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-   -   This summer, I'm blessed with a Nissan Sunny XV Diesel. 5 years / 70k km update (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/long-term-ownership-reviews/150648-summer-im-blessed-nissan-sunny-xv-diesel-5-years-70k-km-update-3.html)

Lovely review. Have you given the car for service? I have given mine for the 3rd service and was pretty surprised with the higher than expected bill of 7k or so (oil change and such).
I changed the tyres recently from the stupid stock JK Vectras (185/65 R15) to Continental MaxContact (195/60 R15) and the ride, especially the road noise, has improved drastically. Very happy with my move despite the JK still having a long life ahead of them.
Speaking of which, what is the tyre pressure you maintain? As per the specs is 33 front and 30 rear but I feel that's harsh and checked with a few guys here (finally agreed to what GTO does with his Sunny), I filled it with 30 front and rear and things have improved a lot.

You are right about the body roll, the Old Honda City and the Civic I currently own as well, is way more fun and controlled but when you check the mileage you just forgive the Sunny big time. But the one thing that irritates me when I start it for the first time is the engine noise which becomes very intrusive until it warms up a bit but still I wish they had provided better NVH cladding. I was thinking whether adding noise kill/damping in the doors and maybe that rubber undercoating from 3M improve anything at all.

Like you, rear seat comfort is top priority for me as my parents and wife/kid will be in the rear. So the front 2 seats can be adjusted liberally, without fearing of eating the rear space. Dad is usually in the front passenger seats and mom and wife with kid at the rear.
What I added later, was that manual retractable screen blind at the rear (got it from Nissan itself with their branding), it brings about a huge comfort to prevent the sun heat and later saw these Brica cling on pop open sun shades (which doesn't use the silly suction cup but use a plastic sheet and static electricity to stay glued on the rear window). Since the shades themselves are big, it covers the rear window pretty well, although they are not perfect as that plastic sheet I talked about, doesn't spread out well and see lots of air bubble streaking from outside but from inside it's comfy for the rear passengers big time since they have 3 sides sun protection. I can remove them whenever I please.

None of the controls will work with AUX. In the AUX mode, you are just directing the output to the car speakers, and the HU has no clue which device it is coming from. :)

Just some friendly advice: you seem way too concerned about mileage. Why don't you forget about the kmpl figures for a while and enjoy the car? Life is too short to be so hung up on mileage.

My two cents. :)

Thanks dude. 1st service scheduled by this month end (may be during Diwali holidays)

Do post the service bills.

I'm maintaining 30psi for all 4 tyres

Tasted all the flavors of machine, right from the economy mode to sporty (???) mode. FE figures posted here is one of them.

Completed 1 service today.
Odo reading : 8382km
A.S.S : Ramani Motors - Tirupur

Service Review:

Service Reminder:
Got call from Ramani Motors a couple of weeks back to remind about the 1st service. Their initial proposal is weekend before Diwali (19th Oct) I denied as I was at Chennai and rescheduled to 24th Oct. Got the confirmation SMS within few minutes.

Reception & Facility:
Tirupur branch service facility was opened very recently (Head office & operations at Coimbatore) They don't have a fully furnished facility here. All they have here is 1 2 post lift, wheel alignment & balancing machines, 4~5 service bays (without a lift) 2 stations for water wash. Body work facility is available only at Coimbatore.

I reached their facility at 10:00am and immediately attended by SA Mr. Manikandan. He inspected the vehicle and filled the job card within a couple of minutes. As I don't have any specific issues, he explained the details of work that will be covered as a part of 1st service and bill estimate was given as 4.5k. I was promised the delivery by 3:00pm (mine was the 1st car for the day)

Delivery:
Got call from SA by 3:20pm. When I reached there, it was already 4:15 and the car was kept ready for delivery, with the invoice printed. Service manager Mr. Vivekkumar explained the bill details and list of items changed. When I took out my credit card for payment, I got an unexpected answer from them (yes, you guessed it) "Sorry sir, only cash payment":Frustrati Paid the bill amount by cash and got the invoice, receipt and gatepass. Taken the car out of garage for inspection.

Cleanliness:
Interiors were cleaned pretty well, but the exterior is cleaning was as expected below average (refer the snaps) Called the SA and shown it, he asked his team to clean the car properly. I noticed the way they were cleaning another car, they were using a same dirty cloth to wipe the running board, wheel arches and the same is used for wind shield and body too. I don't want the same treatment again on my car. I said I will clean it myself.







After I reached home, got to notice another gift, a SCRATCH this time:deadhorse
I feel this should get corrected with rubbing compound, let me check once I reach back Chennai.



Service details:
Paid:
- Engine Oil
- Oil Filter
- Fuel Filter
- Air Filter
- Wind Shield liquid
- Balance weight
- Consumables
Free:
- Wheel Alignment
- Balancing
- Tire rotation
- Labour

Total Amount paid: 4269.00 INR



Short term ownership review:
Covered 8382km in 6 months of ownership, mostly driven on highways (Chennai - Coimbatore) Overall I'm satisfied with the vehicle and I don't have much to complain about (main reason being I got this car after a detailed study on all Pros & Cons)

Likes:
- Known work horse
- Space
- FE (worst I got till date is 16.2kmpl calculated by tank-full method)
- Balanced ride & Handling
- Neither fun-to-drive nor sluggish

Dislikes:
- Noisy engine (atleast for first few minutes after starting)
- Not solid build (neither too flimsy)
- Brakes need improvement (I have the solution and installed already, but the improvement isn't matching with competitors)
- Rubbery gear shift

Couple of recent snaps taken today

Covered the 10k milestone last week clap: (though little late)

I sincerely hope you were not the one who clicked the pic:D. You seem to be enjoying the car very much. Happy motoring.

Thanks buddy.
My better half took the snap and this was the (better) output after several attempts. I should have pulled the car out of road and clicked it.

New accessory added :)

Suggestion required please:

1) Driver arm rest : I'm missing it badly during long drives. Tried fixing the universal ones, but couldn't be done (rear blower occupies the space between front seats) Any other solution?

2) Basic 2 din HU with USB & BT function : I'm not keen towards touch screen / reverse camera. In the mean time I don't compromise on steering controls. Budget around 10k (possible?)

3) Insurance (more important): Zero Dep insurance suggestions please. Current insurance (with ICICI Lambord) will expire by this month end.

1)About the driver armrest, I'm not sure what can be done because of the protruding blower. But one common suggestion would be to use the blower itself as an armrest. You could also add some padding for extra comfort.

2) I suggest you look at the range of Pioneer double dins, which usually are compatible with steering controls, are user friendly and offer good sound quality with all basic functions. With a bit of haggling, you could even get a touchscreen. Other good options are alpine and Sony non touchscreen HU's.

3) Apologies, but I am clueless about the same and will only make you:Frustrati

Thanks for the suggestions buddy.
1) Blower don't protrude much, so no use of it.


2) I got similar suggestion for "Ask the Gurus" thread as well.
http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/ask-gu...ml#post3678523

I posted this elsewhere but my requirement was to stream music from the Gaana app in my phone to the stock stereo in the Sunny and my Civic and I wasn't keen on taking off the stereo (worried that the fascia may get damaged in the process) but wasn't keen on answering calls while driving since I don't recommend that to anyone.
So got this Bluetooth device from Amazon to connect to my phone and stream the music. Has a built in battery that lasts for 8 hrs or so. Sounds good with stock system/speakers and the sub that I added, so pretty happy with the workaround. It also has a built in mic but I disabled that, so not entirely sure how clear can it be.
But yeah, no steering control option to navigate/control the music in the phone. Since I put my music collection (from Ganna or from the memory card) in shuffle/random mode and I use that as my chief source of music across the cars I have, that was never a problem for me but you might have other ideas.

Thanks for the suggestion. This is one VFM solution for Bluetooth.
Sadly this doesn't satisfy my requirements. To me the main source of music is FM within city limits and CD / AUX for highway drive. With AUX I'm missing the steering controls and started looking for USB option. Other drawback with your suggestion is, when the music is played from other source and we get a call, we should manually switch to AUX mode.

But anyways, thanks once again. This should be useful for somebody else.

Yup, figured you would say that. Your requirements are different from mine. I checked out that Pioneer stereo suggested by someone earlier and for 8.5k from Snapdeal, it looks good (but as mentioned, hate the awful color scheme, looks like it belong to an auto rickshaw with all those glaring loud lights). I think there are more classier looking units from Blaupunkt. Saw once a double din for 5k (guess it didn't come with CD) and another one for 7k or so. Just do a check for double din Blaupunkt in Snapdeal and confirm with someone if they have the remote interface for that.

The FM here in Kochi unfortunately doesn't have a good collection of English music unlike Bangalore and I'm so fed up of downloading and burning music on CD. So had a choice of changing my stereo to support USB or simply have a single device that I can store music and will be with me always no matter what (a.k.a...my mobile clap:). Then came the lovely Gaana app with a good collection of English songs at a fee of Rs.123 per month and that lead to me the VFM Bluetooth dongles that I got for the cars back at home.

You mean to answer the calls via the Bluetooth unit while music is playing from another source like CD or FM? That could be correct. But like I said, I personally don't like the idea of talking on the phone while driving (I must be getting old :)) due to which I disabled the voice call option in the phone when connecting to the device and enabled only streaming of music (which gets cut off automatically and resume once the call is over if I answer it). Good enough for me.

2nd Service (1 year / 20k km) completed a month ago (on 2nd May) with 15k+ on odo.
Apart from Engine oil, Oil filter, Fuel filter & Air filter got the AC cabin filter changed as I got some foul smell with AC 'ON' Let me post the detailed cost break down in a couple of days.