Swapping Nav Display Units between cars - can it be done?

Hi all, Leaf Newbie here.
I've just Imported my Leaf from Japan, it arrived 5 weeks ago and I'm loving it!! Mostly......

Unfortunately the car arrived with no Map SD card fitted in the Display unit. This has rendered the Display unit is totally unusable - It just displays a blue screen saying "NO SD CARD" ........ I lie - The Reversing Camera works!

Now I'm not worried about Maps or Carwings as we live in a small city with no EV infrastructure, finding our way around is not an issue. And Carwings is not supported here in New Zealand at all yet.
But having no Car Systems interface (Vent/heater or Kw gauge display etc) & more importantly - No Radio/Audio/Bluetooth ....... sucks big time!! :x
Ultra quiet car + Noisy kids = No Sanity

I've exhausted all the obvious avenues to get a New SD card.
NZ, Aussie, USA & Japan Nissan Dealers have all said the same thing pretty much.
Its either a software issue with it not being in the intended Country of sale (Jap Language & Maps - NZ, Aussie & USA), or they need the Car physically at the
dealer for SD card coding (Japan).
And I ain't sending it back!

I do not want an aftermarket unit as it will not interface with the rest of the car systems..... So the only option left that I can see, is to import a 2nd hand Nav unit from the States complete with with its SD card fitted. This option would also give us a unit in English which also adds value. (The language cannot be changed from Japanese in the Jap import models)

It appears there are plenty of Wrecked (Salvaged) Leafs in the States.

So my only question is.... to all you Learned Leaf Guru's out there in MyNissanLEAF.com land......... Will a "2nd hand" Display Unit swap out, be a simple "plug n play" exercise? ...

Its an important question considering the cost of the experiment will cost me a minimum of NZD$1300. (US$930)

Any thoughts appreciated

Cheers
Chris
Nelson NZ

A couple of possible issues (which may also be non-issues):

American cars are LHD and JDM cars are RHD. This will put some key hard buttons on the opposite sides of where they would normally be. This probably wouldn't bother you much. However, if it did (or if there was some technical problem that would preclude this) you might be better with a unit from a UK RHD car.

Hard buttons are different between JDM cars and US cars - they have a nifty TV/Aux button (which presumably means they can watch TV or movies while driving, or more likely stationary) while we have a button for XM (satellite) radio. They are also in a different spots, but I don't think that's either here or there.


Edit: Strike some of that ^ - UK cars apparently have the same button positioning as ours. UK cars don't have the TV/Aux button either, just Aux. So JDM it is FM-AM, CD, TV/Aux. US cars it's FM-AM, XM, CD/Aux. UK cars it's FM-AM, CD, Aux.

Wingnut, don't know if you've solved this yet but ...

I'm in NZ too and I've just got my 2011 Leaf Jap import. It does have an SD card in it, which is the Japanese one. Lots of the information it displays is in Japanese, and the maps are of Japan, and it insists on displaying Japanese time ... but it does actually work, and I've even managed to programme the charge timer using a US owner's manual (easy to find on Google) to "translate". It's not easy, but it does work ...

I'd love a NZ one in English but the suggestions around seem to be that that's too hard.

Anyway, one idea for you might be to contact one of the wreckers that imports parts from Japan and see if they can supply you a Japanese SD card. If it's cheap enough you could maybe take a punt on whether it really did need to be coded?

And if you've managed to put in a head unit from somewhere that actually speaks English, I'd love to hear about it!


cheers

Brent

Chris, check out the "SD UNLOCK NG on navigation screen" discussion. Some insist they received a replacement SD card.

After reading your experience I insisted they checked if the SD car would work in the Jap import. The car is due this Friday, the SD card and other loose bits like the EVSE are already here.
My Japanese contact was very sure that I would be able to get a replacement SD card for my car for around the NZ$350 in case it failed.

Btw, I like the nice red colour of your Leaf. But it appears that your wife has taken possession of it? How to stop my wife from doing the same;-)

Rudy

Did you ever get an answer to this post? I am expecting my JDM Leaf in June and would like to have a completely English dash as well. I did the swap with my 08 Prius and it worked beautifully so I'm hoping that the Leaf can accept the US NAV unit with no issues. Has anyone done this on a leaf?