1970 miles, 6 countries, great trip!

[madbilly]

Hi everyone,

Had a week away (9 nights actually) in the car, very nervous, but it was faultless (ish) the entire journey! Drove down through France, Belgium, Luxembourg, France again, then through the Black Forest (the 33, great road), and down to Lake Constance, stayed for 6 nights (Fugunt.de in Kressbronn is a really nice place to stay), had a great time, had a trip over to Castle Neuschwanstein in Bavaria (amazing!) along the Alpenstrasse (308) including minor diversion into Austria, then back via the Eifel mountains (passed Nurburgring and Spa-Francorchamps to spot fun cars, but none apart from ours!), overnight in Calais (Sole Meuniere restaurant is brilliant, Sole Meuniere hotel is terrible!). Great weather and lots of top-down action. I said 6 countries, I'm including Blighty!

In nearly 2000 miles it used just over a litre of oil which I think it pretty good going for an engine that's done over 100k miles. Very little coolant use despite some very hot traffic jams (west side of Lake Constance, diversions due to roadworks on the 31, Markdorf became a bottleneck, AND autobahns - what's this two lanes business all about?!). No other fluids used.

No misfires or hiccups apart from one on the way back through Blighty, but it didn't set a fault code so I don't know what it was.

Only water ingress I had was where I'd missed a huge gap between the intermediate seal and window on the drivers side which let wind blow water in when driving, plus the water in the footwells/behind the seats due to what angle I parked the car at, but the repaired and reproofed shower cape did a great job most of the time.

The car developed a chinking noise when going over bumps which I assume is something coming loose but tbh I decided to carry on and see if it became something worrying, which it didn't, but now I'm back I'll investigate and see what I can find! Also developed a sort of slapping/whipping noise which varied frequency with road speed but it's gone now.

Basically, great trip, I can't wait for the next one!

Will

[JonT]

Great stuff. We did 2100 miles in just over a week last summer (just France/UK though). They're good fun for touring

[inkitin]

What a great trip you've had. I'm massively jealous!

A great testament to the reliability of our cars. Well done for taking it on.

[madbilly]

And now the stats I know you've all been waiting for:
31 mpg!!!!! I couldn't believe it to start with so I went back through all my receipts and it's definitely correct. Amazing! (and to think I was sure it was running rich, I'll have to check to make sure it's not running lean now!)
20p/mile Would have been more but I managed a fill-up in Luxembourg and one in Austria too.

On the subject of fuel, why the difference in RON ratings between UK and Europe for what I would have thought would be the same fuel. For instance, in the UK the standard "super" is 97 RON, whereas on the continent it's 98 RON, but our premium is 95, same as theirs. Their V-Power is 100 RON whereas here it's 99 RON. I also put a quarter of a tank of Aral (BP?) Ultimate 102 in, which could have made a small improvement to the mpg but probably not.

[Fredjohn]

Sounds like a great trip. France has ideal driving roads for Elans. Rarely go on motorways and hardly see any serious traffic. I've just done 2000+ miles from St Malo to Perros Guirec, La Vendee, Rochefort (to see the launch of frigate Hermione: google it), Perigord, Millau (a must to see the bridge) Lascaux Caves, Loire Valley and finally Bayeux tapestry. Weather was mixed but generally good and had hood down most of the time. No real issues with car, used about 2ltrs oil and did 35mpg. Really looking forward to doing a similar trip next year in my newly acquired M100: this trip was done in my 43 year old Elan S4. Who said Lots of trouble usually serious??????