My Summer Challenge 2011

[320touring]

Originally Posted by robchalmers

ZERO HOUR

The gearbox oild top up helped, so has a new wheel bearing but at the end of the day there are nearly 1200 miles in front of a battered and abused city car.

wish me luck!

(p.s. cable)

Best of British, old Bean!

[euromodder]

Have fun on the trip !

[robchalmers]

firstly and mostly importantly - I survived (obviously....cos i'm writing this!)

so did the Polo

I managed a the downward leg, including a getting it wrong an having a detour. as I took the wrong direction out of the ferry port. 584 miles on 11.45 US gal. 51mpg(us) but it was on fumes. As I restarted at the fuel start the revs shot up as it self-carb'd the air in the fuel pipes!

I had to stop a couple of times due to the smelling gearbox oil - the garage that topped the oil up didn't torque off the drain plug (they flushed it) so It basically did the reaining weekend on what hadn't seaped out. oh and the exhaust fell off just afer Rouen.


Knowing the tank could to the distance and more I decided not to do the same on the way back up - especially as I need to get to Calais through the traffic (360,000 people watched the end of the race at the circuit - one that doesn't have the most modern traffic infrastructure!
I was pretty certain the Car wouldn't make it home through france because I was hearing all kinds of noises so I decided to give it an autobahn economy test/ultimate italian tune-up. I simply turned the radio up and cruised at 120-130kph waiting for the enevitable bang or squeal or crunch of something catastrophic lunching itself
but after just over 4 hours I pulled into Calais..... pretty decent run, and while drafting a Porsche 911GT3 RS (yep) I found the polo goes eerily silent at around 155kph.

the remaining 285miles took 4hr40min and but I only needed a £10(@147p pe litre) splash and dash to get home. but there is still quite a bit left in the tank!

challenge = complete

as soon as I have refuelled the car I'll be able to tell you what the 75mph average was pretty certain its over 45MPGus.

[320touring]

Originally Posted by robchalmers

firstly and mostly importantly - I survived (obviously....cos i'm writing this!)

so did the Polo

I managed a the downward leg, including a getting it wrong an having a detour. as I took the wrong direction out of the ferry port. 584 miles on 11.45 US gal. 51mpg(us) but it was on fumes. As I restarted at the fuel start the revs shot up as it self-carb'd the air in the fuel pipes!

I had to stop a couple of times due to the smelling gearbox oil - the garage that topped the oil up didn't torque off the drain plug (they flushed it) so It basically did the reaining weekend on what hadn't seaped out. oh and the exhaust fell off just afer Rouen.


Knowing the tank could to the distance and more I decided not to do the same on the way back up - especially as I need to get to Calais through the traffic (360,000 people watched the end of the race at the circuit - one that doesn't have the most modern traffic infrastructure!
I was pretty certain the Car wouldn't make it home through france because I was hearing all kinds of noises so I decided to give it an autobahn economy test/ultimate italian tune-up. I simply turned the radio up and cruised at 120-130kph waiting for the enevitable bang or squeal or crunch of something catastrophic lunching itself
but after just over 4 hours I pulled into Calais..... pretty decent run, and while drafting a Porsche 911GT3 RS (yep) I found the polo goes eerily silent at around 155kph.

the remaining 285miles took 4hr40min and but I only needed a £10(@147p pe litre) splash and dash to get home. but there is still quite a bit left in the tank!

challenge = complete

as soon as I have refuelled the car I'll be able to tell you what the 75mph average was pretty certain its over 45MPGus.

Hurrah! gawd bless the derv!

Glad you made it in one piece, and given the cnhance to upgrade the exhanust too- it has been generous!

I remember covering 3000 miles with a sock for a rear topmount in the 320- Radio full blast..

Also, Autobhan stroming behind all sorts of exotica

[robchalmers]

thanks to the smoke -only regs for the MOT on the polo I might ditch the CAT and go stainless

[robchalmers]

And the figures are in

Leg one
61.49MPGuk - 51.19MPGus for 586miles cruising at 65-70mph

Leg two
53.48MPGuk - 44.53MPGus Cruising at 75-80mph Peaking at well beyond the legal limit while chasing exotica through Nord-pas-de-Calais!

both leg completed with around 100kgs worth of camping equipment on board

50+ MPGuk while hooning along loaded to the gills, thats my kind of economy!!

[piers.singer]

Rob, I laughed my head off reading your report, nothing beats truly ropey motoring I wonder, did you find any time at all for some hypermiling? I'm going to guess that the Porsche may have the answer to that one!

[robchalmers]

on the way down I did, eONc down hills, drafting 2750rpm limit, dwl on hills. There isn't much else you can do for pure cruising P&G-ing it would have driven me up the flipping wall if I tried to down for hour after hour!

still, it goes to show how good unstressed diesels are for economy, I'd love to see a petrol car to that kind of speed with that quantity of luggage and return that kind of mileage!

[320touring]

Originally Posted by robchalmers

on the way down I did, eONc down hills, drafting 2750rpm limit, dwl on hills. There isn't much else you can do for pure cruising P&G-ing it would have driven me up the flipping wall if I tried to down for hour after hour!

still, it goes to show how good unstressed diesels are for economy, I'd love to see a petrol car to that kind of speed with that quantity of luggage and return that kind of mileage!

Figures are pretty damn good-top work!

as for your statment above, the 535i managed 35.36 mpg on a 145mile round trip to the unit with an engine crane! and all my tools in it.. P&G with E(on) Glide FTW!

And I can almost guarentee that it'd be happier porsche baiting

[robchalmers]

yeah but theres the sense of achievement doing it in the polo!