Back from our schlep down to Lake Garda and back, which took the BM over 10,000 miles and, thanks to the wonderful Autobahn, allowed me to properly stretch its legs for the first time.
The first leg of the trip down involved an early (7:20) tunnel crossing, and then a blast across into Belgium, and down through Germany to our overnight hotel in the charming Bavarian town of Ottobeuren. Thanks to horrendous traffic around Liege, and most of the north of Germany's Autobahn network being dug up, we finally got to the hotel at just before 9 pm, some three hours later than our sat nav suggested.
Roadworks aside, the German Autobahns really are superb, and travelling as we did on a Sunday, were free of HGVs to boot. The lane discipline is an object lesson in how things should be. No lane hogging, no dawdling, decisive manoeuvres, and generally excellent observation. This results in much better utilisation of the road space, as all lanes tend to be occupied, and a flow of traffic that I haven't seen on a similarly busy UK motorway in my entire driving career. None of the panic braking, caterpillar effect, myopic lane changes causing others to brake or swerve that are daily occurences on the M3 for me. Just a number of cars travelling with decent space around them (slow overtakers aside, who tend to get tailgated), and in the correct lane.
Plus of course, there is the speed limit situation, which is a great novelty for non-residents. Although much of the Autobahn now carries 120 km/h speed restrictions, there are still plenty of stretches which don't, and which give you the option to cruise at a steady 100-110 mph without standing out in any way (various AMG Mercedes, Porsches and Audis will come past you like you are doing 50 on a UK motorway), or to answer the fifteen-year old in all of us by finding out "what she'll do". The answer in the case of my 320d, with two adults, two kids, and a very full boot, is an indicated 146 mph, which the sat nav logged as 139 mph. The car passes 100 mph so effortlessly and strongly, that it feels built for this kind of driving.
After a pleasant evening in Ottobeuren, a meal and a few delicious Weissbiers and a wander around the town including its spectacular Abbey the next morning, we hit the road again for the relatively short hop into Austria, onto the Fernpass to cross the Alps, and onto the Brenner Pass heading for Italy. It's hard to drive across the Alps, not because the roads are challenging or difficult, but because the scenery is so breathtaking that it's hard to keep focus on the road at times.
A coming together between a BMW 5 series and a campervan on one of the hairpins closed the road for an hour, so we got out of the car and had a look around, finding ourselves in sweltering 37°C heat, on the side of a mountain, with something like a sheer 200ft drop over the waist high barrier to our right, and a sheer cliff face to our left, the road seemingly clinging on for dear life to the side of the mountain. Even though the effect was spoiled slightly by the miles of hot, shimmering metal and frustrated drivers in the queue, to see both the sheer beauty, and the craziness of this landscape, and the almost impossible angles up close was quite an experience.
The rest of the journey down was uneventful, and three and a bit hours later, we were unloading the car and starting to relax. The long schlep completed, we spent the next 9 days exploring locally, taking in some spectacular Italian mountain roads, a bit of Autostrada (Italians are the masters of tailgating). We visited lake Tenno, Lake Garda, Verona, Rovereto, and several other places, all within an hour's drive of our base.
The return leg involved an early (5 am) start, then a basic reverse of the route down, but instead of peeling off into Belgium, we continued North and headed for Aachen, our scheduled overnight stop. It was uneventful, apart from our four year old Sat Nav not being aware of a major road closure near Nesselwang in Bavaria, which initially looked like we were going to have to backtrack about 25 miles to get around. However, we improvised using "sense of direction" and some alarmingly narrow country lanes, popping out just a few hundred metres from an Autobahn junction that would take us in the right direction. Much high fiving and backslapping after this little adventure. :-)
After a leisurely breakfast, we set off for the Tunnel and home. The route from Aachen took us well to the North of the perrmanent traffic jam that is the Liege area for a brief soujourn into the southern tip of Holland, and then into Belgium near Genk. We reckon this would have saved us hours on the trip down, as the roads were incredibly quiet. By 2:30 pm we were parked up at the tunnel terminal, cursing our inability to get an earlier shuttle than the 5:20 we had booked, and wondering how much more wine we could squeeze into the boot in the interim. After a delayed crossing, we finally arrived home at around 7:15 in the evening.
The car comes with a fuel card, which unfortunately only works in the UK. Therefore, the fuel abroad was coming out of my own pocket. I'd joked that I wanted to get on the Tunnel coming home on fumes, and amusingly that's exactly how it worked out. We had a gallon in a can in the boot, so playing fuel roulette wasn't too much of a risk. I'd brimmed the tank in Austria, right on the border with Italy. When we got to the tunnel, the car was showing 15 miles remaining of the same tank. 694 miles, five countries, an Alpine pass, three figure speeds on the Autobahn, and a more sedate schlep from Aachen to the tunnel, all fully laden, and it had made it on one a single tankful, just.
When I got off the tunnel, I pulled straight into the filling station and got 55 litres into the 57 litre tank. This was the only semi-accurate record of consumption that I got on the whole trip, which worked out at about 57 mpg. I'd turned off the auto reset on the journey computer when we first left, and this is what it was reporting for the whole trip:
Duration: 41:29hr
Distance: 2118mls
Cons: 56.4mpg
Speed: 52.4mph
Whether it was the autobahn thrashing blasting out the cobwebs, or the additional 2,000 miles, the car is running beautifully now. It feels stronger and smoother than ever, and incredibly is still 10k off its first service. More importantly, it didn't skip a beat on the journey, and is still showing a "MAX" reading on the oil level.
I expected the car to be good on the Autobahn (even at 140 it is stable, quiet-ish and settled), but what impressed us was its comfort. The seats seem rather plain and ordinary, but they clearly do the job as nobody complained of stiffness or aches even after a 10hr day sitting in them. The long legged gearing and incredibly gutsy engine make light work of distance, and noise levels even at a ton allow comfortable conversation without raising voices. Also, at no point was the humble eco 2.0 diesel ever wanting for power, unless speeds were the far side of 125 mph where the acceleration tailed off dramatically.
It's not been painless, this first six months with the car, but all of our respect grew for it over these past few weeks. It covers distances effortlessly, and its engine seems to just shrug off loads and hills in a way you simply wouldn't expect for its output.
A great trip, helped in no small part by what, even I have to admit despite being less than complementary about it in the past, is an impressive car.
Last edited by: VxFan on Wed 5 Sep 12 at 01:35
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BMW 3-Series E90 - F30 320d - 2118 miles.. new
BMW 3-Series E90 - F30 320d - 2118 mile.. new