Your fleet running reports

[mr_jon]

426 quid lighter but the qq lives for another year! Not too upset with that really, given it was a fair amount of work. Getting lazy not doing it myself.

[Gavin]

Got the Bongo back yesterday, all green and shiny again with new rear inner and outer arches and one new sill and all under sealed and waxoyl in all the hollow bits.

Happy days.

[Sundayjumper]

...new rear inner and outer arches and one new sill...

Yikes, how come ? I must have missed it.

[Mito Man]

Road trip continuation.

I decided to take the longer route to Luxembourg via Innsbruck, departing from Verona. The benefit being that most of the journey would be via Germany so I could surely just sit at 100 mph and get there quicker overall.

The drive to Innsbruck only took a little over 2 hours with the scenery getting better as you got further north. I expected Austria to be expensive like Switzerland but it had the cheapest petrol, 100 octane V Power was €1.51 which was 20-30 cents less than everywhere else. Got an excellent sandwich and pastry for not much at Innsbruck either. It’s a nice city, Austria is like all the great bits of Switzerland minus the rip off prices. The airport seems interesting too, the city is surrounded by mountains to the planes land and take off at pretty steep angles which makes for good viewing.


There are no motorways that go North into Germany from Innbruck. The main route is the Fernpassstraße which is one of the most scenic routes I’ve come across on the entire trip - but it’s also very busy so you’re pretty much crawling uphill behind lorries and caravans and coasting back down them. I found sport mode handy as it gave sufficient engine braking so I didn’t have to lightly keep my feet on the breaks for miles on end as all the cars ahead were doing...
But what a view

And to the left of the guardrail


Finally crossed the border into Germany. Now I had a few preconceptions about the autobahn. Like decent roads, cars all going 100+ in the inside lane, good road manners, German efficiency and all that. How wrong I was though.
The autobahn bits I drove were mainly 2 lanes. So you had lorries and slower traffic doing 56-70 mph in lane 1 and cars doing about 100-110 in lane 2. Of course the slower cars would pull out to overtake quite late resulting in the journey just being bursts of speed following a convoy from 70 to 110 mph followed by quite heavy braking back to 70. Then came the traffic. I have never been in so much traffic. Ulm to Karlsruhe took me about 5 hours for 100 miles. The autobahns just can’t deal with the capacity of traffic they have. In the UK we only come to a stop on the motorways if there’s an accident or breakdown during busy hours but in Germany there were no such incidents. The 2 lane autobahn just couldn’t handle the volume of traffic between major cities during work hours.

As the sun set the A8 bahn just came to an end and I ended up in the Palatine forest chasing a fast E Class. This was a good bit of fun and the road frequently had short passing sections with great scenery before rejoining the A8 once again. I was only miles away from Luxembourg and the autobahn was coming to an end so I tried to see how fast I could go now that there was less traffic but it was pretty disappointing, the road had too many curves which limited how fast you could go and made the closing speed too great in case a dawdler suddenly pulled out.


My slightly optimistic speedo was reading 140 mph.

I arrived at the hotel in Luxembourg City after 12 hours, 10 of which were driving and pretty much crashed in bed.
The old city is fantastic to walk around, looks a bit like Disneyland

Glad I stopped here as I never thought much of Luxembourg and have gone past it many times on family trips without even realising what a place it is. The modern city is like a clean version of Paris with the benefit of the locals being less grumpy too.

On the drive back to Calais you go past Brussels, Ghent and Brugge. I hadn’t been to Ghent before so chose to stop there for lunch. It’s just like a less pretty version of Brugge so pick one of the other two to visit.

Final journey statistics

So I make that 449 litres of petrol, and 1 litre of oil.
Fin.

[RobYob]

Great photos and tips, I shall add a few of those places to my theoretical epic road trip itinerary.

[DeskJockey]

Sounds a good trip. You've clearly not spent enough time driving on the M25 based on your claim. I've lost count of the number of times I've come to a stop just because of traffic.

[Nathan]

Sounds like a nice trip, would you drive it again given your experiences?

I did Budapest > Prague > Berlin via train in May and was pleasantly surprised how well their public transport worked and would not consider driving even if it was closer.

[Simon]

Sounds a good trip. You've clearly not spent enough time driving on the M25 based on your claim. I've lost count of the number of times I've come to a stop just because of traffic.

Word

M25 from 16-11 anti clock any time after 3pm is just shear weight, ditto 9-12 clockwise in the morning. The M25 is broken on the SW corner.

[nuttinnew]

The M25 is broken on the SW corner.

https://www.sabre-roads.org.uk/forum/vi ... daf0f589a3

[DeskJockey]

J5-6 is the worst. It is the longest junction to junction stretch, yet always grinds to a halt. I don't understand why. There is no traffic coming onto or off to cause any issues! Just drive!

[Mito Man]

Sounds like a nice trip, would you drive it again given your experiences?

I did Budapest > Prague > Berlin via train in May and was pleasantly surprised how well their public transport worked and would not consider driving even if it was closer.

Yes, I’d do it slightly differently though - instead of staying in Zurich I would stay in Lugano and do it for an extra night and one night less in Verona just because it lets you explore lake Como which is so much nicer than Garda. Plus you’re closer to all those great roads.
But you only learn these things by going out there and experiencing it.

[Gavin]

...new rear inner and outer arches and one new sill...

Yikes, how come ? I must have missed it.

The previous owner had had the arches ground back but it started coming through pretty much straight away so was largely paid by the bodyshop and the previous owner.

[JonMad]

...new rear inner and outer arches and one new sill...

Yikes, how come ? I must have missed it.

The previous owner had had the arches ground back but it started coming through pretty much straight away so was largely paid by the bodyshop and the previous owner.

Rust on the arches that comes back after repairs. Sounds like a Merc?

[V8Granite]

Great road trip!

Austria has never been anywhere I considered but by the sounds of it we would love it.

The 6 series is a great car to do it all in as well.

Dave!

[Gavin]

Yikes, how come ? I must have missed it.

The previous owner had had the arches ground back but it started coming through pretty much straight away so was largely paid by the bodyshop and the previous owner.

Rust on the arches that comes back after repairs. Sounds like a Merc?

Yeah, it does but no rust proofing on Japanese imports so eventually it needs cut out and replaced. It should now go a few years relatively shiny and green!

[McSwede]

Great road trip!

Austria has never been anywhere I considered but by the sounds of it we would love it.

The 6 series is a great car to do it all in as well.

Dave!

Austria is lovely. We had a nice romantic weekend in Salzburg which is a lovely place and has the Red bull museum. I spent quite a while drooling over Mika Kallio's 125cc KTM. We also had a drive to Innsbruck which is lovely and tried to go visit the eagles nest but sadly we were a week early. Same went for the Grossglockner pass as the snow hadn't cleared.

[V8Granite]

I want a road trip when the car is back on the road so that sounds like a good country to explore.

I fitted a new cyclone breather on the Defender and bought a new drive flange and pinion seal for the front axle as it’s leaking.

Exciting times.

Dave!

[JonMad]

I'm liking the period of 100mph average, Mito. Contemplating Italy for a family holiday next year. I'd love to drive it but it'd be with the family, in the Yeti, and I wouldn't be allowed to do any mountain pass detours.

[Matty]

I'd been contemplating a chopping the Evora in for a 400, or potentially an Exige V6 before I move house in 12-18 months. However, my VW Bora daily really is on its last legs, so I decided to spend the difference on a new daily hack instead. Ticking off a configuration I've not owned before, with a little 3-pot unit. Hopefully collect next week.

In the meantime, if anyone wants a leaky VW Bora "Highline" - which is otherwise a good car - it's being MOT'd on Wednesday and will be on eBay for 99p if you fancy a bid. Unless it fails...like it has the last 3 years on the bounce. If not, it'll have a 13month MOT! Heated, unmarked leather interior, working AC, all electrics working....will be sad to see it go.

[16vCento]

I'd been contemplating a chopping the Evora in for a 400, or potentially an Exige V6 before I move house in 12-18 months. However, my VW Bora daily really is on its last legs, so I decided to spend the difference on a new daily hack instead. Ticking off a configuration I've not owned before, with a little 3-pot unit. Hopefully collect next week.

UP! GTI?

If so I'll be interested to know how you get on, I quite fancy one, off to look at a Fabia VRS in Kermit Green this week, which is about half the cost, and probably twice the car, but it's just not as classy!