My wife and I returned from a Labor Day weekend trip to find a dead NAH in the airport parking lot. At first we thought the cellphone had erased the key memory, but when we went to call a cab the parking lot guy said that our headlights had been left on. My wife did leave the headlight switch in the Auto position. However,that doesn't stop them from turning off in the garage every night. The only thing we could figure is that in her hurry to get the shuttle that she didn't turn the car off. (This is a terrible feature in this vehicle: you can walk off with the key in your pocket and the vehicle stays on). In that case, the Auto function will still work when it gets dark!

Once we figured out it was the dead battery, the lot attendant wheeled over the portable jump start cart they have and we tried to jump start it. We had a heck of a time. First, we had a hard time getting it to go to Ready mode. After reading the manual a few times we found that there is a special procedure to follow if it doesn't happen right away. It involves cycling between On and Off in 5 second intervals.

Once we got the Ready light to come on the engine would come on, but then die. It did this several times. I finally tried to back the car out of the space and it died. We re-jumped it and got it to go a little farther. We drove a couple of hundred feet without dying and pulled into a space to try to let the engine charge the battery more. I found that I had to put it in Drive with the parking brake on to get it to charge. After about 10 minutes, we finally got the needle a quarter of the way into the blue and drove home.

The owner's manual does not describe at all the post jump start procedures. It assumes that you just get to the Ready light and it works.

Does anyone know of contact at Nissan that is gathering this type of feedback on the vehicle?

Tom
San Diego, California
2007 Nissan Altima Hybrid
Radiant Silver - Black Leather
Technology Package
Purchased 5/26/2007