3,000 mile road trip

[MrTibbs]

Hi all,

Just back from a 3,000 (well, 2,900 miles but close enough) road trip around Europe in my 924S.

We drove from Sheffield in the North of England, through France, Belgium, Germany (110 MPH cruising for a bit), to Salzburg, then to Lake Bled in Slovenia, down to Venice, then Lake Garda, up to the Dolomites for some climbing, then back to England through France.

Saw some cool stuff on the trip, including the old start/finish on the Reims motor circuit.

Due to having to take 3 week's worth of clothes and camping equipment I took minimal spares (really just spare bulbs, fuses and some emergency stuff like hose clamps).

Only problems I had were:
* Passenger door mirror nearly came off - noticed it was loose one day and you could lift it off the mounting point. There's a really annoying bolt with a spring that lets it fold in when parked that had worked loose. The wires go through this and I had minimal tools and time so I had to cut the wires to re-tighten the bolts.

* Just after giving it the beans through the Reims start/finish the handbrake on the passenger side started grinding. It had chewed up the shoe retaining springs again (2nd time in a year). The handbrake seems to be one of the most troublesome bits on the whole car. It was the last day of the holiday and we had to drive about 500 miles so I just jacked up the car and removed all the handbrake stuff from that wheel.

* Fuel tank repair I'd tried didn't hold so we could fit about 25 litres (5 gallons). As we didn't want to run out and have to walk to the petrol station, this meant filling up about every 90 or 100 miles (more often in the mountains). We estimate we 'filled up' (topped up really) about 30 times.

Will try to post some pics of the more interesting bits.

Was a great holiday with some superb driving (my highlight was driving the Furka Pass - the one they drive over in 'Goldfinger').

Mike

[MrTibbs]

[racer]

Guess you have 3 items to address, but other than that is sounds like it as a fun trip!

[Aufenbahn]

Hey - sounds like you had fun. The passes are way more fun than the tunnels. Did you see many other 924/944 on the trip?

[MrTibbs]

Saw surprisingly few 924/944s (and no 968s at all). Only remember seeing one 924 on a pass in Italy the whole time we were outside the UK. Saw a few on the drive down to Dover and the drive back. Saw loads of boxsters, the horrible Cayennes and a couple of Panameras (made me throw up when I saw them). And tons of 911s.

So it seems the place in Europe with the most 924/944s might be the UK.

The car got some attention on the trip, a couple of people spoke to me about it as they remembered them from years back. And people were generally interested in the fact the driver sits on the right.

Saw a nice group of little fiat 850 coupes at the top of the Furka pass.

Mike

[Oringo]

That sounds like a great trip! Too bad we didn't cross paths.

After coming back from holiday to Spain where I saw a very nice looking red 924S in Madrid (but boy did those belts whine loudly!), I did a little long-range taxi service for my sons and did a Paris-Provence-Paris, then Paris-Le Touquet-Paris in the 924S I bought in june, and did a seals/belts/waterpump/oil cooler job on in July. It was a good 3000 km shake down run, and I'm happilly surprised that the car has been running great and I've had no problems!

Coming back from Provence the highway was totally jammed so I drove back through the foothills of Provence on the small country roads, that alone was worth all the expense and work I put into the car and then some!

I was followed by a blue 944 for a little while on one of the country roads, and we honked and waved at each other when we went different ways, otherwise I saw a 968 on the ring road around Paris when I got back. Of course I saw quite a few 911s, Boxters and those ugly 4x4 trucks, but of course no headlight flashes or waves from those guys, for whom I guess our cars aren't real Poshas...

[MrTibbs]

Sounds good. Closest I probably got to you was Reims.

The back roads are really good fun. To be honest a lot of the passes were a slight disappointment as they were clogged up with motorhomes. And unless you drive way too fast and slide the back round it's a lot of slow turns that don't exactly show off the handling of the car.

No-one in a newer Porsche gave us a wave, but we got a double thumbs up from a couple in a very nice late 60's 911 which was nice. And a guy in a new Lotus parked next to us waiting for the euro tunnel and said he had a lot of respect for the 924 - and he was going home after a week's holiday doing 5 trackdays at various tracks in France.