New Leaf in Canada, need help!

[Paulcf]

Hi everyone! I am sure I will get to use this forum a lot. I searched but didn't quite find what I am looking for or it is out of date so I thought I'd post this topic.

Background: I live in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
My Leaf: I purchased a 2013 Leaf SV in San Francisco with 27k miles or about 45k kms.
How I got it: I had it shipped to Sweetgrass, Montana.
How I got it home: I drove it home! About 300 kms or 180 miles. Took me 24 hours with 3 stops to charge. ALL BRAND NEW to me! I did lose 3 hours when I realized it wasn't charging and the previous owners timers were still active! Pushed the magic override button and problem fixed!

What I need help with:
1. Being in Canada, we need DRL's or Daytime Running Lights. I have found some links but would appreciate to hear what is the most economical, easiest and nicest way to get DRL's on this Leaf.
2. Carwings...can I get it to work in Canada? Or is there something else I can use/do? I want to simply monitor the charging status, turn on the heater (we rarely need or use A/C here as it is brutally cold 8 months of the year). And I want to turn on/off charging. That's all.
3. Warranty re battery pack, valid in Canada ( Yeah, I know...but I have heard many different 'stories' about this).
4. Winter driving, tips and suggestions? I need winter tires, will buy used ones on rims I guess from some other Nissan product with the same wheel rim pattern/code.

I have all 12 capacity bars and from my first and only day driving the car, I am intrigued by it. But I need your collective tribal knowledge to get this gas buster 100% operational here in the Great White North.

Any/all suggestions are appreciated! Thank you Leafers!

[ElectricEddy]

Hi everyone! I am sure I will get to use this forum a lot. I searched but didn't quite find what I am looking for or it is out of date so I thought I'd post this topic.

Background: I live in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
My Leaf: I purchased a 2013 Leaf SV in San Francisco with 27k miles or about 45k kms.
How I got it: I had it shipped to Sweetgrass, Montana.
How I got it home: I drove it home! About 300 kms or 180 miles. Took me 24 hours with 3 stops to charge. ALL BRAND NEW to me! I did lose 3 hours when I realized it wasn't charging and the previous owners timers were still active! Pushed the magic override button and problem fixed!

What I need help with:
1. Being in Canada, we need DRL's or Daytime Running Lights. I have found some links but would appreciate to hear what is the most economical, easiest and nicest way to get DRL's on this Leaf.
2. Carwings...can I get it to work in Canada? Or is there something else I can use/do? I want to simply monitor the charging status, turn on the heater (we rarely need or use A/C here as it is brutally cold 8 months of the year). And I want to turn on/off charging. That's all.
3. Warranty re battery pack, valid in Canada ( Yeah, I know...but I have heard many different 'stories' about this).
4. Winter driving, tips and suggestions? I need winter tires, will buy used ones on rims I guess from some other Nissan product with the same wheel rim pattern/code.

I have all 12 capacity bars and from my first and only day driving the car, I am intrigued by it. But I need your collective tribal knowledge to get this gas buster 100% operational here in the Great White North.

Any/all suggestions are appreciated! Thank you Leafers!

The stock DRL's are accomplished with a relay which series the halogen headlights. Maybe slip by Nissan and see if that can be done at a reasonable cost.
If not there are many threads on this forum that refer to this.
You may want to download a manual:http://www.nissan-techinfo.com/home.aspx
Carwings is now Nissan connect and your tcu may have to be upgraded. (again at Nissan)
The warranty should not be a problem, but again check w/Nissan
Winter tires can be mounted on Nissan Altima mid 80's rims from the scrapyard, without tpms the indicator light will be displayed on the dash.
Welcome to the EV world and enjoy.
The last memory of Calgary I have is everybody parked on the Deerfoot spewing co2 emissions during rush hours. It will be nice to not be part of that crowd.
Note: a spare tire and Leafspy are also 2 good things to consider.

[LeftieBiker]

Your car's heatpump will work well down to about -1C. Below that the resistance heater will do most, and then all, of the work, greatly dropping range. Driving habits and speeds still matter, but assume at best a 50 mile range in frigid weather, at lower speeds, 40 miles with more highway driving. Blocking the grille may help a little, although not as much as it helps the older Leafs.

[stonymtnleaf]

Hello everyone;

I am a new (to me) Leaf owner in Canada as well with a lot of the same questions as Paulcf and maybe a few others.

Location: just north of Winnipeg, Manitoba (think 100 miles north of North Dakota, FWIW)
My Leaf: It's a 2012 SL, American spec, purchased in MN, imported to MB abt 18 mths ago, driven uneventfully, I'm the second owner here.
Driving conditions: Cold - low of -30C last night, abt -22F and snowy!

A few comments to date (just a week into ownership)

1. I am not going to worry abt the DRL issue, the car seems to have them already.
2. It's an American Spec car in Canada, and the local Nissan dealer shrugs and says the part numbers are all different. True or ??
3. Carwings was working fine when when I looked at the car in late Dec. Not any more apparently due to the 2G network shutdown issue.
4. I am attempting to source the 3G TCU module from the US and will install it myself (or try the dealer), what needs ot happen next?
5. Parking inside an unheated garage, got a L2 EVSE with the car which is hooked up and working.
6 Out for a drive this AM, left with 12 bars charge and zero battery temp. Local drive abt 25 km/15miles and returned with 3 bars and GOM range of 20 kms. Did not use climate control except for 3-4 mins to clear windshield frost. Average cold wx range or something else to try?
7. Still trying to figure out non-timer preheat selections (I know, read the manual!)
8. After a couple of stops, power steering warning came on when restarting at -24C, man-handled it out of the parking lot, shut down and restarted and PS warning went out after a few seconds, then OK on return home. Something to watch for in cold wx ops, or somehing more ominous?

All for the moment.

Cheers, Jim

[jjeff]

Hello everyone;

I am a new (to me) Leaf owner in Canada as well with a lot of the same questions as Paulcf and maybe a few others.

Location: just north of Winnipeg, Manitoba (think 100 miles north of North Dakota, FWIW)
My Leaf: It's a 2012 SL, American spec, purchased in MN, imported to MB abt 18 mths ago, driven uneventfully, I'm the second owner here.
Driving conditions: Cold - low of -30C last night, abt -22F and snowy!

A few comments to date (just a week into ownership)

1. I am not going to worry abt the DRL issue, the car seems to have them already.
2. It's an American Spec car in Canada, and the local Nissan dealer shrugs and says the part numbers are all different. True or ??
3. Carwings was working fine when when I looked at the car in late Dec. Not any more apparently due to the 2G network shutdown issue.
4. I am attempting to source the 3G TCU module from the US and will install it myself (or try the dealer), what needs ot happen next?
5. Parking inside an unheated garage, got a L2 EVSE with the car which is hooked up and working.
6 Out for a drive this AM, left with 12 bars charge and zero battery temp. Local drive abt 25 km/15miles and returned with 3 bars and GOM range of 20 kms. Did not use climate control except for 3-4 mins to clear windshield frost. Average cold wx range or something else to try?
7. Still trying to figure out non-timer preheat selections (I know, read the manual!)
8. After a couple of stops, power steering warning came on when restarting at -24C, man-handled it out of the parking lot, shut down and restarted and PS warning went out after a few seconds, then OK on return home. Something to watch for in cold wx ops, or somehing more ominous?

All for the moment.

Cheers, Jim

Hello fellow Northerner, quite a few miles South of you but I awoke to -15F, so not much better
Being a '12 the only way to turn off the heater is to totally turn off the climate control, did you do that? Unfortunately the '11/'12 models really have a energy hog heater, like 6+ kw, which really kills range. The bad part is you cannot even run the air to help defrost/defog the windows, as soon as you turn the climate control on, the heat will come along with it. Now you can purchase a relatively cheap option to disable the heater(about $25 USD) and still allow the fan(I installed one on my '12) but I've found in sub zero temps you basically have to run the heater to keep the windows clear so for very cold temps it doesn't really help all that much. Where it does help is in more moderate temps, above freezing.
It sounds like today your range may have been as low as 25 miles?(15 + a possible 10?? more) how many bars health does your battery have? the small bars to the right of the wider capacity bars. 25 would be very low for a 12 bar Leaf but not unheard of for a 10 bar in your extreme cold temps. My '13 S has a summer range of ~70-75 miles but drops to a little over 60 in the teens and yesterday when the temps were in the single digits it was closer to 50, I've seen as low as 40 in single digits sub zero and my worst range was 35(1/2 summer range) in teens below zero. My 10 bar '12 is a good 20%?? worse than my '13 which would put it around your 25 miles. Note I'm not sure how your reading your charge %(if you even are) but I'd strongly suggest something like LeafSpy which uses your cell phone or I was lucky enough to find a used LeafDD which gives me exact SOC%(like the '13 and on Leafs) as well as other very handy capacity measurements. The GOM(guess-o-meter that tells you very roughly how many miles you have left) is quite poor on the pre '13 models and gives you serious range anxiety, much better alternatives are available and really should be used.
Where in MN did you get your Leaf? I'm guessing it could have been Wayzata Nissan? It's where I got my '12 and they said they are the largest seller of used Leafs, at least in the midwest, they ship all over. Yesterday was taking advantage of their free L3 charger which I normally don't use but was forced to due to my 60 mile trip and like I said I'd have been lucky to get 50 miles. they were loading a Leaf up to truck to Iowa, looked like a nice Leaf. The nice thing about the L3 charger was I only charged for 20 minutes but gained 30% on my battery, plus I gained 1 battery temp bar(was 2 but jumped to 3 after the charge) so I was easily able to make it home.

[ElectricEddy]

Hello everyone;

I am a new (to me) Leaf owner in Canada as well with a lot of the same questions as Paulcf and maybe a few others.

Location: just north of Winnipeg, Manitoba (think 100 miles north of North Dakota, FWIW)
My Leaf: It's a 2012 SL, American spec, purchased in MN, imported to MB abt 18 mths ago, driven uneventfully, I'm the second owner here.
Driving conditions: Cold - low of -30C last night, abt -22F and snowy!

A few comments to date (just a week into ownership)

1. I am not going to worry abt the DRL issue, the car seems to have them already.
2. It's an American Spec car in Canada, and the local Nissan dealer shrugs and says the part numbers are all different. True or ??
3. Carwings was working fine when when I looked at the car in late Dec. Not any more apparently due to the 2G network shutdown issue.
4. I am attempting to source the 3G TCU module from the US and will install it myself (or try the dealer), what needs ot happen next?
5. Parking inside an unheated garage, got a L2 EVSE with the car which is hooked up and working.
6 Out for a drive this AM, left with 12 bars charge and zero battery temp. Local drive abt 25 km/15miles and returned with 3 bars and GOM range of 20 kms. Did not use climate control except for 3-4 mins to clear windshield frost. Average cold wx range or something else to try?
7. Still trying to figure out non-timer preheat selections (I know, read the manual!)
8. After a couple of stops, power steering warning came on when restarting at -24C, man-handled it out of the parking lot, shut down and restarted and PS warning went out after a few seconds, then OK on return home. Something to watch for in cold wx ops, or somehing more ominous?

All for the moment.

Cheers, Jim

Regarding #8, you may have to top up (trickle charge) the 12V accessory battery or even replace it look for 12.6 volts float .

[medtech1]

Mine is a 2013 SV as well.. and while the previous owner just used a DRL relay (after market from Canadian Tire) to power the fog lights, I didn't like it much. I ended up using these, feeding them through a relay so they only go on, if the headlights are off. These are very nice lights.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/141532865027

This post shows the same lights I think:

viewtopic.php?t=6134

[alozzy]

I also have just imported (Jan 18, 2017) from US to Canada a 2013 Nissan Leaf SV and I'm trying to figure out how best to deal with the DRL challenge.

I want to be sure that, whatever method I use, the DRL functionally will meet the Fed and BC inspection requirements. From the info I've found online:

* the DRL lights must be activated automatically when the car is turned on and deactivated when turned off
* deactivated when the low beam headlights are turned on
* deactivated when the hazard flash is enabled
* the LEDs must be labeled as DRLs

Has anyone who recently imported a Leaf into Canada passed the RIV inspection and BC inspection? If so, what method of wiring did you use?

I'm also considering this DRL kit from Canadian Tire:

http://www.canadiantire.ca/en/pdp/dayti ... 4001p.html

But the Alpena website is useless as the product isn't even listed. I would like to know if this controller will work with the Leaf.

Methods I'm considering:

viewtopic.php?f=37&t=6134

http://electricvehicles.club/community/ ... luded.468/

viewtopic.php?t=21529

Any suggestions welcome

[stonymtnleaf]

Hi all;

Back after a few weeks away. Thanks for all the replies/comments to my questions.

Some added info:
1. The car was operated first in MI then in MN. My friend bought it through Waysata about 18 months ago and imported to MB. Lots of paperwork but no major snags.
2. The car was built in 7/2012 according to the door frame label. It just rolled 96,000 km, so call it 59,600 miles.
3. LeafSpy says SOH=81% with 11 bars showing.
4. Have purchased a upgrade TCU p/n 283C0-3NA2A. (US $202 + US $11 shipping plus CDN $35 at border plus gas o drive to Pembina ND and back, for anyone else shopping in the GWN). Mulling over the install - looks simple, 3 connectors and a couple of mounting screws. Might do it myself and tackle Nissan by phone re: the programming chneg of IMEIs or whatever.

Anyway, the car is driving fine. After a few really cold days, the last few times out have been in the +2C to -5C range and range, etc. has been perfectly adequate for my use. Saw my first GOM of over 100 km the other day. No recurrence of the really cold day power steering issue.

There is a 'free' L3 charger at the local community college which i tried out today - adds about 1% SOC per minute so useful to know.

Anyone else in Canada done the Carwings changeover as yet?

[baustin]

There is a thread on here that you will want to read. Canadian Leaf owners have been able to get their CarWings/EVConnect to work without the TCU upgrade, as there is still active 2G in Canada (supposedly until 2018). There's a link to the thread in the Canadian forum.

Unless you can get a Canadian dealer to do the install and registration for cheap, I would return the TCU. The install is not a DIY project. When you talk to the dealer, refer them to Campaign Bulletin PC449 dated 17 November 2016. I don't know if there is a different number or version of the bulletin for Canada, but the US version has the installation and registration instructions in it (about a 2 hour process). The cost to have it done at a US Dealership is only $199 total (including the TCU).