Simon's new Xantia V6 and Leaf blog

[DHallworth]

I've not been on the forum for a while now but have just caught up on your blog, Simon.

The Leaf sounds like a big step forward when compared to the Ion.

One thing I'm wondering about your Xantia, is it possible that when you're not using it the battery voltage is getting a bit low? Low voltage can cause a number of problems on cars and my Activa always feels strange if I've let the battery get flat. When mine isn't being used now I disconnect the battery and it always tends to feel fine when reconnecting now.

David.

[Mandrake]

I've not been on the forum for a while now but have just caught up on your blog, Simon.

The Leaf sounds like a big step forward when compared to the Ion.

Hell yes.... It's a bit like going from a 2CV to a Xantia.

It's not without its flaws - I find the drivers seat a bit hard and the bolster spacing a bit narrow so it's digging into the sides of my legs slightly - I'm getting a padded seat cover to see if it helps, and the action of the brake pedal is a bit weird, but it's actually a much more comfortable, well equipped, nicer car than you'd think from looking at one from the outside. Apart from the drivers seat I'm quite impressed. It's the quietest car I've ever been in at motorway speeds, I don't know whether the Xantia has rear door seals that are leaking road noise (sounds a bit like it) but even when you factor out the lack of engine noise there's no comparison in the noise levels at high speed, it's super quiet inside on the motorway.

The heater is a revelation compared to the Ion's - it draws far less power, gets far hotter, heats up far faster. It will go from nothing to fully hot in about 30 seconds. The car feels a lot better insulated too, as once it's up to temperature it holds the heat well with little heater use. Pre-heat means I can set a timer for 7:30 in the morning and when we come out to the car it's already warmed the interior up to a comfortable temperature for us. In winter it will automatically defrost and de-ice itself, all from the power from the wall. (I can also start the preheat from my phone before leaving work to melt any ice on the windows before I get to the car )

The steering is nice and smooth - the steering in the Ion was a bit sticky and "notchy". The boot is a bit odd shaped but a good size at 380 litres - about 3x the boot size of the Ion. Rear legroom is OK, I can sit behind myself. (Although not much to spare as I like to have the drivers seat a long way back in most cars)

It's on 215/50/17 tyres and even though it only has crap Dunlop Enasave's on it at the moment it has a lot of grip around corners, at least in the dry, those tyres are a bit rubbish in the wet, where I often find myself wheel spinning trying to pull away from the traffic lights in the wet! I'm probably going to put CrossClimate+ on it before the winter - they're a bit pricey in that size but it makes the car safe all year round for getting us to work reliably and I suspect they'll still be better than the Dunlops in summer as well, certainly in rain.

At 105 ish miles of range and no battery thermal management it's still not a car for long journeys though, it rapid charges very fast (30% to 85% in 20 minutes) but the rapid charging heats up the battery a lot so by the time you've stopped to rapid charge twice the battery is getting pretty toasty - OK once in a while but no good for anyone regularly doing long distances.

But 95% of our driving is shopping, errands and commuting, and it does all those with ease. It's nice to get home from work with over 70 miles range left instead of about 10-15! In winter it should get home with about 55 miles left, vs the Ion which actually couldn't make the journey in winter without stopping to charge on the way home...

It will do us well for a few years and hopefully by then longer range EV's with battery thermal management like the e-Niro will be coming down into the 2nd hand market. They're too new at the moment as they're all still on their initial lease at the moment so you don't see any second hand.

One thing I'm wondering about your Xantia, is it possible that when you're not using it the battery voltage is getting a bit low? Low voltage can cause a number of problems on cars and my Activa always feels strange if I've let the battery get flat. When mine isn't being used now I disconnect the battery and it always tends to feel fine when reconnecting now.

I don't think it's battery voltage - the battery seems pretty healthy and it has been getting more use recently. I did three trips to the dump yesterday in the hot weather we had and the engine felt quite sluggish and reluctant during the first two trips and really only started to open up on the 3rd.

I really don't have any idea what the issue is, it occasionally gets "grumpy" like this and just won't perform. It seems to happen more in hot weather - in cold brisk weather it usually performs much better. The fact that it was struggling with the emissions test at first makes me wonder if it has a misfire problem, perhaps the coil pack is starting to go ? I've already replaced the coil pack and spark plug leads once on this car, however the coil pack I have in it at the moment is an NGK one instead of the OEM Sagem...

[Mandrake]

So I pulled the trigger on fitting a full set of CrossClimate+ to the Leaf - due to be fitted on Saturday. Quite expensive in 215/50/17 but all tyres seem to be expensive in that size. Hopefully I'll get a few good years out of them, and I expect them to last better than the Quatrac 5's on the Ion which wore a lot on the shoulder because they were so narrow and understeery at the front...

I planned to fit them before the winter anyway but the discovery last week that one had a nail blatantly through the middle of one of the middle water grooves (below flush with the tread) brought that forward. (Fortunately not leaking at all) No point repairing a rubbish eco summer tyre that is going to be replaced in a month or so anyway. One of the other tyres had a marginal tread warning at the previous MOT so no point messing around with them.

It will be interesting to see how the CrossClimate+ perform. I've watched lots of comparison videos but I thought this one comparing a summer tyre, CrossClimate+, (summer optimised all season) a winter optimised all season, a full winter tyre, and a nordic winter tyre was particularly well done in a controlled environment, with the graphs quite informative:



A quick summary of the results from the graphs.

In wet braking the CrossClimate+ was the best at 2C, 6.5C and 9.8C, being about 5 metres better than a summer tyre at 2C. At 15C the summer tyre pulled ahead by only half a metre.

In snow lap times at -9C the cross climate was 3 seconds worse than the best winter tyre but 10 seconds better than the summer tyre.

In dry braking the summer tyre was the best between 0C and 8C, 2nd best was the CrossClimate+ only about a metre behind.

At 0-2C dry braking of the CrossClimate+ was identical to the other "winter optimised" all season tyre but was 3 metres better than the other all season tyre at 8C.

At higher temperatures the CrossClimate+ was the only non-summer tyre not to deteriorate significantly in performance and remained very close to the summer tyre at high temperatures.

So it was the worst of the winter/all season tyres in sub zero snow, but the spread between best and worst was relatively small, and it was leagues ahead of the summer tyre.

At the other end it out performed all the other tyres except the summer tyre in summer conditions and was very close to the summer tyre at those higher temperatures.

Sounds like the perfect tyre for UK weather patterns, with the best performance of the lot in cold wet conditions, adequate performance in occasional sub zero snow conditions and excellent summer performance both dry and wet but particularly wet.

While good in snow and very good in the wet I felt the Quatrac 5 sacrificed a bit too much summer dry performance (especially on a very hot day where it got very soft feeling) for the few days a year when you might actually get snow, even on a low powered car like the Ion which was not a good handler in the first place.

The Leaf corners vastly better than the Ion (not surprising with front tyres that are 215/50/17 vs 145/65/15 ) so dry summer cornering performance is of more interest, and the summer bias of the CrossClimate+ seems like a better match for the prevaling weather conditions even here in Scotland. (I think we only got a handful of days with any snow at all last winter)

If the reviews and comments from other Leaf owners who have used them are anything to go by you barely sacrifice any summer performance, get excellent cold/wet performance and snow performance is perfectly adequate to get you around safely if you do get a big dump of snow.

After that it's in for an MOT on Tuesday.

[NewcastleFalcon]

Never had a car with those tyre pressure monitoring sensors in before, the Leaf does. Does it need any special "faffing about with" when tyres are changed?

Regards Neil

[mickthemaverick]

When I started buying tyres you had two choices radial or cross-ply!! Life was so much easier, I used to run Uniroyal Rain Tyres on my daily driver and Goodyear NCT's on the rally cars. Occasionally I would have to use some M&S's on the rally car but I don't count them as regular options. So which genius decided to develop winter and summer tyres? Yes for competition but just a marketing gimmick for road use in my view. And now lo and behold we have "developed" all season tyres, or as I know them "tyres"!! Another few years and someone will come up with a cross ply tyre no doubt!!

[Mandrake]

One thing that has annoyed me a bit coming to the Leaf from the Ion is no mirror auto-fold when remote locking/unlocking the car...

There is a latching button on the drivers door controls to fold the mirrors in but you have to remember to do it manually before you turn the car off. So I was finding myself constantly getting out of the car, locking it, realising I'd forgotten to fold the mirrors, unlocking the car, leaning in to turn the car back on, finding it won't turn on because the key is in my pocket just outside the door frame, sitting down or fishing the key out of my pocket, turning the car on, pressing the fold button then turning the car off again and exiting the car a second time. After you've done that 10 times for the week it gets a bit annoying to say the least!

It turns out there is a purchase time spec option to get auto-fold functionality, and it is available as a small kit for retrofitting:

It's basically three relays and a wiring harness to insert itself into the existing wiring going to the mirror/window controller on the door, so it actually installs inside the drivers door...

It was a bit of a pig to install to be honest, as you're basically jamming the relays into a small gap between the door card and door frame and you also have to splice into a wire in the door locking mechanism as the kit was originally designed for the Gen1 Leaf and the connector type changed in the Gen2 Just trying to get that connector off the door lock mechanism took me half an hour as I couldn't see the connector well enough to figure out what type of latching mechanism it had. Not a job for the feint of heart.

One thing I've noticed with the Leaf is that it feels really well insulated from the outside temperature - once the cabin is warmed up it seems to stay warm with a very minimal amount of heat, whereas the Peugeot felt draughty and poorly insulated.

One thing I discovered while fitting this kit is that the doors are really well insulated and actually have a thick layer of carpet underfelt behind the door cards!

That would explain why it feels so well insulated and also why the road noise is so low... I'm not sure whether the rear doors are likewise insulated but I'm assuming so.

I've never come across carpet underfelt behind the door cards in a car before - has anyone else seen this before ? I guess in an ICE vehicle with unlimited "free" heating there isn't much motivation to add extra insulation to the doors, (except as sound deadening) however in an EV where every kWh matters extra insulation could dramatically reduce the power consumption of the heater once the initial warm up is out of the way and the cabin is at the target temperature.

That certainly seems to be the case because even in the coldest weather we've had since I've had the Leaf (around 10C) once the cabin is warmed up the power consumption of the heater is almost nothing with the car feeling cosy warm. It will be interesting to see how the heater performs in freezing conditions.

As for the auto-fold kit - it works well. When the car is locked from the outside the mirrors fold in, however they don't unfold when you unlock the car - it's not until you turn the car on that they unfold again. That seems a little strange at first but I guess it does make sense as you can unlock the car as you approach and still be able to walk through the gap to another car with the mirror folded in.

[Mandrake]

Never had a car with those tyre pressure monitoring sensors in before, the Leaf does. Does it need any special "faffing about with" when tyres are changed?

If the wheels don't go back in the same locations - yes, but it's not difficult. On the dashboard menu there is a TPMS reset option - after the tyres have been swapped around and set to the correct pressures just activate TPMS reset and it will re-learn where the tyres are.

I swapped front and rear wheels a few weeks ago, did the TPMS reset then checked their locations by measuring the pressure on Leafspy (Android app) and they were correct.

Another more low tech way to test they are correct after the reset is to simply partially deflate each tyre one by one and see which position the dashboard indicates is flat. The dashboard warning comes on below about 32psi and will indicate which corner is low in pressure. Then just pump it back up and deflate the next one.

TPMS will of course still work to alert you of a flat tyre even if you don't re-learn their locations, but it could be confusing if it reports the wrong corner as the one which is flat...

[mickthemaverick]

I have had two cars, that I know of, with underfelt type insulation in the doors, the Jaguar XJ40 and the Mitsubishi Delica. I suspect it is fairly common in high end cars where road noise reduction is important but you'd only know if you had to get inside the door which is less likely in high end cars which are less likely to need that sort of attention!!

[NewcastleFalcon]

Never had a car with those tyre pressure monitoring sensors in before, the Leaf does. Does it need any special "faffing about with" when tyres are changed?

.....If the wheels don't go back in the same locations - yes, but it's not difficult. On the dashboard menu there is a TPMS reset option - after the tyres have been swapped around and set to the correct pressures just activate TPMS reset and it will re-learn where the tyres are....etc

Thanks Simon, I was fearful that "a trip to Nissan" may have been wrapped up in the normally simple process of replacing tyres. I got 2 new ones on the back when I got the car as part of the negotiation

REgards Neil

[Mandrake]

Four new CrossClimate+ fitted to the car today, so goodbye to the part worn Dunlop Enasaves. (including the one with a nail through it!)

I've only done 30 miles in 12c wet conditions and initial impressions are mixed if I'm perfectly honest. Despite being an All Season tyre which typically ride softer than summer tyres, (the Quatrac 5 certainly did) the ride is quite noticably harsher and firmer than with the Dunlops.

Despite the Leaf having a reputation of "riding like a blancmange" (according to ex German car drivers not Citroen drivers I suspect... ) the ride on the Leaf was already a bit on the bumpy side so it's a bit disappointing for the ride to get even firmer and more bobbly. Maybe it will settle down after a while or I can play with the tyre pressures. For the moment I'm sticking to the factory 36psi.

The next thing I noticed is that on smooth seal in the 20+ mph range the front tyres make a surprisingly loud "white noise" (hiss) sound when you accelerate or decelerate quickly, but are silent when coasting. I can only assume this is the split tread blocks segments sliding and twisting against each other, perhaps exacerbated by the new tyre not yet having worn off the surface coating and got down to the grippy rubber below.

It's the kind of noise that might not be noticed in a combustion car but is very noticable in an EV - the old tyres were silent during the same kind of acceleration/deceleration, so I'm hoping this improves as they wear in over the next few hundred miles.

Due to their peculiar tread pattern (presumably) they also make a faint "buzzing" noise at around 60mph on smooth motorway as if you were driving on a surface with regular indentations. It's barely audible even on an EV and would not be audible at all on a combustion car, but it's a noise that other EV drivers using CrossClimates have commented on and sure enough it's there although not loud enough to be obvious.

Grip in the wet is streets ahead of the old tyres - I took a 270 degree motorway on-ramp at a pretty decent speed and despite it being properly wet it felt like I was cornering on dry tarmac without the slightest understeer or slip, if you didn't know better you wouldn't think the ground was wet. So, very impressed with the cold wet grip so far, but it's not a surprise when you consider the design of the tyre or the fact that it came first out of the 5 tested tyres in that video for cold wet braking.

The old tyres would wheel spin every time I tried to put a bit of power down on a bend between 20-40mph. (Just on the way over to the tyre shop it did this several times on roundabouts with fairly modest stabs of the throttle - and this is not a high performance car!)

So far I haven't had the new tyres wheel spin in the wet on corners unless I really floor it so the wet traction is far better, as I'd hoped.

The steering response feels a little bit squidgy compared to the old tyres - some of that might be due to the tyres not having worn in yet. All new tyres feel a bit "weird" until they wear through that initial outer smooth layer into the more biting rubber compound. I had the same complaints about the Quatrac 5 on the Ion feeling very strange and slippery/squidgy until a few hundred miles wear in.

So I can't form a proper opinion about the dynamics until they've had a few hundred miles driving.

As for driving efficiency or performance in very hot or very cold conditions, no idea yet of course.

So, mixed initial impressions, mainly due to the harder ride and weird white noise on acceleration/deceleration but I'm cautiously optimistic that they will improve once they wear in, and I'm already impressed by their wet grip, which should improve even further once the rubber wears in a little.

I measured the new tread depth with my digital vernier and the middle area is 7.2mm with the middle of the outermost block around 5.6mm.

[mickthemaverick]

Turn the radio up for a couple of hundred miles and then have a reassessment!!

[Mandrake]

We did a 125 mile round trip to the beach yesterday on the new tyres (yes a bit further away than our usual beaches ) and I'm starting to get used to the tyres a bit.

The slithering noise on acceleration (and sometimes harder cornering) is just really odd but I think I'll get used to it, and you don't hear it if the radio is on. (Ha!) The rolling noise when coasting is pretty quiet - quieter than the old tyres.

Ride seems to have improved a bit but is still a little firmer than the Dunlops, and I think the steering feel has improved a bit as the surface of the tread has worn off.

They're very grippy tyres with strong turn in despite the weird slithering noise and not feeling quite as sharp in the steering, and in 19C yesterday (well outside the comfort zone of winter tyres or even regular winter biased all season tyres like the Quatrac 5) they gripped really well. They actually almost feel "sticky" when they grip on the corners, if that makes sense. Perhaps the sound they make contributes to a sense of them seeming sticky... They don't skip over small irregularities around corners at all and feel glued to the road.

Steering feels a little heavier than the old tyres which also suggests better grip.

Initially I was worried about rolling resistance as I only managed 3.3 miles/kWh on the outbound half of the trip - which is pretty horrific even for motorway 60mph... but we were battling a very strong blustery headwind the whole way that was actually tugging the car to the sides all the time.

On the return trip most of the wind had gone and what little was left was blowing in my favour so I actually managed 4.2 miles/kWh on the return trip despite climbing to 250 metres altitude half way through and ending up at 100 metres at home - 100 metres higher than the beach, naturally. So the efficiency on the return trip was better than I expected.

So any worries that I might have made a bad choice are starting to evaporate a bit. I still don't like that strange noise but if the payoff is a tyre that performs well year round then I guess it's an acceptable trade off.

Last week's commuting to work averaged to 4.0 miles/kWh across the whole week - I reset the economy meter on the centre console again this morning so I'll see what it averages to over this week compared to the old tyres.

The beach we went to actually had a rapid charger (and two fast chargers) so I initially plugged the car into the fast charger intending to leave it there while we were on the beach however it soon became apparent that we were only like to be there about an hour so I moved it to the rapid charger and the car charged from 25% to 100% in under 25 minutes.

So I actually walked back from the beach to unplug and move the car so I wasn't hogging the single rapid charger. I was able to monitor the charging from my phone and got an alert when it finished. I was originally intending to leave it on the Fast charger for several hours but in the end we wouldn't have been there long enough for the slower charging speed.

MOT tomorrow!

[white exec]

Interesting. Increased relevance of tyre noise is something you wouldn't automatically think about, unless you were alerted to it.
As you said, you could try lowering TP by 2-3psi, to see whether it makes a difference. A shift of just 2psi can make all the difference on many cars.
Michelin Energy Saver Plus likely to be quieter, due to their non-block tread. Really supple side walls on these too.

[CitroJim]

MOT tomorrow!

On the Xantia I assume All the very best and fingers crossed for a clean-sheet pass

[Mandrake]

MOT tomorrow!

On the Xantia I assume All the very best and fingers crossed for a clean-sheet pass

No, an MOT for the Leaf!

I've just picked it up and it passed with flying colours. Just as you would hope for on a 4 year old car which has just had new tyres fitted!

The Xantia passed back in July without any advisories. To get an advisory free pass on the Xantia I had to give the rear brakes a small overhaul as he had been complaining they were marginal for a couple of years.

Turns out the rear right disc had quite a lot of run out because I'd fitted new discs a couple of years ago on top of some slight rust blemishes - not enough run out to be visible but now that I have a dial gauge it was quite obvious. So I removed the disc and scrubbed the hub hard to get the surface rust off and that solved the run out and its rear brakes were an easy pass in July.