Rental death trap - Nissan - what were they thinking ?

[EmilysDad]

The red triangle for the collision warning will often appear on my dash .... God only knows what it thinks I'm going to hit when I'm the only car on the road!

 

[LostKiwi]

The single biggest thing I hate in modern cars is the tendency to put everything on a centrally mounted touch screen.
Physical buttons can be felt for and also do the same thing every time you touch them.
A touch screen the 'buttons' can do totally different things depending on which screen is showing (just like the info display in Mercedes do but at least that little screen is in your sight line).

 

[LostKiwi]

The red triangle for the collision warning will often appear on my dash .... God only knows what it thinks I'm going to hit when I'm the only car on the road!

A pothole?

 

[oigle]

The single biggest thing I hate in modern cars is the tendency to put everything on a centrally mounted touch screen.
Physical buttons can be felt for and also do the same thing every time you touch them.
A touch screen the 'buttons' can do totally different things depending on which screen is showing (just like the info display in Mercedes do but at least that little screen is in your sight line).

That was the big thing that put me off a Tesla. Big centre screen and nothing in front of driver.

 

[Botus]

That was the big thing that put me off a Tesla. Big centre screen and nothing in front of driver.

and they have it in landscape which is the wrong way round.... its only the 3 that has ONLY the middle screen the other's gets something where its supposed to be,
oh no - they stole the steering wheel - I forgot that "improvement"

 

[Botus]

if we pretend the issue with "Nissan and their interesting steering feel" is just me - can you explain these comments in Car magazine re. a new Nissan Ariya electric vehicle where the journalist says...

"straight from the off the steering rack feels like its had caffine injected directly into the eyeballs, taking you by surprise with its alertness off-centre"

 

[Craiglxviii]

if we pretend the issue with "Nissan and their interesting steering feel" is just me - can you explain these comments in Car magazine re. a new Nissan Ariya electric vehicle where the journalist says...

"straight from the off the steering rack feels like its had caffine injected directly into the eyeballs, taking you by surprise with its alertness off-centre"

No. The two cars were developed by completely different teams of engineers on different continents for both different markets and target customers, sourced through different suppliers and scored against different criteria.

Look, I literally know the bloke running the design team for the Qashqai steering rack, do you want me to ask him?

 

[Botus]

hey I 'd just like them to build proper cars like they used to - before learning how to lower reliability with Renault's help - if they have experts intent on ruining them they should expect feedback

horrid big exterior mirrors (maybe drive a Toyota they work)
vying for the worst stereo quality of any car I've been in
a speedo that was 7 kph out at 100 (with some bemusing adjustment to offset the speed limit nag - just as well !!!)
that gear lever interlock for reverse
and do we need cars as wide as an HGV?

 

[Craiglxviii]

hey I 'd just like them to build proper cars like they used to - before learning how to lower reliability with Renault's help - if they have experts intent on ruining them they should expect feedback

horrid big exterior mirrors (maybe drive a Toyota they work)
vying for the worst stereo quality of any car I've been in
a speedo that was 7 kph out at 100 (with some bemusing adjustment to offset the speed limit nag - just as well !!!)
that gear lever interlock for reverse
and do we need cars as wide as an HGV?

Bollocks. No reliability was lowered, my experience was very clearly that no design changes that made reliability scores worse were allowed.
Door mirrors are oversized due to design standards to present a better rear view picture than other models.
Stereos are made by Alps the same as many other carmakers, using off the shelf internals.
Speedos ditto, wheel speed sensors from Bosch.
Gear lever interlock for reverse, you’d prefer there wasn’t one? Or like VW used to use?
My car is wider than any Nissan. Dumb comment.

 

[JBell]

and they have it in landscape which is the wrong way round.... its only the 3 that has ONLY the middle screen the other's gets something where its supposed to be,
oh no - they stole the steering wheel - I forgot that "improvement"

View attachment 77907

Seen that Wheel somewhere before

 

[C200 goblin]

No. The actual target Qashqai owner is a 34yo architect, married to a nurse with two children aged 12 and 7. Im seriously not making it up, that’s how exact and specific they go when assigning target demographic for different vehicles/ platforms.

Nothing to do with women. The issue is that the average Japanese man finds typical European car steering feedback uncomfortably heavy and tiring after 2+ hours behind the wheel (which is what that particular design standard is based around).

One might well ponder why this is an issue for the Qashqai which is designed specifically for the European market (by a British design team, in Beds…) but that’s because the evil Japanese overlords won’t allow them to challenge ride & handling design standards. Plus, I think the steering module is cross carline with X Trail which is sold as a premium Japanese market SUV.

I should point out that it isn’t “customer ratings” that are used, there are teams of engineers specially trained to score the various performance aspects and these guys will go all around the world to the different engineering tech centres to carry out that work.
One amusing example- the key for the Infiniti Q30. This was a last gen A Class (W174) with a different body & interior. Now, Nissan had never before launched an Audi A3 hatchback competitor- yes, it’s in Qashqai’s basket but only to keep things honest. So they decided to err on the side of caution. Studies had shown that the touch feeling of coldness was a premiumness enhancer. Interior door handles, gear knob if alloy etc. Metal has a different tactile feel to plastic. So, this car got metal interior door release handles and metal inserts along the ignition key. This was initially a standard MB key from Hutchinsons with a different logo. Not anymore, we can get another 5 points on the driver’s position tactile feedback score with metal inserts… tooling budget was gone so they had to go for milled aluminium. For 40k cars per year. Shaped blocks that replace the silver strips down the edges of your ignition key…. Mental. I think that added €20 per key.

So how would you base this fact on the Renault clones based on the Qashqai. Most of what you mention is drivel. Some Nissans I have driven have way over heay power steering. The Terrano springs to mind. Also the mk1 Nissan X-Trail T30 has heavy steering. The Qashqai mk1 J10 has electric power steering which the feedback is very twitchy and light. It is a Renault system used. I have not driven the mk2 J11 Qashqai which I believe the original poster is talking about.
The Qashqai IIRC is built in the UK

 

[Craiglxviii]

So how would you base this fact on the Renault clones based on the Qashqai. Most of what you mention is drivel. Some Nissans I have driven have way over heay power steering. The Terrano springs to mind. Also the mk1 Nissan X-Trail T30 has heavy steering. The Qashqai mk1 J10 has electric power steering which the feedback is very twitchy and light. It is a Renault system used. I have not driven the mk2 J11 Qashqai which I believe the original poster is talking about.
The Qashqai IIRC is built in the UK

I worked on the development team for Qashqai J11, J11 minor change, J12, Juke F15, F16 minor change, Note E12, Leaf Z10 & Z11 plus a few others. Body & Platform metal, exterior trim, lamps, wash & wipe, bumpers & paint, plus a bit of electrical and interior work.
I should explain here that my role took me into very great detail on design standards, marketing and market lineup assumptions as to why the cars were specified and laid out as they were for different markets. I was responsible for around 1000 major design changes per year carried out by c.120 design engineers.

My first boss was the Chief Vehicle Engineer for X Trail T30, T31 & T32. At the time I owned a T30 so mercilessly ribbed him over its peculiarities on every occasion.

The first Senior Engineer who worked for me had been on the Terrano development team; before we bought the X Trail we were considering a Terrano so you can understand I had some deep & meaningful engineering conversations with him.

One of my best buddies in now Design Manager for vehicle lighting at Nissan’s development & design centre. He and I worked together on lamp design for 5 years.

So with all of that established, I rather think that I’m in a better position to talk about Nissan vehicles than you..!

All Qashqai are built in NMUK Sunderland Plant, both line 1 & line 2. Qashqai as Rogue was also built in the US Smyrna plant, but I believe this has now finished as current Rogue is based on X Trail.

X Trail T32 is built in the St. Petersburg plant, or was until February when everything was shut down and Nissan pulled out. X Trail T31 for the RoW market was built in Togliatti and T30 at Shatai in Kanda, Japan. All models had some volume assembled as add-ons in various Philippine/ Thai plants.

The Kaptur is based on J11 platform, which is to say Renault engineering team took the platform metal, crash system and powertrain (that last already common across Renault- Nissan Alliance) and created a new vehicle on it. From 2015 there was a fairly intensive effort launched to commonise parts across Renault & Nissan, mostly didn’t work because the design standards for those parts weren’t common, and the Marketabiliyy guys/ product managers didn’t want to compromise on what was important to them for brand identity, or there was a negative cost impact to do so (eg they became more expensive).

T30 had ludicrously easy & light power steering. I could drive the car with one finger if I wanted to, it was that light. Way too light for my tastes, so I don’t know what was up with the one you drove.

Terrano had everything made “heavy” in tactile feedback as it was designed to compete in the European marketplace, and the marketability guys had scored that of prime importance. At the time it was one of Nissan’s first forays into non-utility 4x4 and they didn’t get it quite right.

The J11 steering rack may be common with the Kaptur but Im pretty sure it isn’t, or ever was. The majority of commonisation with Kaptur was at platform level.

 

[rf065]

The red triangle for the collision warning will often appear on my dash .... God only knows what it thinks I'm going to hit when I'm the only car on the road!

On a Mercedes the red triangle is not a collision warning, it's only telling you that you're too close to the car in front and you should leave a bigger gap.
If there's no car in front of you then your car has some kind of a fault.
The collision warning is taken care of with the active brake assist which will perform an emergency stop if the car thinks you are going to run into someone else.

 

[rf065]

I fully understand its "luck of the drawer"

I've heard of the "luck of the draw", but what is the luck of the drawer?

 

[Craiglxviii]

I've heard of the "luck of the draw", but what is the luck of the drawer?

That’s when you go to the kitchen dresser, open it and try to find your car keys without looking

 

[EmilysDad]

On a Mercedes the red triangle is not a collision warning, it's only telling you that you're too close to the car in front and you should leave a bigger gap.
If there's no car in front of you then your car has some kind of a fault.
The collision warning is taken care of with the active brake assist which will perform an emergency stop if the car thinks you are going to run into someone else.

OK ... the triangle appears when I'm the only car on the road so couldn't be too close to anything!

I have been in the position where I've had to suddenly brake when I was a little too close & I believe the car gave a little extra braking for me ..... emergency brake assist ???

 

[rf065]

X Trail T32 is built in the St. Petersburg plant, or was until February when everything was shut down and Nissan pulled out. X Trail T31 for the RoW market was built in Togliatti and T30 at Shatai in Kanda, Japan. All models had some volume assembled as add-ons in various Philippine/ Thai plants.

T30 had ludicrously easy & light power steering. I could drive the car with one finger if I wanted to, it was that light. Way too light for my tastes, so I don’t know what was up with the one you drove.

Well I had one of the first X Trails (T30), bought brand new, the steering was heavy and the front tyres lasted only 12,000 mile before both outside edges were bald. Apart from that, the VIN plate said it was manufactured in Kyoto.

 

[rf065]

OK ... the triangle appears when I'm the only car on the road so couldn't be too close to anything!

I have been in the position where I've had to suddenly brake when I was a little too close & I believe the car gave a little extra braking for me ..... emergency brake assist ???

Not quite, the red triangle should never appear if you have nothing in front of you unless it's faulty or confused.
Emergency brake assist will stop you before you have even thought of pressing the brake yourself if it thinks you are going to collide with something.
Having said that, there a multiple versions of all these systems depending on the spec of every car.

 

[Craiglxviii]

Not quite, the red triangle should never appear if you have nothing in front of you unless it's faulty or confused.
Emergency brake assist will stop you before you have even thought of pressing the brake yourself if it thinks you are going to collide with something.
Having said that, there a multiple versions of all these systems depending on the spec of every car.

Sometimes the collision assist can be confused with bollards, or if the road bends around so what is “in front” of you isn’t necessarily where you’re going.

As above, the system can work using Distronic radar, Intelligent Lighting System cameras, Night View Assist active scanning or any combination of.

 

[SL63 Mark]

My Sister has owned a Qashqai for years, hers must be one of the very early ones, and she has been very pleased with it, I am not aware she has had any problems with it. As far as I know, she has not been impregnated with Nanobots, and seems quite normal.

It is sometimes hard for us dinosaurs to appreciate modern cars, I own the two extremes, and like them both, A very basic 1996 Tdi Landrover Defender 90 and a highly sophisticated 2016 SL63 AMG. Both bring something different to the party, and each have their own strengths. I wouldn't say one is "better" or "worse" than the other, just very "different".