DRIVEN TO DRIVE

Let’s look under the hood

The hood release is under the steering column right next to the gas cap cover release.  The actual hood catch is nicely positioned just to the right of centre (while facing the hood).  It would so much easier to find if it was painted yellow instead black, but once located, it’s easy enough to operate.  Moving on – we now have to support the hood.  I’m not a fan of support posts for hoods for two reasons – one, most of the time they are inconveniently placed and therefore get in the way.  Secondly, they need two hands, one to hold the hood and he second to position the support bar in its receptacle.  In the case of the Nissan cube, the support is off to the right hand corner so it’s well out of the way – nice!  However it still requires two hands and Nissan decided to make it a mystery as to where to position the foot of the post.  I did find a spot to put it and once it was secure it was evident that that was the proper position.  It would have been nice if this receptacle was clearly marked, as in painted yellow.

Speaking of yellow, the only item clearly marked yellow was Oil Dip-stick, which incidentally was well positioned at the front of the motor.

OK – hood is up and secure.  First impressions are that the compartment is it’s well designed and every component is deliberately positioned. Not only that, everything is securely fastened – no loose wires or hoses flopping about in the breeze.

The first thing that caught my attention was the size of the battery – about the length of my hand. In this case, size is not important – just the volts and amps.

It seems that when it comes to fluids, the good folks at Nissan have decided to make it a challenge -

A – the brake/clutch fluid does not regularly need topping up, but when it does – why should be made difficult?  Someone at Nissan decided to put this one at an angle.  How brilliant is that?  Brake Fluid is not very friendly and it’s not something you want to spill.  Gravity is downwards  – not at 45 degrees.  Perhaps we should park it on a hill to top up the brake fluid.  It’s not like there isn’t enough room to extend the spout and turn it vertical.

B – not that the coolant reservoir needs topping up on regular basis – but if it does, here’s problem – access is quite tight.  The filler cap is positioned low down between the radiator and a hard piece and it just seems odd, whereas if the tube was extended just a few inches, life would be happier for those folks who’s engine is showing signs of over heating.

C – if the engine needs oil on a regular basis then there is an oil leak or the engine is burning oil, but when the need arises that the engine needs oil, the filler is small and recessed making it fairly difficult to get the oil inside the engine without dripping some of it onto hot parts of the engine.

D - it never ceases to amaze me why designers think window washer spouts need to be ridiculously narrow and cunningly tucked off to one side making it difficult to pour window washer fluid into them .  Let’s think about this for a moment.  The size of the opening of the average window washer container is about 1 1/4 inches.  The size of the window washer inlet nozzle  on the Nissan cube is about the same size, however it suddenly narrows to about the size of a quarter which means you have to pour the fluid slowly to avoid a back splash.   It gets better (sarcasm), the inlet nozzle is conveniently recessed so the fluid cannot be poured directly into the opening, it has to be poured from a height thus making it a bit of an aiming contest to say the least.  Now try this in a howling snow storm while parked at the side of the road at night.  The irony is, there is so much room near the inlet tube, it could be a good 2 inches in diameter funneling out wider at the top.  One only has to THINK beyond the drawing board, into the scary place called the real world.  Anyway, that’s my gripe for the day.

Stay tuned – tomorrow the Nissan cube goes back to the press fleet.

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