Re:What's your thoughts on power and braking with the Jimny?

I wanted a Jimny long before I'd ever driven one. The first one I drove was 2015 auto that was on sale at a used car lot. Despite it being a bit gutless I wasn't put off. I mentioned my thoughts to the salesman that the brakes seemed poor. He shrugged.I ended up buying a 2010 manual. I still like the car, but its power output leaves a lot to be desired, and I really wish the brakes were better.Power: it was rather embarrassing driving on a county road behind a rather slow-moving Landcruiser the other day. It had a trailer (maybe doing 95kph). I've long since stopped attempting to overtake anything on the wrong side of the road for fear of losing my life. A hill was coming up in the distance along with the friendly Overtaking Lane sign. The Landcruiser begins to slow on the hill. I changed into 4th and flattened the accelerator and I'm overtaking. Then I start to slow as the hill takes its toll on me and the Landcruiser is gaining in the other lane. I'm flat out and I'm dropping behind. There's a queue behind me. With the top of the hill approaching, I gradually speed up and get past. But bloody hell, I wish it had more guts. My car has had a 1600 motor put into it too. Is this common?Brakes: My car's brakes are like the 2015 model's brakes were. Much less than great. Other makes of cars I've driven have a light touch to the brake pedal and your stopping. With the Jimny I have to lean into the pedal quite hard. It's like there's no power boost. And this is after having the (rear) brakes done. I didn't worry too much since I know the shoes need to bed into the drums. That was ages ago. That should have happened by now.

Is this common and has anyone done anything about it? Things like a different booster, different front brakes - I don't even know if that's possible.

So the brakes and lack of power could well be connected. The front calipers are notorious for becoming seized and dragging.
The slides have rubber covers that are supposed to keep the wet out and these fail which the rust loves. Check that the calipers are free and that could well release the fury of the 1.3. Another thing to check is that the catalytic converter is intact as with age they can disintegrate and block over time.

Having owned a number of reasonably powerful vehicles before getting my Jimny (my other car is a 2.7l Boxster) I have always thought that my 1,300 Jimny is under powered, although now I realise if you drop a gear and rev it above 4,000 rpm, it does a lot better, it is alien to me to do that.

As for braking, the brake on my Jimny are just fine, certainly good enough for the speed and weight of the vehicle and will stop my Jimny just as well as I stop in my Boxster.

Yours with a 1,600cc engine should be a fair bit faster, so as Lambert suggest perhaps a brake binding, collapsed CAT, blocked air filter etc.

Robin

Are the tyres the standard size?

Sent from my moto g42 using Tapatalk

I doubt the brakes are dragging. Whenever I stop at traffic lights the car begins to roll even on the very slightest of slopes.

That's an interesting one in regard to the catalytic converter. Thanks for suggesting it.


Never driven a Boxter, so can't tell. (I really have driven a huge variety of vehicles over the years.) But I imagine the Boxter would have rather good bakes. I take your point about high revs. I had a Toyota MR2 and it only went well when the revs went up. Though, it seems wrong to me, to have the Jimny rev so high that I have to make it sound like an F1 racer just to make it go like an ordinary car.


The tyres. Good point. I don't know the standard size. Mine are 215/75 15. I understand that a larger diameter wouldn't help (brakes nor performance), but at country cruising speeds I wouldn't have thought that would matter so much. You've got me thinking though.


There is some extra weight on it, but wouldn't most Jimny's have bolt-on accessories (mine has a bull bar, winch, toe bar, sidebars, under protection, roof rack, 2nd battery). All of that would cause it to lose performance, but it has a 1600cc engine. And in regard to the brakes, they are not better or worse than the 2015 model I test drove. So, despite the weight, I suspect the brakes are performing to spec.

With all that bolted on weight and the oversized tyres it's going to struggle even with a 1.6. The standard 205.70r15 is already something of a compromise of ground clearance against gearing for the standard car. Then there's the weight capacity of a Jimny, it's only about 320kg and that's to include driver and any passenger start adding steel bumpers and side bars and very quickly you are going to be at gvm. It's best to think of a Jimny as a buggy rather than a full on 4x4. Certainly the difference in performance between my Jimny and my land cruiser when both loaded to there respective gvm is like night and day, the Jimny really knows about it and the cruiser doesn't even notice.

Also you can go down the performance pads route to improve bite and fade resistance I have ebc green stuff to that end, very good.