Changing SIM on Japanese TCU

Spent some time today trying to get Carwings working on my Japanese imported Leaf (I'm in New Zealand).
TL;DR: nope

But to save somebody else ripping out the glovebox, here's what I found looking at the TCU in a right hand drive vehicle.

First up, it's on the driver's side, behind and right of the steering wheel. I'm not sure this is the best way, but here's how I got to it. Take this panel off which is just above your feet as you drive (plastic screws):


You can see the TCU tucked up behind the bonnet & charging pulls:


You need to remove those pull handles to get to the screw behind it which fixes the upper panel. Then pop open the upper panel enough to see these two screws:


And there it is:


Inside:


Here's the modem board:



I checked under all those RF shields and no SIM card. :-(
Tempted to hunt down an Australian TCU for the same year and see if that will work. Anybody know if a TCU can be replaced without any dealer programming?

./chris

Thanks for the pics! Very cool!

I'm not terribly surprised there's no SIM. SIMs were originally a GSM-only thing. I'd heard of NTT Docomo's FOMA before (including the expansion of its acronym: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_Mobile_Multimedia_Access" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false, AGES ago when 3G was still kinda new.

Here in the US, for ages, CDMA (non-"world phones") had no reason to ever have SIMs, because it had nothing to w/the CDMA standard.

From some Googling, including having to use use Google Translate, UIMs (from appearances) look like a SIM card. Too bad I can't read any of the Japanese markings in your pics.

Ah yeah, forgot Japan used to roll their own network technology. Even if it is running standard UMTS it could be an embedded SIM, and even then they're running on a different frequency (assuming they're using the 800MHz spectrum as per that Wikipedia page you linked).

Tried Google translate on those markings (I've been doing a lot of that lately...) and it just tells you manufacturer (Kyocera) and some warnings (power off in aircraft, don't remove seals).

Time to hunt down an Australian TCU...