Seems just not too long ago that I blogged about us Turning Over a New LEAF... and it is already 1 week passed by! Before that I just want to thank ETCM again for appointing my hubby and I as the first couple ambassador to test drive their awesome Nissan LEAF car. The experience so far has been extremely surreal and propelled us to a whole new level of glam-ness hahaha…
We smiled all the way as we drove out from the compound of Dua Residency, the venue where the meet and greet session was conducted between ETCM, the 2nd batch ambassadors and the press media staff.
Look at my hubby’s grinning from ear to ear face hahaha… he’s very excited to be able to test drive this car! The last time I remembered seeing him grinned like a small kid is when he’s carrying Alyson after she was born. So I guess the Nissan LEAF is kinda like our 3rd baby?
Anyway we drove our LEAF back home, my sister-in-law, Monica (hubby’s 2nd sister) drove hubby’s Nissan Sentra back home and was trailing behind our car happily when hubby decided to test the LEAF within the first hour itself and drove faster. So fast that my SIL complained later on that she lost sight of us the moment she saw our LEAF sped up and gone…whoosh…
We reached home first to park our Nissan Sentra and fetched Monica home. Picture below taken when hubby reversed our LEAF. Love this feature! I mentioned about this feature when we were being interviewed by the NTV7 reporter as I feel this is very important after reading and hearing many news articles and reports about cases of children being hit by cars as their family members accidentally reversed into them. I also feel this feature is good as it also helps us to decide better when reversing and parking (I’m not very pro in parallel parking, guilty!) By the way, the camera screen only turns on the moment it detects you are reversing.
Instead of fetching Monica home, we decided to detour to visit hubby’s 2nd brother, Daniel who is the chief-mechanic in a workshop in Petaling Jaya. Once there, we proudly showed him the car and he went for a test drive with hubby (and my 2 kids who fell asleep halfway driving back home) We then let Monica test drive the car to her home with us in the car and her comment after the test drive was: “No words to explain! The torque is super instant pick-up! I wannntttt aarrghhhh...”
Hubby took over the car once we reached her condo and we rested for a while as we need to prepare to go to a baby fullmoon party few hours later. During the party, hubby fetched about 6 of his college mates in the car for test drive while I stayed at the party with our 2 kiddos. All came back beaming and love the experience!
Before we head home, we dropped by at hubby’s 1st brother house and fetched him and his best friend for a test drive. Hubby’s eldest brother and his best friend love the car as well and commented on the smooth and crispness when hubby drove faster, something about the torque equivalent to a race car hahaha… After that, we went home and hubby charged the car and leave it until the next morning.
He also set the timer in the car to start the air-conditioning system at 10.30am in the morning as we normally leave for church on Sunday at 11am.
Picture above taken on day 2 of us owning the Nissan LEAF. Noticed the lights on the Auto, A/C button? That turns on at 10.30am sharp and if you noticed the ON/OFF button on the middle right portion of the above picture, it actually shows the car is not started yet, only the air-conditioning system. Cool eh? When everyone got ready to leave for church, we entered the car, cool and comfortable for everyone, no waiting time for the car to cool down, nice!
While we were waiting for my mother in law to get ready, our kids as usual, got into mischievous mode (my 3.5 years old Benjamin) and koala mode (my 13 months old Alyson) I’m sharing this picture below to show you how much leg space there is in front the passenger seat that my boy can stand and played there while waiting for his grandma to get ready. You can see my girl clinging like a koala to my hubby hahaha…
And picture below taken as hubby reversed to park our car at the church compound. Hubby said there are people standing around looking at the car as we finished the church service 2 hours later and he went to get the car to fetch us.
After church, we went to Section 17 Petaling Jaya for some chicken rice take-out and while waiting for hubby to order our meals, I saw a lady snooping around our car (my kiddos and I were still in the car waiting) and I then saw my hubby approaching her with our packs of rice and he struck up a conversation with her. They walked around the Nissan LEAF and at one point, the lady while holding her bags of grocery from the wet market, leaned her ears over the front bonnet of our car to hear whether there is any sound emanating from the car. As weekdays came, hubby took over the car to test drive it and he drove around to several clients’ location (OUG, KL city, Shah Alam, Damansara Jaya among few) and I have no idea how many of his clients got to test drive the car. Feedbacks from his clients will be shared in another post of mine OK?
As for myself, I got to test drive the car twice in the first week so far. I was on the verge of falling sick actually when I self-took this picture below, so apologies if I seem a little pale and giddy… haha…
I posted the picture below on my Facebook page and a friend commented about the lack of space in the driver’s seat since I was sitting so close to the steering and I quickly let her know that it is not because of the car being cramp (definitely NOT!) but more to my own preference as I prefer my seat to be closer to the steering.
To be honest, the 1st time I sat in the driver’s seat, I felt like I was sitting in a spaceship big car, the steering seem so far away and I felt like a small kid too! Once I adjusted the distance of my seat and making sure I leaned back comfortably and the mirrors are nicely positioned, I am a happy mummy!
On day 4, we went to Tropicana City Mall to do some minor shopping. There were some nice bargains on the diapers that our kiddos wear so of course being a frugal mum, I grabbed as many as I could heheheh… Picture below showing you guys the spacious area in the boot of the car after we put in the 4 packs of diapers we bought. Hubby commented “This picture is nothing to shout about, we must take another picture when we go for our actual fortnightly grocery shopping at NSK soon.” And I do agree, those fortnightly grocery shopping is kinda scary because we buy a lot of stuff! So stay tuned as I’ll definitely share the pictures when the time comes!
I also want to share a little bit of observation about the lighting of the car at night. Picture below taken on day 6, correction, night of day 6 to be exact. Hubby was driving in after he got back from his daily swimming exercises. Look how bright is the light!!!
I guess that’s all the updates I can share for now. All the people who get to test drive the Nissan LEAF with us during the first week have nothing but good things to say about the car and really looking forward to seeing it being sold in Malaysia though some do expressed their concerns about the range anxiety and also hopes that there will be more charging stations made available soon.
My hubby for one is pretty much sold on owning this beauty if it is within our budget (*hint *hint Nissan any discount? *cheeky look* Hehehe…)
Sigh, talking about my hubby now reminded me that I do have something to complain about this car…
Yes people, finally some negative complaints on this car!
So yeah, this car is making my hubby whiny every day! Every night as hubby drives his Nissan Sentra back into our porch (it is parked behind the Nissan LEAF) hubby will come back whining to me that his Nissan Sentra sounds like a lorry now that he is getting used to driving the LEAF. He whines at every creaks and noises from his Sentra and dreads the 6 weeks ending soon.
Arghhhhh…
