Simon's new Xantia V6 and Leaf blog

[RichardW]

Oh, and if you need any mods on the bracket with grinder / MIG give me a shout

[Zelandeth]

Make sure you record the time as well as the date on the receipt, that way if the buyer trips a camera on the way home (unlikely I know!) you will have a defence.

Also make two copies and make sure that you both sign both of them. You keep one, they keep one. That ensures there's no way the seller can conveniently "lose" theirs and cause more trouble.

[RichardW]

Not that we're at all cynical, paranoid or suspicious!!

[Michel]

A receipt for the private sale of a car has very little legal power.

Best way - payment by bank transfer, do the change of ownership ONLINE, BEFORE the buyer leaves. That way, the time and date of sale are immediately recorded, and you don't have to worry about posting documentation off, or the Post Office losing it, or the DVLA taking 10 weeks to process it.

[Zelandeth]

A receipt for the private sale of a car has very little legal power.

Best way - payment by bank transfer, do the change of ownership ONLINE, BEFORE the buyer leaves. That way, the time and date of sale are immediately recorded, and you don't have to worry about posting documentation off, or the Post Office losing it, or the DVLA taking 10 weeks to process it.

Absolutely this. It takes five minutes at the computer to do and means there's a legal papertrail in place. Yes it means the seller needs to sort out tax before they can leave, but that's hardly the end of the world.

Also means that if they trip a speed camera or run into the back of someone thirty seconds after driving away and turns out that they didn't actually sort out tax and insurance, you're absolutely unequivocally in the clear.

[Mandrake]

So the vacuum pump repair in the Ion is coming along nicely. Not quite finished yet because although the pump arrived on Monday the filter hasn't arrived yet, hopefully today.

While the pump works fine with the exhaust port left open it does make it a bit noisier and it will not survive long with the port exposed to road salt as it is right close to the rear right tyre...

I've managed to bodge the bracket that came with the pump to give a remarkably professional result. Will post a few pictures when it's all done.

The only thing I would say though is that the pump is a smaller pump with lower delivery so it takes a little longer to top up the vacuum, also it runs at a higher speed so is a bit more audible. Not terrible but definitely noisier than the original pump. But it works, and it's not £780

[Mandrake]

Finished!

The pump I ordered was S/H so came with the original mounting bracket (from a Vaxhaull Mokka 1.4) and air pipe for the exhaust which turned out to be very fortuitous...

First I straightened out the ears that the pump mounts on, and drilled a couple of holes to mount the bracket to the bracket belonging to the original pump:

I drilled another pair of holes for the pump a bit lower down as otherwise it was a bit high causing the hose to stick up too high for the engine bay cover to go on:

The pump came with an exhaust hose which looks like it would have originally gone into the air filter for the engine, I was able to cut this to length and use the bump to nicely fit the 12mm hole in the filter. Even without the hose clamp it was a snug airtight fit:

I then spliced half of the old cable (including the plug and mounting clips) to the new pump, soldered, heat shrinked and then self amalgamating type to make it water proof, as it is completely open to the road below:

And here it is finally fitted. Apart from the air filter and the shiny new bolts I think it could almost pass as factory original at a glance for anyone who wasn't familiar with what the factory pump should look like.

And yes that is my foot in the photo... there is literally nothing but fresh air between the pump and the road beneath and the tyre right to its side...no wonder it corroded...

I've taken it out for a test drive and it works well. The pump is slightly noisier but you'd only really notice it if you were either outside the car, or stopped with the cooling fan off. At all other times you can't hear it.

Quite pleased with that little repair. What started off looking like a difficult and awkward bodge turned out with a little bit of thought and working through the design to be very simple, sturdy and reasonabily elegant. The motor is mounted on two sets of bushes now - the two built into the side of the motor, and the old and new plate are bolted together through the original bushes.

Price of new pump from Peugeot - £781. Total cost of this repair, £40 not counting sundry bolts, heatshrink and tape... Chalk up another economic DIY repair of an electric car.

[white exec]

Looking good.
The motor looks very much like those used for seat movement and window operation on Xantia/XM.

[Mandrake]

Well it looks like I'm going to have to rename my blog as the Xantia has a new driveway buddy. Bye bye Peugeot Ion, Hello Leaf!

With the successful repair of the vacuum pump I was able to go ahead with using the Ion as part exchange...

It's a late 2016 30kWh Tekna with just 24k miles on the clock and a battery state of health of 92.2%. (Somewhat better than the current 70% SoH of the Ion's degraded battery!) Condition of the car is pretty much immaculate.

We took it for it's first drive today to the beach mostly on motorway and managed 93 miles with 11 miles left with a full load of passengers. In the same 70mph motorway driving conditions the Ion would be lucky to manage 35 miles and wouldn't have made the trip without two charging stops.

Although there are a couple of minor negatives (which I'll elaborate on later) I really like the car - and good job too because I took a leap of faith and bought it without having ever previously driven one!!

Once I've had a week or two of daily use under my belt I'll write an actual review of my likes, dislikes and impressions about the car - mostly likes and very few dislikes fortunately. While it doesn't have the character of the Xantia it's still a very nice car and a big step up from the almost cart-like Ion and is going to make a great, comfortable commuting/family car.

[white exec]

And so a new chapter begins. Looking forward to it, Simon.
Well done on getting the Ion ship-shape at the last moment, something you could have done without!

I like the way the Leaf looks on cross-eyed at its charging umbilical! Electric navel-gazing...

[NewcastleFalcon]

That looks great, and I will be taking an interest in your posts about the Leaf which I hope you continue to choose to do on the FCF. The sort of thing I like to hear about are the type of thing you have just done. Enjoying the car on days out, maybe planning a few more longer travels, and saving on running and maintenance costs.

That's definitely what I like from a car, and have so far been able to get with my Leaf.

So I wish you, very little to write about maintenace saga's wise, but plenty to write about enjoyment-wise

REgards Neil

[Mandrake]

That looks great, and I will be taking an interest in your posts about the Leaf which I hope you continue to choose to do on the FCF. The sort of thing I like to hear about are the type of thing you have just done. Enjoying the car on days out, maybe planning a few more longer travels, and saving on running and maintenance costs.

That's definitely what I like from a car, and have so far been able to get with my Leaf.

So I wish you, very little to write about maintenace saga's wise, but plenty to write about enjoyment-wise

Thanks Neil.

I hope to be doing very little maintenance and repairs to it other than things like tyres and perhaps brake pads etc...and hopefully no breakdowns like the Ion... I can satisfy my repair and maintenance itch on the Xantia!

The tyres are a bit low on tread so might be needing doing for the MOT - not sure yet as one tyre has an advisory for tread depth at the edge last time. The tyres still feel smooth and well balanced on the motorway with no vibration and grip seems good. I intend to replace the summers with All Seasons for all year round use anyway and usually budget for new tyres on a 2nd hand car as they inevitably come fitted with a mixture of "whatever the previous owner could find".

Although I've used Vredesten Quatrac 5's on the Ion and found their winter performance very good in snow etc I haven't been entirely happy with their build quality with some of them being slightly out of round (and thus impossible to balance perfectly) and also a propensity to wear through the carcass at the edge prematurely and crack when they get a bit bald, so I think this time I'm going to try Michelin CrossClimate plus.

A little bit more expensive than the Vredestein but not a lot, and I've always been a Michelin fan. (The Michelins on the Xantia have lasted 5 years and >20k miles now and are still going strong with plenty of tread, and I don't drive Ms Daisy in the Xantia! ) Quite a number of Leaf owners run CrossClimate plus and report them to be very good in the wet, snow, good cornering etc with the only real negative being a slight drop in range.

One question I have for you, jumping ahead a bit on my likes and dislikes - is do you find the brake pedal quite hard and a bit insensitive ? Compared to the soft pedal on the Ion the Leaf's brake pedal is quite firm and more to the point you have to push it a noticable amount before you get any braking effect at all, and then it starts to come on fairly strongly and suddenly.

The Xantia pedal is of course also quite hard (especially with the spring removal mod) but there's no deadband and it's very progressive.

It's plenty good enough for hard stops but I just find trying to feather the brake smoothly on gentle deceleration pretty difficult, although I am getting used to it... and there are a few reports from other owners that the brakes are a bit like this on the Leaf. As I've never driven one before I don't know if this weird brake pedal feel is normal or not.

I do know that the Leaf uses an electrically assisted brake booster system (there is a small electric motor in the brake control unit) not a vacuum booster, so I'd expect the pedal to feel a little bit unusual, but perhaps not quite like this. I also find the throttle lift off regenerative braking quite weak compared to the Ion even in B mode.

So while the stopping power is fine the "feel" of the brakes is a little bit of a let down to be honest. Nothing that puts me off the car though, and it's the only significant niggle I have with the car.

[NewcastleFalcon]

I think I can see what you mean Simon, but my driving style in the Leaf is so laid back and plodding that the brakes don't get too much of a work out. They probably are as you describe. Bit of a hill down to a crossroads where I let it run down just on the eco regen setting (not B) and you are right stopping at the crossroads does require a heavier application of the brake than you might expect.

The "foot/handbrake" I still find a bit odd. With an ICE car you know straight away you have left the handbrake on, but with the electric car even if the parking brake is on there is no noticable difference as the motor rapidly overcomes the resistance, and its only when the warning "release Parking Brake" flashes up that you realise you have left it on by mistake.

I haven't yet changed a tyre, other than when I first got it they put 2 new tyres on the back. It does have some kind of tyre pressure monitoring system, and I presume special valves. Don't know whether these require any special treatment/replacement when changing tyres, or indeed whether those valves are recommended to be replaced, cost an arm and a leg, or if you have to tell the cars electronics that you have done it.

REgards Neil

[Mandrake]

I think I can see what you mean Simon, but my driving style in the Leaf is so laid back and plodding that the brakes don't get too much of a work out. They probably are as you describe. Bit of a hill down to a crossroads where I let it run down just on the eco regen setting (not B) and you are right stopping at the crossroads does require a heavier application of the brake than you might expect.

Just found a couple of mentions of a foot brake "calibration procedure":

https://www.torquenews.com/1/some-nissa ... d-here-why

Jimmy then wrote, "Do the brake pedal recalibration. Come to a complete stop turn the traction control off press hard on the brake pedal for 30 seconds and turn traction control back on. That will recalibrate the brake pedal force for your strength."

And:

I just thought Nissan engineers didn't know how to do brake assist + traction control + regen + creep forwards.

Turns out there's a "brake adjustment procedure", wow!

Car in drive

come to a complete stop

turn off traction control

move forward a bit, then press and hold the brakes hard for a while, maybe 45 seconds (brake pedal seems to gradually descend in steps)

turn on traction control and drive

Afterwards the car brakes... like a normal car. much much more enjoyable.

Interesting! I'll give it a try tomorrow.

The "foot/handbrake" I still find a bit odd. With an ICE car you know straight away you have left the handbrake on, but with the electric car even if the parking brake is on there is no noticable difference as the motor rapidly overcomes the resistance, and its only when the warning "release Parking Brake" flashes up that you realise you have left it on by mistake.

Yeah, a foot operated parking brake is a bit odd. I don't find a problem applying it or forgetting to release it - my problem is that when I'm sat in the car waiting with the brake on I forget about the pedal and put my foot on it while stretching and inadvertently release it, causing the car to roll onto the transmission parking brake instead. Whoops.

I haven't yet changed a tyre, other than when I first got it they put 2 new tyres on the back. It does have some kind of tyre pressure monitoring system, and I presume special valves. Don't know whether these require any special treatment/replacement when changing tyres, or indeed whether those valves are recommended to be replaced, cost an arm and a leg, or if you have to tell the cars electronics that you have done it.

Yes there are tyre pressure sensors. With the app "Leafspy Pro" and an OBD-II diagnostic dongle it is possible to check the tyre pressure sensors and also configure/pair them. I have this app and it seems to work OK with the same OBD-II dongle I used to use with the Ion, however I have not looked at the TPMS part of the app yet.

Apparently the Leaf is able to learn two sets of tyres at once so you can swap summer/winter tyres without having to reprogram once they were initially paired.

[Mandrake]

First daily commute to work in the Leaf. Ahh, bliss.

4.2 miles/kWh, 36.3 miles round trip, 79 miles estimated range remaining and 67% battery left when we got home, for an estimated total range of 115 miles, which is more than I was expecting.

I didn't use the heater in the morning but I did use AC on the way home. According to the infotainment system turning on the AC only drops the range by about 3 miles, and indeed I noticed very little difference in miles/kWh with the AC on.

You 500 mile Diesel drivers will be scoffing at the thought of a mere 115 miles range (it is after all still an older shorter range EV) however for someone coming from the Ion 115 miles is luxury.

On my work commute I was getting 50-55 miles range at most in the summer in the Ion so about 15-20 miles left when I got home. And in the winter I couldn't actually make the 35 mile trip without stopping to charge as the total range to turtle mode was barely 35 miles.

I don't know for sure what the winter range for the Leaf will be yet, but given it has both timed pre-heating while plugged in and a heat pump (which reduces the energy consumption of the heater to about 1/3rd of a resistance heater) I'm going to guess it's somewhere around 80-90 miles. Even if it's 80 miles it still leaves me with 45 miles to spare when I get home, so a total game changer for us on the daily grind.

In a perverse way I can't wait for winter as I want to see the timed pre-heating in action, knowing that I can just go out to the car at 7:30 and find all ice melted and a toasty warm fully charged car to get into!

The heated seats and steering wheel work really well too. The steering wheel heats up in seconds and the seats get nice and toasty with both a low and high setting available. Even the rear seats are heated!

Heated seats and steering wheel are a must have on an EV in my opinion, (one reason I plumped for the Tekna instead of the Acenta which doesn't have them) as they can really reduce the energy consumption of heating the car in winter because you can run the cabin at significantly lower air temperature whilst still feeling very comfortable on a warm seat and with warm hands.

I actually find slightly cooler air and a warm seat more pleasing even in moderately cold weather vs a cold seat and warm stuffy air.