Nissan Leaf 2014 - problems with suspension

[vedranius]

hi all! I'm going mad with my Leaf 2014. I've been through all of suspension and no one could find anyting.I've changed stabilizers, forks, shocks etc. and I still have same problems, like:

• when driving on wet, on every corner car would start slipping, no matter on which tires I have, new, old... doesn't matter. It would start rumbling and feel weird to drive.
• when going over some smaller bumps on road it would go from side to side, or jump to one side, depending on speed, bump etc.
• when I'm turning the wheel on one side I would hear a noise like tire is being hardly presses to asphalt and moved forcefully on the road without rotaion. Like I'm stepping on a break.

What my mechanic noticed after fixing geometry is that right wheel is moved by 1.5cm to the back. As you can see from the screenshot. Do you guys have any recommendation what else to check and what to do as I'm thinking of selling it. Because it's starting to become difficult to drive...
geometry results before and after

Thanks!

 

[Steelcity]

How many miles on ur leaf? Do u drive with ur tires inflated close to the max? Take a look at your lower control arm bushings.

 

[vedranius]

How many miles on ur leaf? Do u drive with ur tires inflated close to the max? Take a look at your lower control arm bushings.

It's at 140.000km. Front arms/forks were changed a year ago. And my mechanic checked them and said they're good.
I'm inflating tires to the bars that are written on the doors of a car. So 2.5 BAR.

 

[decimal]

Maybe get a 2nd opinion from another garage that is an EV specialist or works with the Leaf regularly?
Doesn't sound right.

 

[vedranius]

Maybe get a 2nd opinion from another garage that is an EV specialist or works with the Leaf regularly?
Doesn't sound right.

I agree. But I've already been to 6 of them. They changed in a sum many parts It was OK for some time. But now it went back.

 

[Steelcity]

Have you tried increasing your psi inur tires and see if that makes any difference?

 

[Daklein]

The Leaf is a very simple suspension car, nothing special about it due to being an EV.

The only adjustment is front toe. Everything else is not directly adjustable, unless you put the car on a frame machine at a body repair shop and bend parts of the car. If the right front has been whacked by a curb, to move it rearward by 1.5cm, most likely the lower control arm would have been bent, but that has been replaced already? Or maybe the front subframe got hit badly.

An alignment with good front and rear toe, like you have, but with only the right front having different caster, should not cause these issues:

• when driving on wet, on every corner car would start slipping, no matter on which tires I have, new, old... doesn't matter. It would start rumbling and feel weird to drive.
• when going over some smaller bumps on road it would go from side to side, or jump to one side, depending on speed, bump etc.
• when I'm turning the wheel on one side I would hear a noise like tire is being hardly presses to asphalt and moved forcefully on the road without rotaion. Like I'm stepping on a break.

Maybe there's something like a broken cracked knuckle, loose brake caliper, loose ball joint, bad CV joint, loose control arm mount bolts, bad control arm bushings, bad steering tie rod ends, bad steering rack & pinion, something caught in the steering column in the footwell. Put it up on jack stands, and look for loose parts or joints. Do the wheels move if you shake the whole car by pushing / pulling on the wheels.

 

[vedranius]

The Leaf is a very simple suspension car, nothing special about it due to being an EV.

The only adjustment is front toe. Everything else is not directly adjustable, unless you put the car on a frame machine at a body repair shop and bend parts of the car. If the right front has been whacked by a curb, to move it rearward by 1.5cm, most likely the lower control arm would have been bent, but that has been replaced already? Or maybe the front subframe got hit badly.

An alignment with good front and rear toe, like you have, but with only the right front having different caster, should not cause these issues:

• when driving on wet, on every corner car would start slipping, no matter on which tires I have, new, old... doesn't matter. It would start rumbling and feel weird to drive.
• when going over some smaller bumps on road it would go from side to side, or jump to one side, depending on speed, bump etc.
• when I'm turning the wheel on one side I would hear a noise like tire is being hardly presses to asphalt and moved forcefully on the road without rotaion. Like I'm stepping on a break.

Maybe there's something like a broken cracked knuckle, loose brake caliper, loose ball joint, bad CV joint, loose control arm mount bolts, bad control arm bushings, bad steering tie rod ends, bad steering rack & pinion, something caught in the steering column in the footwell. Put it up on jack stands, and look for loose parts or joints. Do the wheels move if you shake the whole car by pushing / pulling on the wheels.

I was driving 2 days ago, and it was kinda slippery from rain. I have 2 year old Crossclimates and it seems they need changing. So I've ordered new tires (Hankook 4S2) and hopefully slipping will be removed. At least to remove that problem and then go again with clunking, jumping etc.

 

[Drew21]

Taking a step back, what other vehicles do you own and/or drive? Has anyone else driven your Leaf and made the same complaints as those you gave us?

What is your driving style - aggressive or sedate? Are you matching your driving style to road and weather conditions?

When you say the car "would start rumbling and feel weird to drive" in wet conditions that potentially describes the feeling of traction control trying to keep you on the road. Similarly, the description in your third bullet point could be interpreted as squealing tires on a front wheel drive car being forced to work too hard during an aggressive turn.

If you normally drive small, under-powered cars like I do, the Leaf is a torque monster, and that torque is instantaneous at low speed in contrast to most small cars. The Leaf is also a heavy car and momentum and weight transfer play a major role in handling.

If I jump into my wife's 2014 Leaf and try to drive it like my 2010 Honda Fit Sport I will experience some (very limited before traction control) wheel spin, especially on wet/snowy roads or on bumpy/poor surface roads. If I try to take corners at the same speeds I can in the Honda Fit, I will again activate the traction control or get squealing tires. In other words, the heavier, more powerful Leaf cannot be driven in the same fashion as the light and agile but less powerful Honda Fit.

 

[testmonkey]

I would guess that it is a bad CV joint. To make the movements you are talking about takes some major issue somewhere. A worn CV joint can cause this, especially when it is very close to failure. I had a friend who had a car that had very worn CV joints and it would try to jerk the steering wheel out of his hands, causing the steering to wander around and making bad crunching and popping noises.

 

[aqn]

hi all! I'm going mad with my Leaf 2014. I've been through all of suspension and no one could find anyting.I've changed stabilizers, forks, shocks etc. and I still have same problems, like:

• when driving on wet, on every corner car would start slipping, no matter on which tires I have, new, old... doesn't matter. It would start rumbling and feel weird to drive.
• when going over some smaller bumps on road it would go from side to side, or jump to one side, depending on speed, bump etc.
• when I'm turning the wheel on one side I would hear a noise like tire is being hardly presses to asphalt and moved forcefully on the road without rotaion. Like I'm stepping on a break.

What my mechanic noticed after fixing geometry is that right wheel is moved by 1.5cm to the back. As you can see from the screenshot. Do you guys have any recommendation what else to check and what to do as I'm thinking of selling it. Because it's starting to become difficult to drive...
geometry results before and after

The pic is kinda blurry but it looks like the toe amounts ("prije" = front? "trag" = toe?) is quite a bit off. It looks like the front wheels have large amounts of toe out. Toe out makes the car wants to wander from side to side when going straight ahead and also more sensitive to steering input. It'd also make the car twitch more when going over bumps. The toe out in the front wheels may also be triggering the traction control because it's thinking that the car is about to go off to one side. The traction control grabbing the brake on one side would make the car jerk to one side.

(When I was auto-crossing (not in the LEAF ), I would run a small amount of toe out to sharpen my car's steering response.)

Toe should be 0.00º (straight ahead toe) and 0.18º (toe in). See the "specified range" in the result printout of my alignment a couple of weeks ago:


Camber is also adjustable but yours look to be within spec.