Simon's new Xantia V6 and Leaf blog

[daviemck2006]

I would be counting the fuel or energy cost in pence per mile for a comparision. Theres going to be tyre, insurance road tax etc on all cars. The biggie is the battery pack. You will not know what it has cost per mile until it needs replacing, however long that is away. The more I read about these things the more I think they would be ideal for my job.

[Mandrake]

4 miles/kWh consumption at 12.3p per kWh charging at home is 3.1p/mile. I expect it to go up to about 4p maybe 4.5p/mile in the middle of winter from heater use.

My 20MPG Xantia V6 at current petrol prices is about 28p/mile, and a 40MPG Diesel would be about 14p/mile.

There's no road tax on pure EV's at the moment Davie, but that will probably change in a few years once the government carrots run out... Brake discs/pads last a lot longer because regeneration does a lot of your braking for you by charging the battery using the motor as a generator instead of rubbing two hard materials together to generate heat...

I've heard of quite a few EV's (including Leaf taxis) that have done 100k on the original discs and pads before needing replacement - and when they are replaced the issue is more rust from insufficient use than wear. It does vary a lot from one EV to another though as the amount of regeneration available on EV's and how you access it (throttle only, throttle and brake pedal, or paddles) varies dramatically from one model to another - weak or strong regeneration is something that the manufacturers haven't settled on yet and everyone has their own idea of how best to do regeneration.

Personally I don't think anyone will be replacing whole battery packs with new ones on old out of warranty cars - it's just too expensive. Would anyone buy a complete new motor for an ICE from the manufacturer at book prices for a 10 year old car either ? Not a chance. Maybe 2nd hand packs from wrecked cars will be a thing just like second hand engines from scrappies is now, however there's two different ways the battery packs can "fail".

One is that you can get an individual cell go faulty - if this happens the pack as a whole becomes unusable or greatly reduced in capacity but it can be repaired by fitting an individual cell - new or 2nd hand - provided that the replacement cell has at least equal or greater capacity than the remaining cells in the pack. I've seen two reports of this being done on the i-Miev/C-Zero/Ion - Mitsubishi don't actually make the individual cells available however there are a few from wrecks floating around on the market to make it possible.

The other way they fail is gradual capacity degradation, which normally affects all cells equally, in which case replacing an individual cell won't help. However the pack doesn't fail, it just loses capacity and range - and its a very gradual process. It's up to you at what point the reduction in range starts to affect you.

It's a bit like a PC that is a few years old trying to run the latest software gets slower and slower - it doesn't necessarily stop working but it might become too slow to meet your needs, likewise the battery hasn't stopped working but its range might not meet your needs anymore.

If you only have 60 miles range to begin with and you lose 10 or even 20 miles, that could be a major usability problem, however if you started with 220 and still had 180 it probably wouldn't matter that much, so it will be less of an issue with tomorrows bigger battery cars than small battery ones like mine.

Because it happens gradually you have time to see it happening and flick the car on while you still can before the loss in range becomes too great to sell it...or if its limited range is still useful to you you just drive it into the ground as long as the car will keep going like any old banger!

[daviemck2006]

Myy berlingo and 407 i count on average as about 15p per mile for diesel, never counted the 205, the 107 is about 11p per mile for fuel. Thats about as good as you could expect from any petrol car, and I doubt if many diesels would be better in the real world which these figures are from. So at 4 to 4.5p a mile that is less than 1/2 fuel cost, the 107 is 20 road tax and has just had its second set of front discs and pads today at nearly 90k I think and still on original rear brakes clutch and exhaust just! So getting batteries from wreckers may just even out with a clutch and exhaust at 100K. The 107 is worth not much over a grand with the mileage, so depreciation probably worse than the electric. However I would expect the 107 still to be worth that grand in say 3 years when it may be on 150k. So effective depreciation is now nil. So its all the fuel. For 60k @ 11p a mile is 6,600 pounds, the same 60k at 4.5p a mile is 2700pounds so theres a lot of money spare to get the batteries! And 9 grand compared to the berlingo so that buys 2 whole cars!

[RichardW]

The brake caliper slides are remarkably reasonable!

Part Number Description Quantity Price excl. VAT Price incl. VAT Total incl. VAT Selection
0000444009 SLIDING SLEEVE 1 5.35 GBP 6.42 GBP 6.42 GBP

0000444010 SLIDING SLEEVE 1 5.35 GBP 6.42 GBP 6.42 GBP

They appear to be C-Zero/ Ion only. The caliper yoke is £37 if that's worn.

[Mandrake]

The brake caliper slides are remarkably reasonable!

Part Number Description Quantity Price excl. VAT Price incl. VAT Total incl. VAT Selection
0000444009 SLIDING SLEEVE 1 5.35 GBP 6.42 GBP 6.42 GBP

0000444010 SLIDING SLEEVE 1 5.35 GBP 6.42 GBP 6.42 GBP

They appear to be C-Zero/ Ion only. The caliper yoke is £37 if that's worn.

Hey that's not bad, even if I need the whole yoke!

The rattle over rough surfaces is really getting under my skin, more so because the car is very quiet aside from that, and a rattle from the left A pillar plastic trim.

The problem is trying to find the time to look at it - my non-raining weekends are completely booked out at the moment, before winter I still have a garden shed to erect, a drain sump hole to fill back in and repave over, gutters to clear, the list is endless...

If you mean C-Zero/Ion only I presume you mean within PSA - if so that's not surprising when it's really a Mitsubishi. Those parts should also be identical to the Mitsubishi i-Miev and probably also the petrol Mitsubishi i-Car, which I'm surprised to see actually has 272 on the road in the UK!

[Mandrake]

I mentioned in another thread that the Xantia has hardly been driven recently but that I haven't had any battery problems - finally I have been bitten!

I loaded up the car after work last night to make a dump run, turned the key to hear a rapidly chattering relay and dimming dashboard lights. Bugger!

It's probably been over 3 weeks since it was last started and I meant to start it and take it for a quick drive last weekend but was so busy I didn't get a chance.

When I left the car the Hydractive system was going berzerk too with the electrovalves going on and off constantly even with the car locked...

More annoyingly the car is parked right out on the street as there are some slabs lifted up on the driveway (still) after sump hole drain unblocking a couple of months ago, so the Xantia has had to be banished to the road so that the Ion which gets used daily can get close enough to the house to charge from its 5 metre charge cable...

Luckily I still have the outdoor 3 pin socket on the corner of the house that I used to charge the Ion from, that plus a 15 metre reel plugged into it was just able to reach to underneath the engine bay out on the street. Yes I have a cable running across the pavement, but too bad! It lies flat so it isn't really a trip hazard.

So my Lidl computerised battery charger/reconditioner has been put to work on a genuinely flat battery for the first time... (I have used it to top up a couple of times but not from a battery that won't start the car)

It's handy that both the battery clamps and the unit itself are small enough to fit under the bonnet and allow the bonnet to be completely shut with the power cable passed up from underneath.

Before charging the battery voltage was 11.5v - which is below a fully discharged standing voltage of 11.6v (?) but hopefully not dangerously low that the battery is permanently damaged, although it has probably lost some capacity/lifetime as every deep discharge on a normal starter battery shortens its life, and they can only withstand about 5 full discharges at most before they are unserviceable...

It was charging at about 4 amps when I went to bed and about 1 amp this morning - I'm going to leave it a full 24 hours and let it do it's whole conditioning and float program. Fingers crossed!

Reminder to self - remember to make time to drive the Xantia now and then!

[CitroJim]

Reminder to self - remember to make time to drive the Xantia now and then!

Typical!

And always remember to make such comments well outside of Xantia earshot in the future Simon - they have ears and very sensitive ones at that

They are also very sensitive to the sort of claims you made earlier and love to play up as a result...

It's all part of their character...

Just be glad you have an S1 otherwise your tacho would be wedged against the end-stop by now

[Mandrake]

Just be glad you have an S1 otherwise your tacho would be wedged against the end-stop by now

Would it ? There wasn't even enough power to engage the starter solenoid...

[CitroJim]

Just be glad you have an S1 otherwise your tacho would be wedged against the end-stop by now

Would it ? There wasn't even enough power to engage the starter solenoid...

My experiences says yes...

[harryp]

It's pretty clear that no Petrol or Diesel car will ever achieve anything like this - its about 3x better than the most efficient Diesel you can buy today.

.

Not quite 3X better!! Commuting 34 miles daily, mix of A and B and Motorway, a few trips to Scotland and Cornwall at a good soliid 70mph!, our little Micra 1.5 diesel (05 plate)averaged 73 mpg over the 5 years we had it from new - and I did check the tank to tank over 3 fills and found it spot on. There are some real surprises out there. A friend of ours had a petrol version and that used to average over 51 - quite remarkable .

[harryp]

Regarding tyre pressures, the best starting point is to set the pressures to obtain the manufacturers static laden radius dimension, for which something similar to a scribing block is necessary. Then play from there to get the characteristics you want. The SLR gives the designed contact patch; on the extreme sides, too low will lift the centre off the ground and too high similarly reduces the contact area the other way
....back to sleep!

[Zelandeth]

Almost definitely.

Happened to me twice when my battery was struggling. Right fiddly job trying to flick the needle back over with a bit of wire poked through the trip reset button hole...

Just be glad you have an S1 otherwise your tacho would be wedged against the end-stop by now

Would it ? There wasn't even enough power to engage the starter solenoid...

[Mandrake]

Those reading along will remember I put Quatrac 5's on the rear of the Ion about a month ago after a puncture and wanting to change the nearly baldy summer tyres for All Seasons anyway.

Today I phoned Cooper Brothers to get two new Vredestein Quatrac 5's for the front - which are in the (apparently!) uncommon size of 145/65 R15. Apart from the fronts still being summer tyres (a dangerous mismatch with the all seasons on the rear in actual snow/ice) the front left one is nearly baldy, cracked and out of balance as well i suspect, so time to get them replaced.

As they showed as in stock on mytyres.co.uk I didn't think I would have a problem however I got the dreaded "That size doesn't show up on our system, can we call you back in a few minutes" response on the phone.

After calling back they said they had spoken directly to Vredestein and there were three, count them, three Quatrac 5's available in that size in the whole of the UK at the moment....

Whether that's because there has been a rush on them with winter coming or its just a really oddball size that nobody wants I don't know. But I'm glad I didn't leave it any later to order! £118.20 for two fitted, so considerably cheaper than tyres for the Xantia. They should go on on Thursday or Friday and then the Ion will finally have 4 new, matched, balanced, All Season tyres on it ready for winter...

[Mandrake]

On the front brake caliper rattle front I've come to the conclusion that I might have misidentified the noise - whilst the calipers are indeed rattling as well, this can be heard as more of a light "tinkling" noise with the window down slightly on smoother surfaces, I think the more obvious and annoying rattle on rougher surfaces might actually be drop-links! When turning on a tight lock on a rough surfaces there is the unmistakable rattle of either a track rod end or drop-link at the front, and sometimes when I go over a speed hump a bit too fast there is also an obvious drop-link click/rattle at the front right.

So I may be better off replacing the drop links first and see what noises remain afterwards. If they have never been done before (which is quite possible) then at 36k they are probably due! They are the tiniest dinkiest little things that it's almost hilarious. Shouldn't pose any problems to replace, hopefully they are not too expensive though. (I really ought to create a service Peugeot account!)

This also got me thinking about something else - drop-links seem to last wildly varying amounts of time on different cars and it occurs to me that an out of balance tyre could greatly accelerate the wear of drop-links ? One of the front tyres is definitely out of balance a bit as I can feel it on the steering wheel at 75mph, once there is some slack in the joint surely any imbalance in the wheel that causes the wheel to bounce up and down on the tyre would hammer the crap out of the drop-link ball-joint and wear it out even quicker ? Perhaps some cars that eat drop-links quickly just have a tyre imbalance issue ?

[Mandrake]

Created a Puegeot service box login, looked up the drop links and promptly fell on the floor laughing. (or crying, not sure)

Left and Right drop-links are different, one is £270, one is £286.... No thank you Peugeot...

Time to do some digging in the after market...

Edit: This is a bit more like it!

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/BLUEPRINT-ADC ... Swq1JZMsnu