Simon's new Xantia V6 and Leaf blog

[Mandrake]

Checked the ones on the current C4 - they are pluses. I suspect that is all you will get now as there was no choice of plus or not! New rears are just over 7mm. Fronts are down to 3 after 15k miles, so that suggest a life of about 20k on the front, which is more than comparable to the factory fit Michelin primacy, which were well worn at 9k when they were replaced as one had a cut in the sidewall.

How do you find the winter performance on the CrossClimate+ in sub zero temperatures and on snow compared to the Vredestein Quatrac 5 ?

From what I understand the Quatrac 5 is more a winter tyre design that has been optimised to work better in summer than a full winter while the CrossClimate+ comes at it from the other direction and is a summer tyre that has been optimised to work better in the winter than a summer tyre.

Given that we rarely seem to get snow here for more than a few days, the better (?) summer performance of the Crossclimate+ for the majority of the year when it isn't snowing but still having decent traction and safety in the winter seems like a better compromise.

The Quatrac 5 were great in winter but only decent in the summer - they were definitely a bit soft when the mercury got significantly above 20C and I ended up pumping them up a bit higher in summer to compensate, otherwise you could feel them squirming under the torque of the electric motor...

The Leaf has significantly more power and is a lot heavier (at 1575Kg) so I worry that the Quatrac 5 would be a bit squirmy in hot summer weather on a Leaf and that the CrossClimate+ is probably a better choice for summer and presumably still good enough for winter.

[myglaren]

No snow this year because I bought "Snow & Ice" tyres, which have kept the snow at bay.

[white exec]

See - they work!
Murphy's Law, again.

[Mandrake]

With the Xantia's MOT due date fast approaching I thought it was time to have a look at the rear brakes - which the MOT tester has warned me were marginal at the last two MOT's despite me changing the discs and pads not long before the previous MOT. (And not noticing any particular problem with the brakes during driving)

After the problems I had with disc run-out on the Ion I decided that now I have a dial gauge I should check the run-out on the rear discs I fitted last year. I started on the rear left and the run-out was absolutely spot on - less than 0.01mm, barely enough to wiggle the gauge.

Trying to turn the hub by hand however showed the brakes seemed to be binding with quite heavy drag when the brake was released. So I pulled the pads out, scraped out the muck to the sides out and lubricated the pistons with LHM and it seemed a little bit better but still seems to drag a bit despite the pistons being completely free.

Then on to the rear right corner and things were not quite so rosy - with 0.07mm run-out. I also noticed that like the left hand side it was dragging quite heavily but the drag loosened and got tighter each half revolution, so clearly the run-out was bad enough to cause the binding to increase on part of the rotation...

So I realised I'd have to remove the disc and try to clean the mating faces to solve the run-out. That also meant splitting and removing the caliper, which I cleaned up and lubricated the pistons of while it was out. Fortunately the two large caliper bolts came undone without any fuss at all - thanks to greasing the bolts last year when it was out!

I found some tiny rust bubbles on one edge of the hub face that you could feel with your fingers - I tried a scourer, then steel wool but neither would shift them, I ended up using a regular coarse sand paper block and that finally wore the rust bubbles off the hub until it felt smooth. After the disc was refitted the run-out has dropped to 0.015mm which is good enough, and now while turning the hub by hand the drag is continous without any fluctuation around the disc.

I bled both sides, got a little bit of froth out one side then went for a drive to try the brakes. They do seem to be noticably better now, however I didn't think they were bad to start with. I'm still not entirely happy with the amount of drag there is after releasing the brake, however I don't know what else to do about it as the pistons themselves are nice and free - if you squeeze one in with grips then alternate between the two pistons they both move back and forth very freely.

A nice bonus - a mystery vibration at high speed from the rear of the car which has been dogging me for a few years is now gone!

It felt like a wheel imbalance however it turns out it wasn't because it's completely gone after fixing the run-out on the disc, so I'm well chuffed about that. It just goes to show how important disc run-out is - 0.07mm is actually slightly less than the maximum recommended run-out of 0.1mm, however it was enough to cause a relatively severe vibration at motorway speeds. From what I've seen now I'd say that disc run-out really ought to be less than about 0.03mm to avoid vibration and avoid problems with surface rust not being swept off properly.

I shouldn't be surprised though because I had a similar vibration at the front of the Ion that finally went away when I fitted new discs and made sure to get the run-out very low. The clue that a vibration is disc run-out related instead of wheel imbalance is that wheel imbalance is always equally bad, whereas disc run-out induced vibration can vary a lot - some days it was hardly there and other days it was really bad.

I definitely won't be fitting any discs in the future without a dial gauge to check the run-out as that's now two cars where invisible to the eye runout has caused serious vibration issues and also prevented the rust being cleaned off the surface correctly. You might get away with fitting discs without a dial gauge when the hubs are nice and pristine but not when they're old and starting to show rust bubbles!

Fingers crossed on the MOT on Friday, I'm going to give the car a bit of a clean and check over for any other issues tomorrow night, hopefully it will be a pass.

[white exec]

Don't forget to have some extra weight in the boot for the MoT.
Xantia rear brake force (like XM) is proportional to rear-end suspension loading.
Couple of bags of cement seems a favourite...

[Mandrake]

I have some large concrete paving slabs that must weigh about 40Kg each - I managed to lift one into the boot and leave it there for the MOT but it just about did my back in in the process. Don’t know if I can manage another one or how I’ll get the first one back out again after the MOT...

[white exec]

Spend 15 mins on the pencil sharpener first, to help limber up.

[Mandrake]

Also, you may know I abandoned all efforts to do the Nissan Connect thing. Never missed it can happily do without it. I'm sure you will have it singing and dancing, but is there a subscription you have to take out for the connectivity?

I finally have Nissan connected services set up. It took about a week of a couple of emails back and forth to Nissan to get them to delete the car off the previous owners account - I had to email a photo of my drivers license and V5C to prove the car was now mine.

Once the car's VIN number is on the You+Nissan account (which they did for me) there was only one remaining step which was to "verify ownership of the car" in the You+Nissan account which really just amounted to following a couple of steps and turning the car on for a few minutes then off again when told to. After that it was all linked up and I then just signed into the Nissan account on the iPhone app to be able to use it from my phone.

Regarding subscriptions - it seems there is a "subscription", although it is free. It's a bit confusing because when I first checked under subscription it said there was a free subscription enabling all features already active lasting until March 2023, however I also had the option to "Add" a subscription adding the exact same features lasting until October 2028, which was also free! So of course I did that, which I presume means it will work until at least October 2028 for free. (I doubt I'll still have the car then anyway!)

The way the website is set up it looks like they originally intended to provide 3 years free connected services and then expected people to pay after that, however everyone I've asked who has a Leaf has said the connected services are free and they have never paid for them... so maybe the whole subscription part of the account is left over from when they once planned to charge people for the service but then changed their mind.

So what can I do with the phone app now ?

I can check a number of statistics of the car remotely - the current charge level in percent and estimated range with climate control on or off, the time needed for a full charge on 3kW or 6kW AC, whether the car is currently plugged in, whether the car is currently charging, (with a charge timer it can be plugged in but not charging) and whether the remote climate control feature is active.

There are also driving statistics which get automatically uploaded to the Nissan servers (if you choose) and are accessible in the app, such as distance travelled, average energy economy etc - nothing really that couldn't be retrieved directly from the car's touch panel though.

As far as controlling things goes, the app lets you manually override the charge timer to start charging now, (useful if you have charging delayed with a timer) and you can start and stop remote climate control, which is the killer feature of the app.

The way it works is there is a pre-set target temeprature for remote climate control set in the car in the preference settings - this is separate from the normal climate control temperature setting when the car is on. I have it set to 20C. When you turn on remote climate control it will try to reach and maintain that pre-set temperature. So if the car is very cold in winter it will bring the heater on and defrost the car, however if the inside of the car is very hot in summer it will actually bring the air conditioning on to cool it instead. Either way it is trying to get the cabin to the pre-set temperature, and it's also smart enough to know to direct the fan at the windscreen for heating or into the cabin for cooling.

If the car is plugged in when you turn remote climate control on it can run up to 2 hours before automatically turning off, you can turn it off before that or turn it back on later if you want. If it's not plugged in it is limited to 15 minutes before it goes off automatically but you can also restart it again for another 15 minutes or turn it off early.

As the heater gets hot in about 30 seconds, 15 minutes is long enough to fully warm and defrost the car in winter and melt all the ice off the windows, but only uses about 2% of the battery.

An example of when this would be useful would be leaving work in the middle of winter - you can turn the heater on remotely 15 minutes before you get to the car and arrive to melted ice and a warm car! Or in summer if its very hot you could have the car pre-chilled by the air conditioning.

There is also a climate control timer in the car which can operate without the connected services, however you can only set one time per day.

Limitations and disapointments with the app ? A few...

* You can start charging remotely but can't stop it remotely... why ? (I'd like to be able to stop it remotely at 80% for example)

* You can't edit the charge timer or climate control timer remotely.

* You can't check the interior temperature of the car remotely, so you have no idea how cold or hot the car actually is before you turn on remote climate control, nor can you follow its progress to see when the car is at the desired temperature or how much power it is using.

* You can't set a custom remote climate control temperature from the app, it's pre-set in a preference setting in the car. (I believe the Leaf 2 allows this to be set from the app each time you enable it)

* The app used to be able to (up until about a year ago) locate the car via GPS, however this feature was removed supposedly on security grounds.

* Most people report that the app is unreliable at peak times (mornings) in winter due to Nissan servers getting overloaded. Touch wood it has worked reliably for me every time so far, however it's not winter yet so not many people will be using it at the moment due to the mild weather.

Given that it's free, even if it works most of the time it's still a fun little feature to have on the car.

[NewcastleFalcon]

I had a brief look at the Nissan Connect "website" and deduced that with my vehicle it is the older CARWINGS.

screenshot

I was amused to read elsewhere Nissan's description as....

Get closer to Nissan
You+Nissan is all about Nissan understanding what you need and giving you what you want. It’s a space that enriches your experience of owning a Nissan with content that you will always find relevant and exciting.

You+Nissan LEAF
If you have a Nissan LEAF, YOU+NISSAN gives you extra-special services, such as access to the revolutionary CARWINGS services, an amazing tool which will help you get the most out of your car by managing several of its functions remotely from your computer or iPhone.

Well Nissan I am going to have to pass on such revolutionary services. I am still by choice in the smartphone wilderness, so I'm sticking to not bothering sorting out the "carwings" thing.

Not sure if the fairly awful sat nav maps are rolled up in Nissan Connect or whether that is a paid for add on to keep them updated. Again its not something I am bothered about at all. In its cumbersome way we only ever use it to see how far it is when straying outside our home turf to the next charging point.

REgards Neil

[Mandrake]

Well Nissan I am going to have to pass on such revolutionary services. I am still by choice in the smartphone wilderness, so I'm sticking to not bothering sorting out the "carwings" thing.

Ah, I didn't realise 2015 models like yours were still "Carwings", that means the infotainment system is a bit different to mine although it does more or less the same things. I believe older cars with "Carwings" now use the same Nissan Connect EV app however.

I forgot that you don't have a smartphone - without one it's not much use! You can still use a web browser on any computer to do the same functions like remote climate control but not with the same convenience of whipping a phone out of your pocket to do it.

Not sure if the fairly awful sat nav maps are rolled up in Nissan Connect or whether that is a paid for add on to keep them updated. Again its not something I am bothered about at all. In its cumbersome way we only ever use it to see how far it is when straying outside our home turf to the next charging point.

I believe the last map update (which you pay for!) for the Leaf 24 and 30 was released in 2018, so even if you or I paid to get this update our maps would still be 2 years out of date. Around here there are a lot of major changes to major roads and motorways which have happened in the last two years, making the on-board navigator useless to me as it isn't even aware of some of the new roads like the new section of M8 motorway...

Sadly this is a common complaint of many modern cars, not just the Leaf - onboard navigation systems are often only provided with updates for a few years, which you have to take it into the dealer to update (and pay for it) then after a few more years, no more updates. Compare this to Google maps which is updated very frequently and for free. Considering that the Leaf 30 was still on sale new in early 2018 and the last map update available is 2018 this is pretty disgraceful to be honest, however it was a problem I was aware of with earlier Leaf's before buying.

I will just continue to use Google maps on my phone as I have always done and that frees up the centre console to view energy stats when driving or more easily control the radio.

Carplay and Android auto support solves these kind of issues with expensive and out of date map updates - once a car has them you can link the screen to your phone and project any map application you like from your phone to the screen on the car, as well as music apps, phone call taking apps etc... unfortunately the first Leaf to get Carplay and Android Auto was the 40kWh Leaf 2 model. Most currently selling EV models (and ICE for that matter) have Carplay and Android auto.

[Mandrake]

So the Xantia passed the test without any advisories on the brakes this time. Whether it was the remedial work I did to lubricate the pistons and sand the hub face to get rid of the run-out on one of the discs, or 80Kg worth of paving slabs in the boot which helped it over the finish line I dont know. He commented that last time there was quite a bit of "flutter" on the brake test machines but there was almost none this time.

The car has been driven for a couple of days with the slabs in the back before the test and the brakes really do feel a bit sharper now after that, so I think a bit of use with more load in the back along with the newly aligned disc has got them into tip top shape. Unfortunately my lower back is in some state at the moment (it was already bad before lifting the slabs in) so they're going to have to stay in there for a while!

The only comment he made was that it was initially struggling to pass the emissions test (CO I think) but then after a minute or so it "suddenly" dropped to a much lower level. I've noticed that the engine is sometimes a little sluggish and cranky and feels like it is being "held back" and other times runs very well. This morning on the way to the test was one of its "sluggish" times where it didn't feel like it was quite running as it should.

I don't really have any clue what causes this changeability from day to day, whether it's an ignition problem, fuel related, or something mechanical. Possibilities I've suspected in the past are ignition related misfire, false triggering of the knock sensor pulling the timing back, and the hydraulic lifters not filling properly causing the valve gear to clatter and get out of timing.

One thing I have noticed is that when it feels sluggish it is only sluggish below 4000rpm, such that it will feel "held back" until you get to around 3500-4000 then suddenly it will zoom ahead when it hits 4000. Also there can be quite a bit of throttle lag. 4000rpm is interesting because knock sensor retardation is broken up into 3 rpm ranges (from memory) and one of the dividing lines between different ranges is exactly 4000rpm. That means that if the knock sensor pulls timing out in the <4000 rpm range the >4000 rpm range is unaffected. This can result in a sudden "surge" of power as you go past 4000rpm, and that surge is biggest when the engine is acting all sluggish at low rpm.

Another thing I've noticed is that when the car is acting up like this, putting the gearbox in sport mode so that it holds high revs and driving in sport mode for a few minutes at higher revs seems to "wake" it out of its slumber and restore normal performance, then performance at low rpm is restored.

My working theory is that it's related to the hydraulic lifters not filling properly - on a cold engine they can be quite clattery sometimes and reving the engine a bit seems to help fill them and quiet them down. I'm wondering whether the mechanical clatter from the lifters is noisy enough through the block to trigger the knock sensor...? The knock sensor them pulls out timing and kills the performance.

I had a similar problem with the previous V6 so I'm starting to wonder if mechanical noise triggering the knock sensor is a common issue on this engine as they age ?

[white exec]

Can you disconnect the knock sensors as as experiment?
Have a recollection that on a V6 XM the knock sensors were connected, but transposed front & back.
Mike will recall details.
May not be at all relevant, and you know this engine far better than I do.

[Mandrake]

Can you disconnect the knock sensors as as experiment?
Have a recollection that on a V6 XM the knock sensors were connected, but transposed front & back.
Mike will recall details.
May not be at all relevant, and you know this engine far better than I do.

There's only one knock sensor on this engine. You can disconnect it but the ECU will detect a fault and default to reducing the timing so you have bad performance all the time instead of some of the time.

It has two ways of detecting a faulty or disconnected sensor - the piezo element has a 1Mohm resistor in parallel, if the ECU doesn't detect this it immediately sets a fault. If you try to replace the knock sensor with a 1Mohm resistor to pass the test (which would be a very bad idea as the engine could be damaged due to knocking) then it fails the coherence check - where it expects to see some output from the sensor when the engine is running, (from normal mechanical vibration) if it sees no signal at all it assumes the sensor is faulty.

One trick for over sensitive knock sensors is adding a copper washer under the sensor to reduce the coupling from the block to the sensor - but the sensor is in the middle of the top of the V block underneath the lower intake manifold which requires a lot of disassembly to reach and replacement of three single use gaskets. The dry cardboard gasket between the lower and upper intake manifolds is readily available and I actually have a spare, but the two gaskets between the lower intake and heads are metal with sealant on them, and I've got a feeling those are no longer available at least not new, so getting to the knock sensor is actually a pretty big job.

[Mandrake]

I made an interesting observation this morning. The weather is sunny, warm and heating up nicely, I put my hand on the roof and doors of the Xantia and it's already scalding hot - too hot to keep your hand on for more than a couple of seconds, I then checked the roof and doors on the Leaf - barely luke warm to the touch, with some parts of the car actually feeling cool! Both cars have been in direct sunlight for the same length of time.

I haven't owned a white car before and while it's obvious that a white car won't get as hot in the sun I didn't realise the difference between the dark Silex Grey and White would be quite that dramatic... The Leaf is actually in a rare metalic white (most white Leaf's are flat white) so I don't know if metalic white would reflect more heat than flat white ?

It occurs to me that a white car would be a lot easier to keep cool in the summer with air conditioning, while the air conditioner in a dark car would have to work a lot harder. So from the perspective of an EV where cooling comes from your precious battery storage and eats into precious range, white seems to have a significant advantage in summer both for the car not heating up as much before you get into it, as well as requiring less energy to keep it cool once you're driving.

In theory dark would be an advantage in winter as you'd get more heating from the sun but since a lot of winter driving like commuting is done in the dark before dawn and after dusk anyway, I doubt whether the advantage of a dark car in winter is actually realised. So it seems there could be a tangible benefit to an EV being a lighter colour.

[white exec]

White is a good colour in many respects.
Don't forget 'black body radiation' - dark surfaces also radiate heat faster than light coloured ones.
And white paint is also white on its underside, so theoretically reflects heat from the car's interior back again.

You're right about dark colours in high summer, through.
Remember having to move two cars out of the way here a few years back. Both had been sat side by side in the hot sun most of the morning. Our neighbour's black BMW X3 was red-hot inside, almost everything untouchable. Our silver RAV4 was one heck of a lot cooler.