New Wheels and Tyres - Nismo LMX6

[duncan]

The factory wheels are tiny, and the grip of the factory tyres is terrible. Sure the efficiency may be good but who cares about that?

So we've picked up a lovely set of Nismo LMX6 wheels, they are 18x7.5" with +42 offset front and +36 offset rear. They are a forged alloy rim made by Rays, some of the best wheels around.



As you would expect from Nismo the fit is excellent with no rubbing in or outside.



For tyres we went with 235/45r-18 Dunlop SP Sport Maxx GT which are OEM fitment on Porsche 911. To get them for a good price we bought the from tirerack.com and imported them from the US. The increase in grip has been excellent

Unsprung/rotating weight like wheels and tyres have a much bigger impact on performance/efficiency/handling than weight elsewhere in the car; despite being much larger these wheels +tyres weigh in at 21kg vs the standard setup at 18.5kg so the increase is minimal (13%)




Finally, because Nissan are happy to have a huge speedo in front of your eyes that is highly inaccurate (as confirmed at the 1000klm service "that's normal mate...", I deliberately ordered tyres that are 8% larger in diameter so the speedo is now exactly accurate to GPS speed.

[markrmarkr]

Duncan,

that is such a big improvement in appearance.. Damn I am so jealous. I can only agree with you about the woeful grip of the stock tires, they are just plain dangerous.

And there is no point in waiting until the stock tires wear out before upgrading. The stock ones are so hard they'll probably last for 10 years.

I'm planning on doing my own wheel/tire upgrade but I'm still very early in the planning phase. It's good to see you've broken ground for everybody else.

Are you coming to the meet at Strathfield on Wednesday? I'd really like a close up look at those babies.

[Feng]

Very nice upgrade Duncan, I'd like to check them out too if you're coming.

I thought the meet up is on Wednesday?

[markrmarkr]

Your right Matt, I've corrected my post to show Wednesday not Tuesday. Sorry about that.

Mark

[duncan]

Yeah sorry guys, would like to make the mid week meet up but am in Canberra during the week.

I'm sure we'll all meet again one day we just need Feng to organise another mini cruise

I have taken the stock wheels and tyres and am storing them somewhere cool and dark to be put back on when I sell it; accessories never retain their value at sale time.

[leafboi]

Let us know if you have a noticeable change in range with these tyres on.

[duncan]

Yeah we'll probably check the average from the website after a few months; I expect it will have decreased somewhat but it certainly has impacted our day to day use.

[Jim Hare]

We have gone through two stock tyres since purchase. Both were slight disagreements with the footpath that I'm convinced most tyres would have survived. If the trend continues for us we would probably save money in the long run by upgrading.

[southernvolt]

Great wheels.

Here's a site which shows a two tone set which look great too:
www.ovienmhada.com/2013/07/24/nissan-leaf-upgrades-2/

Did you get yours locally?

[southernvolt]

Yep, like the look of these

[duncan]

we did look at the black ones but decided not to go with them on the black car (just a cosmetic choice).

We bought the wheels from Nismo Japan and imported them through Just Jap in Kirawee; there are plenty of brokers that can source things like that. And we bought the tyres from tirerack.com in the US, they post direct to Australia.

The wheels were about $2k and tyres were about $1k...I'd hate to think what local retail would be on both

[southernvolt]

Thanks for the info. I agree about the black on black. If I get a leaf it will be white and the black will look pretty good.

[markrmarkr]

Duncan,

I have some questions:

Did you get the Tyre Pressure Monitoring System (TPMS) with your new wheels/tires? I understand this is quite expensive and has to be initialised by Nissan.

How did you arrive at the offsets you are using (42 and 36mm)? I ask because if they are not the same, front and back, you can't rotate easily. Do you plan to take the tyres of the wheels in order to rotate, or just not do rotations?

Also I've done my own measurement of the inaccuracy of the speedo and I think it is closer to 12% low (so diameter of tyres is 12% less than they should be). I just used a GPS speedo app for my phone. Did you do your own measurement to arrive at the 8% figure? If so what method did you use?

Cheers

Mark

P.S. You've got me checking out wheels and tyres now. I've got the bug.

[duncan]

haha sorry for making your life more expensive

Firstly, on fitment/offset; I just bought the Leaf sizes from the Nismo catalogue because I could not get reliable information about the right offset. So instead of taking the risk on expensive wheels not fitting, I just bought something I knew would be perfect for the car. Yes I won't be able to rotate front to rear, luckily the tyres are not directional so I can still rotate left to right. I won't worry about front to rear, it just means it is likely the fronts will need to be replaced before the rears instead of all 4 at once.

As for 8%, 12% or any other number; I compared the speed to phone GPS while running cruise control at 100 on the M2. I would expect tyre wear to show 3-4% difference between brand new and ready to replace, I've also seen 1-2% difference depending on tyre pressure. The new tyres are within 1% of the GPS, and spot on most of the time. BTW Australian Design Rules (ADRs) say the speedo can only vary between 0-10% lower than actual speed; so if yours is currently 12 you have a case with Nissan to fix it

Finally, the TPMS really tripped me up, but not for the reason you are thinking.... I assumed the car had TPMS and tried to organise 4 new ones from Nissan based on my VIN#. After a few days' confusion Nissan parts confirmed Aussie cars do not have TPMS! I didn't see that coming. BTW if we did have TPMS the "Leaf Spy" android app includes functionality to read and reset them; when I tried it I found it does not get any signal from my car for TPMS which makes sense.

[riddick]

Wow, 12% error! I think I will try to check mine in this case as well. Crazy as it is, in Victoria, we are not supposed to exceed the speed limit by more than 3% when driving at 100km/h. With a speedo in 12% error and us trying to compensate for it by matching the speed of the rest of the traffic, being in 3% error will happen all the time. In the old days, they used to accept 10% error which makes much more sense, but now it is all about revenue raising.

[markrmarkr]

Duncan,

Thanks for your comprehensive answer.

It's good to hear that TPMS is not available in Oz, it sounds like a complete w@nk. An expensive w@nk.

I've been checking out Tirerack and they seem to have hundreds of wheels for the Leaf at really good prices, all with offsets in the region of 45mm, which is close to yours. So I'd guess this would work well enough. Your offsets from Nismo would have to be the ultimate perfect fit. I don't no if I'm prepared to go that far. I'll probably just pick something nice from tirerack and get them to do the tyres as well. As long as shipping doesn't kill the price.

On the subject of speedo accuracy. I can see I'm going to have to do this properly. If I can find a good GPS speeo app, this would save me a lot of mucking about. All the apps I've tried so far seem to have granularity/low update rate issues which limit their usefulness. It may be the old tablet I'm using is not up to the task so I think I'll put some apps on my (brand new) phone as well and see if it makes a difference. I will keep trying. I think the way to do the test is on a highway using cruise control and somehow recording the two speeds simultaneously.

I'll keep you informed.

Mark

[gabzimiev]

Just remember that a GPS speed is not accurate either, compared to Lidar and radar used by the police.

[duncan]

Re speedo app, I've been using my TomTom navigation app, and "speedview" which is a free GPS speed app. I would only trust the result on cruise at high speed on a straight freeway as the GPS can be slow to catch up with actual speed.

Riddick re speedo error, until Vic bought in those rules the ADR allowed -10%-+10% and was changed as a result of that 3% rule in Vic to -10%-0. Pretty huge error for this day and age, particularly for a car with sat nav where it would be simple to adjust the wheel speed by the average difference to the GPS speed.

One other thing Mark, just keep in mind that it is the mix of wheel width and offset that matters, not just the offset. The wheels I got at 7.5" wide are pretty damn big for those wheel wells; if you went 7" you would have a lot more to play with around offset. I use this calculator to check the differences www.1010tires.com/Tools/Wheel-Offset-Calculator

This is the offset difference for the fronts, nice and centred....

[markrmarkr]

I've done some research now and although I can't go as far as you Duncan, I recon I can get something which will satisfy. I've had a discussion on the phone with a "tyre professional" and I plan to pay a visit on Thursday after work.

With all the rain we have been having I'm as nervous as a cat every time I drive the car. It just seems so unsafe with the OEM Tyres on it. This is a real pity as normally I love driving the car. I really have to do something about it soon.

I'm planning to spend up to $2000

While I'm at it I plan to deal with the The speedo inaccuracy issue. I'm definitely seeing at least 10% under estimate (compared to GPS), so I'll aim at increasing the diameter by 10%.

[Feng]

There's a way to recalibrate the speedo reading in the confirmation/adjustment screen. I haven't tried it myself so let us know how you go:

Power on the vehicle
Power off the audio
Press the MAP button 3x
Press the Audio Power button 2x
Press the MAP button 1x
Select Confirmation/Adjustment

You can adjust other bits in that menu as well as display the software version. I think all Australian versions are the same, I haven't heard of updates ever being released for us.

[markrmarkr]

That looks very interesting Matt, I'll see how it goes when I get the new tyres and wheels. If it still needs some tuning I'll give it a go then.

Thanks again.

Mark

[markrmarkr]

Duncan,

do you have any more feedback on how the new wheels and tyres are going?

Is there a noticeable drop in torgue with the larger diameter at low speed or improved torque at high speed?

Handling noticeably improved?... In the wet?

A while ago you uploaded the "Nissan LEAF Range Chart for 24kWh Battery" - metric. It would be interesting to see how this changes things.

I'm hoping to be able to answer some of these questions myself soon. I'll be seeing the wheel/tyre guys tonight. I have to wonder though - I described the problem with the speedo, and was told I should get smaller diameter tyres! I think this is one of those times when I have to be really clear about what I want and basically do all the work for them. Wouldn't it be nice if people who were supposed to know how to do something actually did.

Mark

[markrmarkr]

I did it.

The wheels are K-box Halo 18x7.5. Offset is +40.

Tyres are Pirelli 235/45R18 98 XL P7

Cost including fitting and GST is $1616 at Tempe Tyres.

The "tyre professionals" didn't believe that that tyre would go on that wheel, so they gave me all sorts of grief, before I got them to do it. In the end it all went smoothly - the tyres fitted fine and look great. But in a last ditch pig headed piece of vindictive revenge they refused to give me a guarantee, because I made them do too many things they didn't want to do.

Has anyone ever heard of comparable unprofessional small-mindedness?

This marred an otherwise very enjoyable experience. When it was all finished they parked the car next to a Ferrari (just out of shot), and it was hilarious how everybody was asking questions about the electric car, and totally ignoring the Ferrari. I cleared everybody away so I could take the pic below, but thinking back I should have gone for a life shot with the Ferrari in frame, so it would be obvious it was being ignored. Chance missed but at least I have the memories.

Driving home the speedo is much improved but still shows about 5% higher than actual (GPS) speed. I think I'll have to use Matts trick to try to adjust it.
Edit - I drove to work this morning and checked the speedo more thoroughly. It's just over 3% high still. I think I can live with that.

It was getting dark and raining so this isn't a very good pic. I'll get some better pics later.

cheers

Mark

Attachments:

[markrmarkr]

Apr 8, 2014 15:32:52 GMT 11 Feng said:

There's a way to recalibrate the speedo reading in the confirmation/adjustment screen. I haven't tried it myself so let us know how you go:

Power on the vehicle
Power off the audio
Press the MAP button 3x
Press the Audio Power button 2x
Press the MAP button 1x
Select Confirmation/Adjustment

You can adjust other bits in that menu as well as display the software version. I think all Australian versions are the same, I haven't heard of updates ever being released for us.

Matt,

I tried this out last night - just to fine tune the last couple of percent I'm stiĺl out, but I could not make it work. Do you have a link or something discribing the method?

[jeffjl]

Apr 8, 2014 15:32:52 GMT 11 Feng said:

There's a way to recalibrate the speedo reading in the confirmation/adjustment screen. I haven't tried it myself so let us know how you go:

Power on the vehicle
Power off the audio
Press the MAP button 3x
Press the Audio Power button 2x
Press the MAP button 1x
Select Confirmation/Adjustment

You can adjust other bits in that menu as well as display the software version. I think all Australian versions are the same, I haven't heard of updates ever being released for us.

I tried this. All worked well for me. The only problem was that it only gives a +-2.5% adjustment. To go at 80km/h by Garmin GPS in need to be showing 87 on the speedo. Out by just under 10% (in the right way)

[Feng]

Apr 20, 2014 16:06:40 GMT 11 markrmarkr said:

I tried this out last night - just to fine tune the last couple of percent I'm stiĺl out, but I could not make it work. Do you have a link or something discribing the method?

Sorry Mark I found the screen while looking up something else, I haven't tried calibrating my speedo so I can't help you with that one.

[markrmarkr]

Apr 20, 2014 20:12:31 GMT 11 jeffjl said:

Apr 8, 2014 15:32:52 GMT 11 Feng said:

There's a way to recalibrate the speedo reading in the confirmation/adjustment screen. I haven't tried it myself so let us know how you go:

Power on the vehicle
Power off the audio
Press the MAP button 3x
Press the Audio Power button 2x
Press the MAP button 1x
Select Confirmation/Adjustment

You can adjust other bits in that menu as well as display the software version. I think all Australian versions are the same, I haven't heard of updates ever being released for us.

I tried this. All worked well for me. The only problem was that it only gives a +-2.5% adjustment. To go at 80km/h by Garmin GPS in need to be showing 87 on the speedo. Out by just under 10% (in the right way)

That's great Jeffjl,

any idea what the trick is to make it work?

Mark

[jeffjl]

Absolutely no idea what the trick is. Just went out and gave it a try and had no problems. Did it with the power at both 'ON' and 'READY'.

I do get Zapped by the car on a regular basis so perhaps we just have a connection.

[markrmarkr]

Well, I guess I'm destined not to get it perfect then.

Anyway, here is a better pic:

[Deleted]

Jeffjl
do you mean static electricity shocks?

I get that with my imiev.
I try to remember to hold onto the metal before stepping out.