Roro
Sebring
- Joined
- 1 Oct 2010
- Messages
- 7,493
So, I just got back from a 'spontaneous' 1500 mile road trip to Europe! First time I've ever used the channel tunnel, and glad to say it most definitely won't be the last!
I covered 4 countries in 4 days (not including the UK), and the route was Calais to Bruges, then down to Augsburg to see a mate, then up to Luxembourg then back to Calais and then home to London.
The autobahns were great, in fact the majority of the motorways on the trip were brilliant, really made the M20 on the journey home feel like a thrown together piece of crap from a developing country. I didn't manage to get time to do much A/B road driving on the trip, as I was generally in too much of a rush to get from A to B, but the roads I did sample around Germany and Luxembourg were excellent - velvety smooth tarmac with sweeping bends. Oh, and often stunning scenery as well.
My next trip over will definitely involve more back roads, and i will be sure to check the 'Avoid Motorway' option on the satnav. Speaking of which, the satnav was frikkin awesome, it guided me without error around the 4 different countries. This was the first time I had ever taken a car abroad and driven on the wrong side, and I found the satnav gave me more confidence. Although I did also write "KEEP RIGHT" on a piece of paper in big letters, and wedge it under the sports chrono egg timer to help me to avoid doing anything stupid.
The GT3 performed faultlessly and was an amazing machine on the trip. The only thing that caused a bit of alarm was when I stopped off to top up the tank one time. It was around half-full but thought I would fill up as there was a petrol station coming up ahead (I was paranoid about running out of fuel on the trip for some reason). The pump clicked to tell me the tank was full, so I placed the nozzle back on the pump. I turned round and petrol was flowing out of the fuel tank. I thought thats very strange (... actually... no, it was more like WHAT THE FFFAACKK?!?) and started stuffing tissue in to stop the flow. But then every time I removed the tissues it carried on flowing out, there must have been air trapped in the system or something. I must say that the European Porsche Assist office were next to useless and could offer no advice as the 'technical team' office was closed (???). They suggested they could send someone out, but i didn't fancy waiting an hour. In the end I just replaced the cap as petrol was still seeping out and thought I'd just hope for the best. I paid for the fuel (even though most had probably fallen out...), got back in the car, turned the key and.... Everything was fine. No issues at all. Hopefully that won't happen again, I've filled up since then and no issues.
Speaking of fuel, I haven't added up the receipts, but I think I spent around £250ish on fuel for the entire trip. Luxembourg petrol prices were dirt cheap, make sure your tank is empty if you ever drive over - 95 was about €1.25 and 98 was around €1.30 / litre I averaged 28.5mpg, which was mainly free flowing motorway driving split between slow cruises around 70-80mph and long stretches of blitzing it around 150/160mph. Highest I managed was just over 175, it was difficult to get above that as there was a fair amount of traffic over the weekend. Plus I only did those speeds when there were only a few other cars around. The handling was very lively at those sorts of speeds as one would expect! Still quite secure though, I wouldn't have gone that fast had I not felt comfortable with it all.
There were quite a few tunnels which meant I had to drop a few gears to hear the engine scream, I'm sure that probably used a fair bit of fuel. How anyone can own a car like this and not burn fuel for the hell of it, I'll never know, especially with a car that sounds this good. A couple of weeks back I unplugged the exhaust valves, and it sounded good on the trip. It was quite boomy at around 2,500rpm, which sometimes got a little tiring, but the trick is to avoid that band in the rev range (obviously). Just drive faster...!?
I had the car checked out by an OPC the morning I left, to check if there were any issues that needed sorting prior to doing so. I'm very glad I did this. Firstly, the check revealed that the engine needed 2.5 litres of oil, but secondly and more importantly, I had a nail embedded in one of my rear tyres. So I shelled out £800 for 2 new rear tyres... I prefer not to think about the possibilities had I not booked the car in for that health check...
First thing on my to do list next weekend is to give the car a good scrub. I have never seen so many dead bugs splattered over the front of a car before. I had to make a couple of stops on the autobahns purely just to scrape bug death-stains from the windscreen.
I did briefly think today about the effect of the mileage on the car's value, but then I remembered why I bought it in the first place, which was to drive it!
I covered 4 countries in 4 days (not including the UK), and the route was Calais to Bruges, then down to Augsburg to see a mate, then up to Luxembourg then back to Calais and then home to London.
The autobahns were great, in fact the majority of the motorways on the trip were brilliant, really made the M20 on the journey home feel like a thrown together piece of crap from a developing country. I didn't manage to get time to do much A/B road driving on the trip, as I was generally in too much of a rush to get from A to B, but the roads I did sample around Germany and Luxembourg were excellent - velvety smooth tarmac with sweeping bends. Oh, and often stunning scenery as well.
My next trip over will definitely involve more back roads, and i will be sure to check the 'Avoid Motorway' option on the satnav. Speaking of which, the satnav was frikkin awesome, it guided me without error around the 4 different countries. This was the first time I had ever taken a car abroad and driven on the wrong side, and I found the satnav gave me more confidence. Although I did also write "KEEP RIGHT" on a piece of paper in big letters, and wedge it under the sports chrono egg timer to help me to avoid doing anything stupid.
The GT3 performed faultlessly and was an amazing machine on the trip. The only thing that caused a bit of alarm was when I stopped off to top up the tank one time. It was around half-full but thought I would fill up as there was a petrol station coming up ahead (I was paranoid about running out of fuel on the trip for some reason). The pump clicked to tell me the tank was full, so I placed the nozzle back on the pump. I turned round and petrol was flowing out of the fuel tank. I thought thats very strange (... actually... no, it was more like WHAT THE FFFAACKK?!?) and started stuffing tissue in to stop the flow. But then every time I removed the tissues it carried on flowing out, there must have been air trapped in the system or something. I must say that the European Porsche Assist office were next to useless and could offer no advice as the 'technical team' office was closed (???). They suggested they could send someone out, but i didn't fancy waiting an hour. In the end I just replaced the cap as petrol was still seeping out and thought I'd just hope for the best. I paid for the fuel (even though most had probably fallen out...), got back in the car, turned the key and.... Everything was fine. No issues at all. Hopefully that won't happen again, I've filled up since then and no issues.
Speaking of fuel, I haven't added up the receipts, but I think I spent around £250ish on fuel for the entire trip. Luxembourg petrol prices were dirt cheap, make sure your tank is empty if you ever drive over - 95 was about €1.25 and 98 was around €1.30 / litre I averaged 28.5mpg, which was mainly free flowing motorway driving split between slow cruises around 70-80mph and long stretches of blitzing it around 150/160mph. Highest I managed was just over 175, it was difficult to get above that as there was a fair amount of traffic over the weekend. Plus I only did those speeds when there were only a few other cars around. The handling was very lively at those sorts of speeds as one would expect! Still quite secure though, I wouldn't have gone that fast had I not felt comfortable with it all.
There were quite a few tunnels which meant I had to drop a few gears to hear the engine scream, I'm sure that probably used a fair bit of fuel. How anyone can own a car like this and not burn fuel for the hell of it, I'll never know, especially with a car that sounds this good. A couple of weeks back I unplugged the exhaust valves, and it sounded good on the trip. It was quite boomy at around 2,500rpm, which sometimes got a little tiring, but the trick is to avoid that band in the rev range (obviously). Just drive faster...!?
I had the car checked out by an OPC the morning I left, to check if there were any issues that needed sorting prior to doing so. I'm very glad I did this. Firstly, the check revealed that the engine needed 2.5 litres of oil, but secondly and more importantly, I had a nail embedded in one of my rear tyres. So I shelled out £800 for 2 new rear tyres... I prefer not to think about the possibilities had I not booked the car in for that health check...
First thing on my to do list next weekend is to give the car a good scrub. I have never seen so many dead bugs splattered over the front of a car before. I had to make a couple of stops on the autobahns purely just to scrape bug death-stains from the windscreen.
I did briefly think today about the effect of the mileage on the car's value, but then I remembered why I bought it in the first place, which was to drive it!
