Setting climate control while parked and not plugged in

I am new to the forum and looking to get a leaf. I have done some searching trying to see if you can turn on the climate control while parked if your not plugged in.
Some posts talk about turning it on while at work but they don't say if they are plugged in.
I asked the sales guy at dealer but he didn't know.

This would be a great bonus for me.
I live in Toronto and have a short commute so I can lose some mileage to heat or cool the car before I get in it.

Thank in advance.

You can turn it on with carwings, or set a one use timer with carwings, so you'd need an SV or SL. Unplugged, it will run for 15 minutes.

All Leafs can have their climate control manually activated while parked. While the key is somewhere inside the car, touch the power button twice quickly WITHOUT depressing the brake, and the climate control, dash display, and the radio will come on. Make sure you do not touch the brake when doing this, otherwise the car may turn ON and can be driven away even if the key is not inside.

You can also do this via a timer, which will not turn on the radio and dash display. Unfortunately you can only set one timer so you should set it when you'd need it the most (mornings in winter for heat, late afternoons in summer for A/C).

If you get the SV or SL models, these come with CarWings and the climate control can be turned on remotely via their web browser or smart phone app. The base model S does not have CarWings so you have to do it manually or via the timer.

The climate control will run for a maximum of 2 hours if plugged in, and 15 minutes if on the car's battery. Note that if you are using only 120 volt charging, the car will not receive enough electricity to both charge the battery and use the climate control at the same time, so if this will be the case for you, set the timers so they don't overlap.

BTW here's a link to the owners manual PDF for the 2013 Leaf (the 2014 one is not yet on Nissan Canada's website) for you to look over, and if you have any further questions feel free to ask us:

http://www.nissan.ca/content/dam/nissan/ca/owners/manuals/LEAF/2013-Nissan-LEAF.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Thank you very much.

I am looking at leasing an SL model.
Just thinking that since I may do this later in the year I may wait to see what changes will come for 2015. I'm not sure how long this gov rebate will last so I don't want to miss that as it's the only reason I can afford to do this.

Thanks again.

RonDawg- sorry it's all wrong- by pressing quickly power button the without depressing the brake the climate does not work only the fan. There will be no heat or cool air except the fan air. Go to energy monitor to confirm power usage. Make it worst by leaving car in this mode 12V battery will discharge and you will not start the car.12V battery red icon is lit in this mode means battery is not charged. It hast to be in ready to drive mode to operate climate and charge the 12V battery.

tszukow said:

RonDawg- sorry it's all wrong- by pressing quickly power button the without depressing the brake the climate does not work only the fan. There will be no heat or cool air except the fan air. Go to energy monitor to confirm power usage. Make it worst by leaving car in this mode 12V battery will discharge and you will not start the car.12V battery red icon is lit in this mode means battery is not charged. It hast to be in ready to drive mode to operate climate and charge the 12V battery.

Click to expand...

I think the OP is mainly interested in remote climate control:

I live in Toronto and have a short commute so I can lose some mileage to heat or cool the car before I get in it.

Click to expand...

tszukow said:

RonDawg- sorry it's all wrong- by pressing quickly power button the without depressing the brake the climate does not work only the fan. There will be no heat or cool air except the fan air. Go to energy monitor to confirm power usage. Make it worst by leaving car in this mode 12V battery will discharge and you will not start the car.12V battery red icon is lit in this mode means battery is not charged. It hast to be in ready to drive mode to operate climate and charge the 12V battery.

Click to expand...

I replied to the PM you sent me, but just the other day I had to charge at a public charging station in order to make it back home. With the EVSE connected, I double-pressed the button without pressing the brake, and for 1 hour and 55 minutes I was getting plenty of cool air from the vents. As the car was telling me it was 80 degrees outside, the source of that cool air had to have come from the A/C.

EDIT: after a bit of experimenting in my garage, you are correct in that you cannot turn on the A/C (and presumably the heat) this way if the car is unplugged, but it does work if the car is plugged into 240 volts. Not sure about 120 volts.

There is a lot of information about the climate control system in http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=7743" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

To answer your question the only way practical way to do what you want is 15 minutes of A/C via remote control in Carwings.

In more detail:

• Turning on A/C via Carwings will run it for 15 minutes on battery or 2 hours plugged in.
• Climate control timer only works when plugged in so you get 2 hours with that too.
• Turning on A/C while charging (you must be charging, not just plugged in) can be done with the vehicle in ON mode (this is not the same as ready-to-drive mode or "started"--two presses of the power button w/o the brake will put it in ON mode).
• While unplugged you must place the car in ready-to-drive mode (brake + one press of power) and lock and leave the car. The A/C would run until you shut it off or until the battery dies (which would take many hours). However, as RonDawg mentioned the car could be driven off even without the key inside if someone breaks in.

This info is perfect.

Thanks for your help.
I look forward to getting into a cooler or warmer car at the end of the day.

:mrgreen: