haptic does not turn on the electric windscreen heater. Wtf? Why would I want to demist the windscreen without the electric windscreen heater on? And the passenger seat heater comes on even when there's no-one sitting on it, and the car knows there's no-one sitting on it because of the seatbelt sensor. Which idiot programmed that?

Great car to drive but the software, software programming, apps, icons and general logic of the set up is useless. 14 buttons on the steering wheel, some with multi-functions, really? Is that absolutely necessary. It would make a really crap getaway car. "Start the car, start the car"......"er, hang on, I've just got to accept Nissan's terms and conditions, do you want it in sport mode.....oops, I pressed the wrong button....."

The car is in for its first 12-month service on Monday, 4th Dec, which will include the motor shaving update. I expect the Nissan dealer will shrug, raise the eyebrows and say there are no other reported problems blah blah blah......

PTS

[Envolt]

Its actually been good to read your frustration as it makes me feel like there is someone else who might understands mine.
I now monitor the 12v battery with that cheap Bluetooth battery monitor and charge it up all the time to avoid this problem. Ridiculous - yes but Nissan wont fix it because they can't figure out how to auto top up 12v from main battery automatically when it detects very low 12v power unless its at some random time thats probably not needed.. way too complicated. Just like the alarm that doesn't notify you its going off all the time unless you live in the USA and and and and...
Nissan just hides behind dealers and their customer service blocking service. You actually can't complain about anything because you will never get to speak to the real Nissan company and everyone else is clueless.
The dealers are often as frustrated with their lack of support on things like software glitches. Mental - yes and who would have thought.
I laughed at your demist vs windscreen heater because you are right about that. Also have you noticed the aircon demist stops working when its under 3'c .. foggy windows should clear by leaving aircon on as with any other car i have ever owned.
And I see you love the 'click accept' to terms and conditions every time you start the car. Who the F came up with that BS and the fact you click 'No' means anyone can just drive off and the car is un-trackable and un-controllable. Another great invention by Nissan.
I advise anyone with an Ariya to keep - a spare fully charged suitcase sized high powered 12v battery, multi-meter (test battery), socket to undo battery terminal (essential) for rebooting with system hangs and a jacket for when you get stuck because of a malfunction in the cold - oh and a crowbar for when the charging port wont release lol.
Let us know how your recharge goes..!

[Cosmyc]

The 12V battery gets charged for about 10 minutes every 24 hours when the car is off and the high voltage battery has at least 12% of SoC and the hood is closed.

I have checked this behavior in my Ariya many times and definitely works as the technical notes states.

And that is more than enough, any modern car being electric, hybrid, petrol, etc if you charge it 10 minutes every day when not using the car at all for a full year the 12V battery will definitely survive no problem.

For example this week I haven't used my Ariya for 5 days straight, and have seen by accident many times when doing things on my garage the car starting to charge the 12V battery by itself and stopping after a while, and me thinking, that's smart.

I suspect the users here that are having problems with their 12V battery getting flat overnight there's something else going on that is abnormal.

[Milkfloat]

I agree with Cosmyc that "there's something else going on that is abnormal". I have left the car standing for 6 weeks and the first time that I went to use it everything was as if I had driven it the day before. The only difference was that the HV battery had lost 3% SOC. However, I remain unable to understand how the 12 volt system works in its entirety. Why does the 12 volt system work at such low voltage and why is the battery held at such low voltage. I drove the car yesterday but, this morning, the battery stands at just 11.75 volts. Additionally, why are so many auxiliary systems still live when the "ignition" is off? Any issue with anything from HUD to sunroof can drain the battery in the "ignition off" state.

[PeteTranter'sSister]

The car is in today, Monday 4th December, 2023 for it's free 12-month service and the motor shaving software recall update. I charged the 12V battery overnight last Thursday, disconnected from the car, and everything is back to normal, whatever that is, although the electrically heated seats have stopped working, not sure if this is related.

I gave the nice man at Nissan a list of faults and an earful about the 12V battery situation, for some time, by the end of which he wasn't a nice man anymore. He didn't acknowledge that there might be a problem or that he might know of any such problem but he offered to sort the internal alarm sensor problem when using the pre-condition function, which I have never used. I am expecting that the 12V battery charge situation will not be sorted and so I am going to purchase the bluetooth 12V battery monitor as suggested by Envolt. A £57,000 car reliant on a cheap Ebay gadget, not good enough.

I shall post here the Nissan reply when I collect the car this evening.....I think we all already know what it will be.....

PTS

[airay]

Just taken my car in for the inverter update. Whilst there I asked about using a jump start battery. They stated that they do not recomend it, but should rather used the RAC subscription . They also stated that using the 12V lithium ion battery to try and jump the car could scramble the software.
Has anybody actually stared the car using a lithium ion battery. Mine was a £60 job from Halfords which I had for my last ICE car 9 months ago.

[PeteTranter'sSister]

Well at the service the nice man at Nissan said the 12V battery was faulty and they have replaced it. The nice man at the RAC, in August when the battery first completely discharged, said the battery was fine. So it's somehow degraded significantly from August to December. We shall see, I'm not convinced. There was no mention of any 12V battery charging software update or any acknowledgement that there is a potential fault.

They did the inverter recall software upgrade and sorted the pre-conditioning wiring fault, which I never use anyway.

They fixed the heating on the passenger seat but not the driver's seat. This is leather, with cooling as well. They might have to replace the entire seat. It stopped working at around the time the 12V battery went flat last Thursday so I'm not sure if my jump starting with a lithium ion battery affected anything. Seems unlikely, but either way it's an expensive fix.

The lithium ion battery won't start the software if the 12V battery is completely flat, it gave just enough power to get the boot lifted an inch so I could pull the boot up to get to the battery. It will start a 'normal' car. A traditional mains battery charger connected across the battery terminals also won't start the software since the battery and software system will draw well over 5 amp. The nice man at the RAC said it was drawing 18 amp for the first error in August. So unless you have some super power battery device, like the nice man from the RAC, it's a case of disconnecting the battery from the car and charging it overnight like in the old days.

There is no fix for the electric windscreen heater not coming on when the windscreen defrost haptic is pressed, I didn't expect one, but I registered it as a fault anyway. They didn't acknowledge or fix the random seat lumbar movement. They acknowledge having to accept Nissan Terms and Conditions every time you start the car but there is no fix for that either. I still registered it as a fault.

I got the car back yesterday, charged it from 16% to 50% overnight using the self-timer, and it behaved, although when turning on this morning I momentarily had a 'catastrophic fault - refer to dealer' screen.

So it's fingers crossed that the 12V battery behaves from now on and I'm looking forwards to my new driver's seat but I don't think this will be my last post. Fantastic car to drive, god-awful software and support. I expect that the software developers are the same team that thought that curved television screens and 3D cinema were good ideas.

[Milkfloat]

That's a great update PTS thanks. The 12 volt system is still a mystery to me and your experience just confirms my view that there is some strange control logic or "different" hardware equipment at play here somewhere. The installed 12 volt battery is only small in ICE car terms so why won't a lithium ion battery that can start an engine operate the car auxilliaries? It means that a battery that can give 100 amps for 2 seconds can't lift a boot lid! It's a great shame that neither Nissan nor any of its dealers participate in the fora to gain real feedback and give owners some real advice and information. Dealers have always suffered from the "never heard of that problem" syndrome which, together with lack of knowledge leaves us all in the dark.

[Envolt]

Been over my 12v logs and the logic is just wacky..
When the car was parked at the airport (Aug/Sep) for just over 2 weeks. It drained the main battery about 7-10% per week.
But it seemed that if the car isn't driven for at least 2 days it engages this long 12v charge cycle of 6 hours per day.
Weird yes but I have proof if you look at the graphs.
Then if the car is used to drive 5 minute in a day. It won't charge the battery at any other time except during that 5 min drive.
And this is where my battery drains down to really low power sub 11.71v so often.
Alternatively it will charge the 12v when the car is plugged in for charging.
Once again see the Nov/Dec graphs to see both of these behaviours.
Start of graph is quick drives where the 12v never gets charged enough and middle is where its on charge at night.
So there is certainly freaky behaviour and its not how it should be.

[Cosmyc]

Been over my 12v logs and the logic is just wacky..
When the car was parked at the airport (Aug/Sep) for just over 2 weeks. It drained the main battery about 7-10% per week.
But it seemed that if the car isn't driven for at least 2 days it engages this long 12v charge cycle of 6 hours per day.
Weird yes but I have proof if you look at the graphs.
Then if the car is used to drive 5 minute in a day. It won't charge the battery at any other time except during that 5 min drive.
And this is where my battery drains down to really low power sub 11.71v so often.
Alternatively it will charge the 12v when the car is plugged in for charging.
Once again see the Nov/Dec graphs to see both of these behaviours.
Start of graph is quick drives where the 12v never gets charged enough and middle is where its on charge at night.
So there is certainly freaky behaviour and its not how it should be.

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That freaky behavior is clearly a sign of something wrong, specifically the high voltage battery high consumption, my Ariya uses 1-2% of SoC to charge the 12V battery for an entire week! Something doesn't add up on yours. If for example by any means, the 12V battery is faulty and doesn't retain charge well the car maybe wasting a lot of energy to keep it up as much as possible.

My car does strictly 10 minutes charge to the 12V each 24h since my last driving session, maintains charge easily.