Regular Maintenance

[babbles]

Can a place like Firestone do regular scheduled maintenance to a 1st Gen Leaf or does it have to be nissan or an EV specialist?

 

[LeftieBiker]

They can do everything except the annual battery check, but I'd avoid places like Firestone, unless you know the owner.


Folks, I have my PC off, and it's hard for me to type on this netbook, so I may be scarce until this Winter storm is over.

 

[babbles]

ok why do you say avoid them? from personal experience? I found a place who said they specialize in E Vs, nissan is too booked up!

 

[LeftieBiker]

My experiences with these places is old, but unhappy. One Monroe franchise cut a brake line - it had a clear knife cut on it. I was poor, and it really hurt...

 

[rogersleaf]

My experiences with these places is old, but unhappy. One Monroe franchise cut a brake line - it had a clear knife cut on it. I was poor, and it really hurt...

Mine is not too old. Had purchased a set of new tires from a Firestone retail store for my CRV. They insisted on a 4-wheel alignment to maintain the tire warranty. They screwed up the alignment so bad that my Honda dealer alignment guy had to fix it, and it took him almost 2 hours to dial in the rear alignment. Then, the Firestone dealer voided my tire warranty because they claimed my CRV could not be properly aligned.

Fast forward a couple years... was having breakfast at the local hangout restaurant where had a chance encounter with a mechanic that had worked at that Firestone store. Turned out they did not have the correct alignment rack/equipment for the AWD and the independent rear suspension. They basically guessed at it...

 

[babbles]

So best you should have gone to honda in the first place? what drew you to firestone??

 

[rogersleaf]

So best you should have gone to honda in the first place? what drew you to firestone??

I had good past experiences (spanning 3 decades) at this Firestone location. In addition, my niece was a Bridgestone-Firestone corporate employee at the time and provided her discount plan. Otherwise, Honda dealer does my alignments and I don't let anyone but my Nissan dealer LEAF tech touch the LEAF, except for buying tires.

 

[goldbrick]

Any competent and ethical mechanic can do the regular non-EV maintenance on a Gen1 Leaf. The brake pads and fluid, transmission fluid, coolant, etc aren't different than a normal car. And if the mechanic or owner doesn't feel comfortable with doing the work for whatever reason, they should tell you so.

I do nearly all my own car work (AC is the one exception usually) and there is no maintenance I wouldn't feel comfortable doing on a Leaf.

My brother is a professional GM mechanic and he just changed the coolant pump in my dad's 2013 SV. He bought the part on-line and swapped it out in under an hour. There was nothing unusual about the process apparently and he was even able to diagnose the problem with the generic OBD scanner they had at work.

 

[babbles]

funny thing is, with my brand new Honda Ridgeline (2020) at the time, I started taking to a "firestone" on base because I would
book appointments @ Honda for service and they would say, the morning of, we don't see that appointment so I started taking it there!

 

[gcrouse]

My experiences with these places is old, but unhappy. One Monroe franchise cut a brake line - it had a clear knife cut on it. I was poor, and it really hurt...

That reminds me of when I had my '76 Ford LTD and i took it into a shop for a tune up circa 2010. I think it might have been Midas? It wasn't criminally bad but it definitely felt like a bizarro world moment when I had the manager look me in the eyes and tell me most modern cars don't need tune ups while I'm standing there with an obviously not newer car visible through the window.

 

[LeftieBiker]

The mid Seventies was, IIRC, the era when electronic ignitions were replacing the old breaker point system, and this led to much longer plug life. Between that and improved spark plug design, it was widely reported that cars would only need a tune-up every 100,000 miles or so. That turned out to be a wee bit optimistic, but even a 50k mile interval meant that tuneups were much less frequent than they had been just a couple of years earlier. Now what I'd like to know is why the owner of a chain car repair/maintenance place was telling you that you didn't need his services!

Now if only stainless steel exhaust systems had been phased in with those breakerless ignitions...

 

[gcrouse]

The mid Seventies was, IIRC, the era when electronic ignitions were replacing the old breaker point system, and this led to much longer plug life. Between that and improved spark plug design, it was widely reported that cars would only need a tune-up every 100,000 miles or so. That turned out to be a wee bit optimistic, but even a 50k mile interval meant that tuneups were much less frequent than they had been just a couple of years earlier. Now what I'd like to know is why the owner of a chain car repair/maintenance place was telling you that you didn't need his services!

Now if only stainless steel exhaust systems had been phased in with those breakerless ignitions...

I thought that was closer to late 70s/early 80s. I know the early 80s Chryslers were notoriously dodgy with their electronic ignition and Cadillac had the jerky jerk V8-6-4 around that time. I still miss that car since it was like driving a boat literally and figuratively - smoothest ride i think i ever had in a vehicle.

I probably have to give it credit for getting me interested in fuel economy and alternative fuels too. One day out of curiosity i looked up the fuel economy for my dad's expedition and for the life of me i couldn't figure out a good explanation for why my 400cid (6.6L) carbureted V8 could get a whopping 16mpg highway when his 4.6L Expedition with modern fuel injection could only manage 20. I also remember paying $4 a gallon for a bit when prices shot up but i didn't care as much then since I lived at home and got a modest stipend from the army for school that covered my costs for it and some beer money.

 

[LeftieBiker]

It may be that foreign cars came with electronic ignition well before the American iron. Does anyone know if the Honda-clone X-cars had it?

Speaking of the 8-6-4 V-8, I invented that, circa '77. Sort of, anyway. My idea was a kit to do a permanent conversion on V-8s, using a kit with a secondary spring on the rocker arms. My test consisted of pulling a plug wire on my four cylinder Volvo. The B-18 was a great motor, but not so much with three cylinders.

 

[gcrouse]

It may be that foreign cars came with electronic ignition well before the American iron. Does anyone know if the Honda-clone X-cars had it?

Speaking of the 8-6-4 V-8, I invented that, circa '77. Sort of, anyway. My idea was a kit to do a permanent conversion on V-8s, using a kit with a secondary spring on the rocker arms. My test consisted of pulling a plug wire on my four cylinder Volvo. The B-18 was a great motor, but not so much with three cylinders.

https://www.curbsideclassic.com/automotive-histories/automotive-history-the-history-of-electronic-ignition-losing-the-points-part-1/

I was curious and found this - it looks like they started experimenting with different tech in the mid 60s. Honestly from a brief overview i dont feel like i have a grasp of how the transistor based ignition stuff worked.

3 cylinders for something designed to run on 4 sounds like it would be rough.

I remember when either a spark plug or wire went bad for one of the cylinders on the Geo that was a nightmare when I first noticed it. The power loss was exceptional noticable when the car struggled to make it up Trans-Mountain in El Paso. It was a 15mph crawl and my first thought with how old it was was that i might have lost compression in a cylinder but I figured I ought to consider the cheapest things first. Honestly - it was a mistake and I should have assumed the worst since the car stuck around for a good 3 years after that with the suspension having an unnerving amount of roll with some turns and the steering wheel not turning the vehicle going over bumps on interstate cloverleafs. I had quit doing most maintenance on it since it was essentially a junker at that point. A/C wasn't worth fixing since the compressor was worth more than the car - window crank was missing the knob and the what I'm assuming was a scissor lift in the door panel was impossible to crank in any form of wet weather. I even quit bothering to do oil changes since it was leaking out the gasket and just added some from time to time.

Replacing that car became a big fight with the now ex. After enough back and forth over a couple of months i finally won and was able to retire the car the same day it legally became an antique. Nissan was looking at me with glee the moment i rolled up for my Leaf test drive because they knew they were going to make a sale one way or another with something. It was hard not to laugh when they asked if I wanted to trade it in since it was pretty obviously destined for the scrap yard one way or another.

 

[Nubo]

The mid Seventies was, IIRC, the era when electronic ignitions were replacing the old breaker point system, and this led to much longer plug life. Between that and improved spark plug design, it was widely reported that cars would only need a tune-up every 100,000 miles or so. That turned out to be a wee bit optimistic, but even a 50k mile interval meant that tuneups were much less frequent than they had been just a couple of years earlier. Now what I'd like to know is why the owner of a chain car repair/maintenance place was telling you that you didn't need his services!

My first new car was an 84 econobox and by then even that cheap little car had throttle-body fuel injection and electronic ignition. Most of my VW beetle tune-up skills were obsoleted. I think there were still a few carbureted cars made up through the mid 1990's.

Now if only stainless steel exhaust systems had been phased in with those breakerless ignitions...

One of the many things I loved about my 91 Miata. There's really no excuse to not make the exhaust sytem last the life of the vehicle.

 

[LeftieBiker]

Or even just 100k miles.