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nateads

Active member
Joined
Nov 5, 2018
Messages
27
I'm a LEAF newbie. My other vehicle is a 2017 Hyundai IONIQ BEV so I wanted to try and stay all battery electric and the LEAF seems to be a good option.

I'm picking up a 2015 SV. Can anyone point me in the right direction to find out what the latest firmware for the car should be and latest map version? The car is in Ontario Canada.

I would like to put in a request with the dealer to update both if needed.

I asked about the firmware and was told it's up to date but I trust car dealers as much as I trust a tooth pick to hold up my homes roof.

Any info in the two items would be great.
 
There is no battery firmware update needed, AFAIK. As far as the map goes...don't bother. If they have even updated it so soon it still isn't a good Nav system.
 
nateads said:
2015 SV. Can anyone point me in the right direction to find out what the latest firmware for the car

The only thing I can think of that should be checked is the car's cell phone modem or TCU. There is limited functionality, the car can update the map of charging stations, Google_send_to_car can send a destination, you can do a Google search for a destination, remote charging and remote climate control.

In the USA, the early cars had 2G networking. As the 2G network was phased out, the TCU needed to be updated to work with 3G. However, the new 3G modems would hang and otherwise misbehave, and someone would need to pull and replace the audio fuse to restore proper functionality. There was a recent update to these modems that seems to have improved this issue. I think it was TSB NTB18-045

However, I don't know if this applies to Canada.
 
@nateads I don't know if it will work for a Canadian VIN, but worth a shot:

https://www.nissanusa.com/recalls-vin/#/#/Home

For US VINs, that site will show the status of all recalls/updates for the vehicle in question.

FWIW, Transport Canada lists the following for your car:

http://wwwapps.tc.gc.ca/Saf-Sec-Sur/7/VRDB-BDRV/search-recherche/results-resultats.aspx?lang=eng&mk=3415&md=LEAF&fy=2015&ty=2015&ft=&ls=0&sy=0
 
Thank you to everyone for the feedback. It really put my mind at ease when picking up the car.

The only issues I have encountered and hopefully there is an answer to them are.

1. The infotainment screen doesn't flip anymore. The button for it seems to be broken. It clicks still, it just doesn't do anything. Is their a bypass? I know for computer cd ROMs if the tray is stuck there is a hole to push in a paper clip. Is there anything like that for the screen to flip?

2. I'm sure this one is a no, but other than LEAFSpy can you access the cars features such as SOC and climate controls without the paid carwings service?

I ask because one of the private sales I was looking at the guy said you can access those things without a monthly or yearly service but I'm starting to think he was paying for xm and didn't realize that's how the controls worked.
 
LeftieBiker said:
AFAIK they never started charging for Carwings. You do need the 3G TCM though.
I tried to look up Carwings Canada but it redirects me to Nissan connect which I assume has replaced Carwings.

I enrolled but get an error at the agreement acceptance portion. I looked up the FAQ and it indicates it's a paid service.

Do you have XM radio?
 
Yes, I have XM, and I've prepaid about 15 months of it. I remember talking with the salesman about extending the free six months of Nissan's over the air roadside/emergency assistance by paying, but as I recall the basic EV Connect service will be free for me, at least for the life of my lease.
 
LeftieBiker said:
Yes, I have XM, and I've prepaid about 15 months of it. I remember talking with the salesman about extending the free six months of Nissan's over the air roadside/emergency assistance by paying, but as I recall the basic EV Connect service will be free for me, at least for the life of my lease.

I didn't get XM so hopefully I can still get some basic features. My only goal would be state of charge and pre heating/cooling. I don't need automatic start, remote locking and unlocking. I will be calling the help number tomorrow to see what I can get figured out.
 
@nateads Sounds like you are Canadian. If the LEAF was imported from the US, then you won't get Carwings/Connect to work. Last I checked, Canadian Nissan dealerships are not permitted to do the necessary TCU hardware upgrade to get 3G connectivity. If it is a Canadian LEAF, then a Nissan dealership should do the TCU upgrade for free as it is a 2015 MY.

Having said that, if all you want is the SOC and climate control timer you don't need Carwings for either.

The SOC is already shown in the dash, just cycle through the available screens to find it.

You can setup the climate control pre-heat/cool via the infotainment center on an SV. Refer to the manual for details...
 
alozzy said:
@nateads Sounds like you are Canadian. If the LEAF was imported from the US, then you won't get Carwings/Connect to work. Last I checked, Canadian Nissan dealerships are not permitted to do the necessary TCU hardware upgrade to get 3G connectivity. If it is a Canadian LEAF, then a Nissan dealership should do the TCU upgrade for free as it is a 2015 MY.

Having said that, if all you want is the SOC and climate control timer you don't need Carwings for either.

The SOC is already shown in the dash, just cycle through the available screens to find it.

You can setup the climate control pre-heat/cool via the infotainment center on an SV. Refer to the manual for details...

@alozzy yes the car and myself are Canadian. The car was originally from Canada and has had the TCU recall done. My reason for wanting carwings is I'm using a juice box EVSE that never seems to get the charge right on the leaf, for my IONIQ it's great. I just set it to charge to 70% tonight. And when it stopped and I went and checked the dash it was at 83% so I'm looking for something I can check from the comfort of my couch and interrupt the charge of needed.

For the climate control it's more so for heating or cooling on demand. My wife will be driving the car full time as of next week and I was hoping to pass it on to her with the ability to condition the car before coming home as her work end times are always different.

If I cannot that's fine I understand, I might get a obd for leaf spy. I'm just intrigued to know if carwings can run without a XM membership as a previous leaf I was looking at under a private sale the owner said he doesn't pay for any control service.
 
XM has nothing to do with Carwings/Nissan Connect, so you don't need to renew that service if you don't want to.

There's no charge for Carwings/Nissan Connect, so there must be something wrong with your account. Call the phone number listed here to get that sorted out:

https://canada.nissanconnect.com/owners/languagePreference/index
 
alozzy said:
XM has nothing to do with Carwings/Nissan Connect, so you don't need to renew that service if you don't want to.

There's no charge for Carwings/Nissan Connect, so there must be something wrong with your account. Call the phone number listed here to get that sorted out:

https://canada.nissanconnect.com/owners/languagePreference/index
Thanks @alozzy you were completely right. I spoke to a rep at the EV department and he notified me the year and model of my car had the Carwings/NissanConnect for free.

The only issue I ran into though was my car never got the 2G to 3G upgrade. The CarFax records only showed me the 2G disable which I stupidly assumed meant the upgrade.

So I'm out of luck on this one. Does anyone know if there is a DIY for this upgrade though? I'm curious if anyone has bought a 3G antenna from a scrap yard and tried the upgrade themselves. I haven't gotten a dealer quote yet, but anything over $100 sounds too high for this type of an upgrade on a 4 year old car since it doesn't affect the cars main functionality, well for me at least.
 
The price was $199 for quite a while, but may have changed. The upgrade can cause issues with 12 volt battery drain, though, often requiring that a fuse be "cycled" every couple of weeks, to keep the unit from staying on when the car is off and pulling power from the accessory battery.
 
The TCU upgrade to 3G should still be free on a 2015, unless they have recently changed policy on that.

Go to a Nissan dealership and mention campaign PC450. Not sure if that campaign number is the same in Canada, but they should be able to cross reference it...
 
LeftieBiker said:
The upgrade can cause issues with 12 volt battery drain, though, often requiring that a fuse be "cycled" every couple of weeks, to keep the unit from staying on when the car is off and pulling power from the accessory battery.

There is also a patch for the upgrade. I got it a few months ago, and no fuse pulls needed since then.

Before was about once every 3 months for me. Some people claim to have turned off some features and never need to do a fuse pull.
 
alozzy said:
The TCU upgrade to 3G should still be free on a 2015, unless they have recently changed policy on that.

Go to a Nissan dealership and mention campaign PC450. Not sure if that campaign number is the same in Canada, but they should be able to cross reference it...
I have been reading on this forum though that it costed $199 US to do and in Canada I have been seeing different amounts from other users. Did they change it to free at some point?

I just got off the phone with Village Nissan in Unionville Ontario Canada. They don't seem to know about the upgrade so they contacted Nissan Canada. They say my car didn't need the recall. I asked if it was something outside of a recall that I would need to pay for, they told me I would have to call Nissan Canada to find out.

I tried to see if the rep at NissanConnect could just create an account for me so I could try the userID and pass on the car, but they refused to make the account until the 3G antenna is installed. Not sure why.
 
They don't want to bother with the account stuff right now because the 2G connectivity simply won't work. It has to be 3G.

Somewhere on this forum, you'll find detailed instructions on how to confirm that your TCU hardware is definitely 2G and not 3G.

Did you tell the Nissan dealership to look up that recall campaign I mentioned? On a 2015 only, the TCU hardware upgrade should be free. On 2013/2014, it's co-pay.
 
alozzy said:
They don't want to bother with the account stuff right now because the 2G connectivity simply won't work. It has to be 3G.

Somewhere on this forum, you'll find detailed instructions on how to confirm that your TCU hardware is definitely 2G and not 3G.

Did you tell the Nissan dealership to look up that recall campaign I mentioned? On a 2015 only, the TCU hardware upgrade should be free. On 2013/2014, it's co-pay.
My intent with getting them to make an account for me was to test to see if I might already have the 3G since the recall does not seem to be available for my VIN.

I did mention the campaign CP450 they had no information on it, I asked about the TCU upgrade they had no idea, I asked about the 3G antenna upgrade they said they had no idea. I thought they were trying to blow me off but when the guy said he would contact Nissan Canada and get back to me and actually got back to me I have no idea other than maybe getting some type of Canadian campaign number or part number and seeing if that helps the dealer more.
 
They can't tell you that your Leaf "doesn't need the recall" AND that it needs the 3G upgrade. If it is 2G (this isn't just an antenna) then it needs the upgrade, and because it is a '15 it should be free.
 
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