Eco-friendly clean diesel Nissan X-Trail car

As I wrote in the previous post, from 20th to 22nd November hubby and I had been to Hamamatsu city in Shizuoka prefecture for kanreki celebration of father-in-law and also to hubby’s ancestral home in Ichinomiya city of Aichi prefecture. We made the entire trip by our car. We started from our home at about 12 noon on 20th November. After eight hours of car ride, overnight stay at a hotel in Chofu city in Tokyo suburbs, and again another six hours of car ride, we reached hubby’s ancestral home in Ichinomiya at about 1 pm on 21st November. After taking rest for about 10 minutes, hubby and his father went to a nearby Nissan car-dealer. My father-in-law purchased a new car named X-rail and presented it to hubby. All details about the car were already discussed previously with the dealer, and therefore hubby had to just go and pick up the car. Within an hour they returned back home with a brand new car. Later we went by father-in-law’s car to Hamamatsu city for Kanreki celebration. On our way to Hamamatsu city, we went to a used car-dealer agency and sold our old car Caldina. Detailed talk about this business was done between father-in-law and the dealer after a few days, and so we just left our old car at the dealer’s shop. I felt a bit sad to say good bye to our good old Caldina.

Good Bye Caldina

Owning and operating a car in Japan involves numerous expenses. These include compulsory inspections called shaken every two to three years, various taxes, mandatory and optional insurance, and many more. Shaken is a compulsory vehicle safety inspection program, which cars have to undergo every two years, except new cars, for which the first inspection is not due until three years after purchase. The shaken inspection system ensures that the cars are properly maintained, have not been illegally modified, and are safe to be on the road. This inspection typically costs around 200,000 Yen. However as vehicles get older, maintaining the cars at the standards required by the shaken inspection can become rather expensive. This is because most Japanese do not get involved in mechanical repairs except for a small tuning here and there, and as a result, mechanics usually charge extremely high prices. During the manufacturing of cars, most of the severe durability tests are carried out for 100,000 kilometers, which is taken as an index for the quality insurance of a car. So after a car has run for 100,000 kilometers, car parts may start breaking and getting damaged. The cost for repair work and shaken insurance of such a car increases tremendously, and so the Japanese people usually opt for a new car. However in the past 20 years, the quality of the cars has improved drastically and no big damage to the car parts occur even after it has run for 100,000 kilometers. In spite of this, most of the Japanese people opt for a new car. I guess it keeps the economy going. Hubby’s car had already run more than 100,000 kilometers about six months ago, although it was only a seven year old car. Therefore my father-in-law recommended hubby to buy a new car. In fact he presented a new car to hubby!

After much consideration and discussions with father-in-law, hubby bought eco-friendly clean diesel Nissan X-Trail 20GT compact crossover sport utility vehicle. X-Trail 20GT achieves a high fuel-efficiency of 15.2 km/l under 10-15 test mode operation of Japan, which represents an increase of approximately 30% in fuel economy over a 2.5-liter gasoline engine with the same power output. M9R clean diesel engine of the X-Trail is more economical to operate due to the lower price of diesel in Japan. The 2.0-liter M9R clean diesel engine has the power equivalency of a 3.5-liter V6 gasoline engine, generating maximum power of 127kW/3750rpm and maximum torque of 360N.m/2000rpm. The engine employs advanced technologies to deliver high torque and powerful acceleration. M9R engine also complies with the stringent ‘Post New Long-term Regulations’ emission standards of Japan which stresses high environmental performance and meets the demands for cleaner emission standards globally. The engine emits far lower CO2 than a comparable 3.5-liter V6 gasoline engine, thereby achieving excellent emissions performance. Emissions reduction measures include common rail system, diesel particulate filter, EGR cooler, lean NOx trap catalysts, and double swirl port. The engine design also emphasizes smooth, quiet operation, eliminating unpleasant noise and vibration associated with current diesel cars engines. Noise and vibration reduction measures include piezo injector, balancer shaft, highly rigid chassis, highly rigid engine mount brackets, and sound insulation glass. This blog post became slightly technical. I guess the researcher in me is still alive!

Welcome X-Trail

Hubby standing with X-Trail

X-Trail 20GT has a distinctive styling, and a versatile, convenient, and comfortable interior. The car has advanced scratch guard paint, which self-repairs minor scratches in the paint’s clear coat surface. The car has sporty seat fabric, step lamps, intelligent key, and six audio speakers. The control panel of the car is simply superb. The navigation system and stereo system controls as well as the heating and ventilation system controls are easily accessible from both the front seats. A bar graph on the panel displays the real-time fuel efficiency and consumption during driving.

Dashboard

1) Display panel, 2) navigation system and stereo system controls, 3) heater and ventilation controls, and 4) transmission

Yellow segment on the display panel shows the fuel consumption. Here it shows 30 km/liter.

Control panel and navigation system. Photo is taken at night.

Tachometer, LCD circular panel containing fuel gauge and outside temperature, and speedometer

Tachometer and speedometer at night

After kanreki celebration of father-in-law in Hamamatsu city, we returned back to hubby’s ancestral home in Ichinomiya at about 2.30 pm on 22nd November. Within an hour, hubby and I left Ichinomiya and started on a long ride back to Akita in our new car X-Trail. We reached Niigata city at about 8 pm and stayed overnight at a hotel. The next morning (23rd November) we continued our ride back to Akita. It was a pleasure to ride the car, which was very comfortable. It felt like a cruise ride. Almost the entire stretch of highway road from Niigata city to Akita was alongside the coastline of the Sea of Japan. We enjoyed beautiful scenic views throughout the way. We reached back home at about 2 pm.

Beautiful view of Sea of Japan coast

Another view of Sea of Japan

Me standing next to Sea of Japan

Hubby and Sea of Japan

Hubby and I love our environmentally-friendly and fuel-efficient Nissan X-Trail car. A few days ago, we went for a long drive. Nowadays it is snowing heavily in Akita prefecture. It was fun to remove snow from the car and then go for a drive surrounded by snow everywhere.

X-trail on snow covered ground

Hubby removing snow from the car

Hubby enjoying driving

Snow covered mountains alongside the road