hi all
just back from a nice trip to france surfing and cruising the villages round and about.
The lead up to the trip was not fun. 5 nights 3 hours sleep, working from 5 straight after work, almost a divorce i was not good company! Mainly rebuilding large parts of engine ( i think i can now say its no longer an airspeed engine! ), installing the interior and wiring in split charge system.
I covered 1500 miles almost dead on, 55-60 mph cruise, longest single stint was 8 hours straight, stopped to refuel only bus drove nice all the way. No real issues, goes 55-60 everywhere, some hills it got hot 115-120 deg c but quickly cooled again.
Just finished the calcs with the recipts and mileage takings along the way and we averaged 28.5 mpg loaded with the 'rack which im happy with some more time with the af meter ill get it better, a bit rich atm.
We had a few hiccups, day one the breather pipe broke (perished as it was cheap) i switched that for some spare hose and off we went.
Day 2 after a 15 hour sleep i was normalish again.. done a 8 hour blast heading south for some awesume surf in the biscay bay, thought we'd safe some time using the toll roads..
driving up to one at 60.. no breaks.. thank god for dual circuit we stopped just without incident.. I found a brake flare on the rear metal pipe had sheared off. had to crawl it off the toll road as the recovery guys dont help, spent 3 hours after getting a tow truck! The rescue comp got us a hotel for the night nice. All i can say is we wont be using HIC insurance's europe brake down again. all they had to do was tow the van 5KM in morning. it was the first in the pound.. they wouldnt tell us what garage it was going to, but told it it would be there at 9 to get fixed.
Long story, but we found it destined for a VW dealer, no good as we called the dealer, they dont have spares nor the abilty to make some brake line! Duh! so a 630 at night found out the van had been left outside the VW dealer got dropped at 530 after they closed.
Rather not happy, Finally got the assistance comp to take the van to a proper VW chap.. (made it sound like they done us a massive favor! )
Anyways, if you are ever in the shit on the west of france pop in and see tony at Bugs-are-us.net the nicest VW i have ever met neither of us spoke much of the other language butwe got through, had a laugh and it restored a little faith in the VW garages, after a run of them I happened to be conned by he was different, waited till we got there well after 7 that night, replaced the line bled the brakes and fixed all the problems the tow truck driver casued towing the van.
The bill was soo cheap. amazing guy, go there.. great day out for the kids lol ! anyhoo writted a thank you letter and just getting it translated now by a propper french person before i send it.
Our holiday went on thanks to him, the van gets hot in the 35 deg heat.. so a oil cooler is on the cards for next time, but the rest was great. Beer was cold, fridge and the fans/extraction worked like a charm and the rear popout window is with its weight in gold!
Few pics on here for yous chaps.
Ill be filling a claim formally via HIC, my sump, sender, oil plate, exhaust is fooked thanks to the driver who didn't take much care at all. prolly harassing him all day via the euro assistance is the cause but no excuse, he managed to tow the van 15KM without a problem the night before!
Hard days camping and a hard days surfing. !
just back from a nice trip to france surfing and cruising the villages round and about.
The lead up to the trip was not fun. 5 nights 3 hours sleep, working from 5 straight after work, almost a divorce i was not good company! Mainly rebuilding large parts of engine ( i think i can now say its no longer an airspeed engine! ), installing the interior and wiring in split charge system.
I covered 1500 miles almost dead on, 55-60 mph cruise, longest single stint was 8 hours straight, stopped to refuel only bus drove nice all the way. No real issues, goes 55-60 everywhere, some hills it got hot 115-120 deg c but quickly cooled again.
Just finished the calcs with the recipts and mileage takings along the way and we averaged 28.5 mpg loaded with the 'rack which im happy with some more time with the af meter ill get it better, a bit rich atm.
We had a few hiccups, day one the breather pipe broke (perished as it was cheap) i switched that for some spare hose and off we went.
Day 2 after a 15 hour sleep i was normalish again.. done a 8 hour blast heading south for some awesume surf in the biscay bay, thought we'd safe some time using the toll roads..
driving up to one at 60.. no breaks.. thank god for dual circuit we stopped just without incident.. I found a brake flare on the rear metal pipe had sheared off. had to crawl it off the toll road as the recovery guys dont help, spent 3 hours after getting a tow truck! The rescue comp got us a hotel for the night nice. All i can say is we wont be using HIC insurance's europe brake down again. all they had to do was tow the van 5KM in morning. it was the first in the pound.. they wouldnt tell us what garage it was going to, but told it it would be there at 9 to get fixed.
Long story, but we found it destined for a VW dealer, no good as we called the dealer, they dont have spares nor the abilty to make some brake line! Duh! so a 630 at night found out the van had been left outside the VW dealer got dropped at 530 after they closed.
Rather not happy, Finally got the assistance comp to take the van to a proper VW chap.. (made it sound like they done us a massive favor! )
Anyways, if you are ever in the shit on the west of france pop in and see tony at Bugs-are-us.net the nicest VW i have ever met neither of us spoke much of the other language butwe got through, had a laugh and it restored a little faith in the VW garages, after a run of them I happened to be conned by he was different, waited till we got there well after 7 that night, replaced the line bled the brakes and fixed all the problems the tow truck driver casued towing the van.
The bill was soo cheap. amazing guy, go there.. great day out for the kids lol ! anyhoo writted a thank you letter and just getting it translated now by a propper french person before i send it.
Our holiday went on thanks to him, the van gets hot in the 35 deg heat.. so a oil cooler is on the cards for next time, but the rest was great. Beer was cold, fridge and the fans/extraction worked like a charm and the rear popout window is with its weight in gold!
Few pics on here for yous chaps.
Ill be filling a claim formally via HIC, my sump, sender, oil plate, exhaust is fooked thanks to the driver who didn't take much care at all. prolly harassing him all day via the euro assistance is the cause but no excuse, he managed to tow the van 15KM without a problem the night before!
Hard days camping and a hard days surfing. !