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Post by Deleted on Aug 11, 2017 8:57:35 GMT
EGR could be a good call. We'll have to make a policy decision on whether we spend more money on this car (the parking sensors are acting up again, as they have done at intervals throughout our time with the car) if we really are going to swap it this year. Parking sensors have never worked properly on mine. I have taken the fuse out. Fixed. Also, there have been fewer non-Y chromosome related parking scrapes since then. Like burglar alarms, I simply don't believe there's any point to them. |
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Post by Deleted on Aug 11, 2017 9:00:28 GMT
We were in same part of France as WDB (Ain 01) last week. Berlingo performed flawlessly mechanically with or without caravan but we chickened out of exiting Gex via the Col de Faucille taking the longer route via Bellegarde sur Vaseline Valserine. Apart from heat curtailing activity on two wheels or two feet we picked up a stone chip on windscreen coming round Rouen on way out that, while in Ain, turned into a crack that spread with every operation of screenwash. Got it replaced at local Cit garage with only one linguistic hitch; the guy on reception heard my fracture dans la pare brise as a facture - there is an invoice in my windscreen - but we got there in end. Still waiting to find out how LV react to E600 bill which I was advised to submit on my return. Hard cheese on the screen, Brompterooney. Ours picked up a chip right in the corner last October on the M6. Invisible as it was on the black edge. The crack started to become visible a few months after that, and I decided to replace the screen before going to France this summer, in case it went completely whilst abroad.
Glad to hear your Citroens continue to perform reliably for you. Could quite fancy a DS5 myself.
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Post by tyrednexited on Aug 11, 2017 9:02:57 GMT
Could quite fancy a DS5 myself. ....if you go for a DS21, I could be in the queue before you, shonky or not........  |
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Post by Deleted on Aug 11, 2017 9:17:06 GMT
Bof.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 11, 2017 12:43:07 GMT
a Decapotable, surely?
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Post by tyrednexited on Aug 11, 2017 13:05:40 GMT
Mais non! Et aussi pas le Safari. Bl**dy hell, I can't keep the French up. The Safari could be a starter for a discussion about how a good-looking car can be totally destroyed by releasing it as an 'estate' model. I feel a thread change to "does my bum look big in this?" coming on.  |
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WDB
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Post by WDB on Aug 11, 2017 13:34:36 GMT
Only seen one CX so far on this trip, a mid-80s saloon with the ugly new bumpers. There's an Ami 8 estate round here, though, and a couple of Renault 4s. I suppose the mountain climate isn't as kind to old French metal as the warmer air further south.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 11, 2017 13:41:45 GMT
Funnily enough I saw a shagged out silver CX Safari at M4 J11 last night, on Portuguese plates. No, sorry, the plates were on it (don't want to wake the Pronoun Police from his slumber). It looked almost small and fragile next to ordinary modern cars around it.
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WDB
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Post by WDB on Aug 15, 2017 6:58:19 GMT
Home last night, after four countries (would've been five if traffic hadn't been lighter on the route that didn't cut across the southern tip of the Netherlands) and 450 miles on the final day. No reappearance of the engine light, and fuel consumption in the high 30s was back to about normal for this car on a long run. So I don't think there's a major underlying problem.
Funnily enough, our Mercedes seemed less at home in Germany than France, and this tends to confirm my view that it's time for a change. German motorways have no tolls - not the A61 and A4 that we used yesterday, anyway. This means they have less perfect surfaces and less comfortable rest areas, but they're also much busier.
The HGVs are much better disciplined, and generally don't cause the obstruction they do on a two-lane UK motorway, but there are a lot of them to pass. Pulling in to make room for faster traffic to pass (I'm supposed to keep to 120 with the bike carrier aboard) then means pulling out to pass the next lorry, which the E220, close to its maximum gross weight, can find a bit of a struggle, and I had to let quite a few overtaking opportunities go to avoid inconveniencing the car approaching from behind.
I think the extra oomph of a six-cylinder engine would make all the difference here. The 220 has to drop a gear and paddle hard to get from 90 to 120 while the Audi (yes, they have them in Germany too) gets larger in the mirror. This is a small problem, of course, but it makes progress less restful than it might be. It wouldn't make me junk a 220 I'd just bought, but given that I have a choice to make between a 220 and a 350 for the next car, this makes me more sure than ever that the 350 is the one to have.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 15, 2017 12:32:05 GMT
Having driven a 220, I realised that whilst its performance was at least adequate, the extra ooomph of the 350 was worth every penny and the moderately reduced mpg. Still mpg in the high 30s for cruising at 75mph, heavily loaded and with a bike carrier is pretty good.
What I find remarkable is that I was getting about 20mpg in my 3.0 Outback and now I get over 30mpg in a bigger, more powerful and faster E350 (both figures based upon my long term mainly urban driving).
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WDB
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Post by WDB on Aug 15, 2017 13:53:06 GMT
The E220 is certainly adequately quick nearly all the time, especially with only one person aboard and if that person is as svelte and lightweight as Humph... ...says he is. So perhaps complaining that it feels like it's working hard accelerating to overtaking speed with a full load is a tad unfair. But since I'm considering a CLS, and the difference in purchase price and running costs for a 350 over a 220 is so slight, I am wondering why I'd settle for cotton when I can afford silk. Still mpg in the high 30s for cruising at 75mph, heavily loaded and with a bike carrier is pretty good. I think so too. I was a little concerned by a low-mid 30s figure on the way out, which I suspect is the result of the way Mrs B1 uses the the car as her suburban runabout and never really stretches it. A bit of a shakeout in the Alps got it breathing better again, hence the improvement on the way home. And as for the bike rack, as I've commented before, this is the absolute best reason for having it on the back. Not only does the car remain quiet and stable, with the bikes in view as a reminder and no height impediment to using the 30 gates at péage stations, but they are in the slipstream of the car, where they contribute little drag and no discernible noise at all. I doubt the fuel saving over eight trips has quite covered the cost of detachable towbars for two cars, but I really wouldn't want them anywhere else. I suppose I ought to weigh against the £500 cost of another towbar for the next car the cost of a few return shipments of the bikes to our destination, so that we could travel without them, but I don't think we'd tolerate the time this would steal from our holiday. And we'd still have to pick the bikes up somewhere, and drop them off at the end, and I can't think where we'd have done that anywhere near where we stayed this time; I saw one solitary FedEx van in the village in two weeks. |
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Post by Deleted on Aug 15, 2017 15:18:32 GMT
Funny, I didn't come across any height restricted peage gates on my trip this year. I have seen them in the past, though.
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Post by tyrednexited on Nov 20, 2017 15:03:13 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Nov 20, 2017 16:05:05 GMT
Oh sheer loveliness.... That is one classic car.
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WDB
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Post by WDB on Nov 20, 2017 16:16:34 GMT
Needs the palm fronds, though, don't you think? It would look a bit sad and lost in Wokingham on a wet Wednesday.
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