Four problems related to brake light on have been reported for the 2013 Nissan Leaf. The most recently reported issues are listed below.
Brake failure on a city street. The electric brake control unit failed while the car was in motion in a straight line. I was able to stop the car without an accident. The hazard light, warning light, brake light and abs light were all illuminated. I recycled power to the car but the error did not reset. I took the car to the Nissan dealership in murray utah for an assessment. Nissan said the electric brake control unit was bad. Also the car had a can bus error. The car's warranty expired in July of 2018 and Nissan refused to fix the car. According to Nissan the electric brake control unit is $2000 and $480 to install. I refused to pay. I opened a case with Nissan electrical vehicle support (877 664-2738) to see if they would fix the car. They also refused to fix the issue.
Driving about a mile away from my house on a local street this morning, I was approaching an intersection at about 35 mph, the lights were about to turn red, tying to brake to stop. . . All the brake lights lit up after I push the brake pedal, brake pedal came all the way to the floor, car had no brakes, complete brake failure, threw it in neutral and slammed on the emergency brake to stop, this vehicle has only about 42k miles on it. Avoided a collision with oncoming traffic by swerving the car.
Started car by pressing brake and ignition. Put the car in reverse. Car started moving at 2-5 mph with the brake still pressed. Brake lost resistance and had to press hard to floor to stop car. No brake pressure. Took atleast 10-15 feet for the car to complete stop. Same thing happened when moved to drive forward. Fortunate that no one was close to car when this happened. Tik-tok-tik-tok sounds from car, pedal pulses rapidly and abs and brake lights came on. Dealer replaced the 12v battery 2 weeks before this happened. Dropped the car at the dealership again. I see exact same complaints on this website from at least 10 other people. Not sure when this will become an issue that will be addressed by the manufacturer. Not sure if I can update this complaint later once I hear back from the dealer. If I can I will update it.
I needed to press hard on the brake pedal to stop the car. The abs light and the red brake light stayed on.