edatoakrun wrote:Are you are talking about accessing the spare from the underside?
So, would you need to jack up the car, to access the spare?
This might be true, but who wants to wait over an hour for a tow truck to come and then the additional time to tow to tire shop. Not me. I would rather change it and be on my way.EVDRIVER wrote:I would not call it a design flaw but smart weight reduction, since the car is likely to alway be near some services and only has a sub 100 mile range having a spare only adds much weight and additional cost. I have never owned and EV with a spare.
It does.OilFreedom wrote:Haven't heard a factory Leaf horn yet. If it sounds econobox, ...
This may help.Herm wrote:There is a thread on the forum about a replacement, do a search.
Amen!Herm wrote:A loud horn is an important safety device.
GroundLoop wrote:Given the intimacy of these pictures, are you planning to yank the battery pack?
Very cool!TonyWilliams wrote:I'd want to read the actual service manual before doing that. I do have jacks that would work, and the center of mass is stamped into the lower main battery case.
The whole parking brake mechanism seems either overengineered or made complex in haste.. I can't tell which.
I haven't thought this through, but there may have been some marketing or engineering requirements that the parking/emergency brake be electrically actuated so its use can be integrated with the start-up-and-drive sequence. However, I can't imagine that a requirement that the parking brake be automatically disengaged if the driver steps on the gas pedal is so important that that Nissan would concoct such a Rube Goldberg machine of a parking brake.TonyWilliams wrote:Or both. There are lots of places on this car to cut weight. It doesn't even look like they made much effort there.
Isn't this exactly what they did? (separate drum brake for parking brake)aqn wrote: Even using a separate drum brake as a parking brake, as on a BMW 5 series, would have avoided the weight of the electric actuating motor, the reduction gear, and the clutch.
aqn wrote: Even using a separate drum brake as a parking brake, as on a BMW 5 series, would have avoided the weight of the electric actuating motor, the reduction gear, and the clutch.
Yes, but the LEAF's drum parking/emergency brake is not merely pulled by cables manually as in the BMW, but is actuated by cables pulled via a clutch via a reduction gear via an electric motor via an electrical switch, hence "the weight of the electric actuating motor, the reduction gear, and the clutch".GroundLoop wrote:Isn't this exactly what they did? (separate drum brake for parking brake)
Not to mention cell phone coverage is not universal.downeykp wrote:This might be true, but who wants to wait over an hour for a tow truck to come and then the additional time to tow to tire shop. Not me. I would rather change it and be on my way.EVDRIVER wrote:I would not call it a design flaw but smart weight reduction, since the car is likely to alway be near some services and only has a sub 100 mile range having a spare only adds much weight and additional cost. I have never owned and EV with a spare.
Leaving it out is a weight reduction. Not allowing for it as an option is a design limitation. That said, I'm glad to save the weight since my commute is very local and well covered by cell phones, and between Nissan and AAA getting tow service is no problem.EVDRIVER wrote:I would not call it a design flaw but smart weight reduction...
For me, in the past 11 years that I've lived in this house, we've had probably 5 or 6 flats. At least 3 of those destroyed the tire (nail in sidewall was one). Gooey tire sealer won't help, and you can leave the compressor and Goop home when you have a spare.Herm wrote:IMO I would just carry an extra can of tire sealer just in case.. only time in my long driving career that did not work is when I ran over a piece of 1/2" rebar sticking out of the ground. You really wont get too far from civilization with a Leaf.
