Preparation for a Long (> 1k miles) Journey

[Steve 940]

Originally Posted by Rversteeg

Just returned from almost three weeks in Scotland. Stunning scenary and not overcrowded. We loved the old ferry at Glenelg and were blessed with beautiful weather at the Isle of Skye for several days. The narrow winding roads are a pleasure to drive and because a 940 is relatively narrow, passing on single track roads was also quite easy.
Taking the ferry from Rotterdam to Hull Scotland is not that far, but all in all we have put about 2500 miles in addition to the already 450K our trusty 940 has covered sofar. With a little bit of planning (myLPG.eu) we only needed to drive 10 miles once on petrol to reach the single LPG station on Skye, the rest we managed on LPG.
As a daily driver our 940 gets its regular maintenance, so I was not overly concerned about the trip. It passed the Dutch equavalent of the MOT with flying colours just 2 weeks before. I did carry some tools and parts I have collected over the years as spare (eg fuel relay, spare ECU, ignition coil), but this is more for ease of mind than really necessary.
It struck me how few 700/900 there are left on the UK roads. I noticed one in Glasgow and passed one on the Motorway going home again last week. Could even have been the same one... In the Dutch roads I encounter at least one every day and in the neighborhood of my hometown I know of at least four in a half a mile radius!

Glad you had a great trip around Scotland, and also to hear the 940 did not cause you any troubles.

Totally agree regarding the relative small footprint of our 940's compared with modern vehicles, very satisfying when we can squeeze past tractors/lorries on country lanes, whereas larger bloated modern stuff have to reverse.

Cheers
Steve

[Forrest]

Originally Posted by barkster1971

Have you got a mortgage in principal arranged to pay for the fuel?

As far as my planned trip is concerned I have worked out that it is approximately half the cost of flying and hiring a car. Roughly speaking, £500 versus £1,000 and I'm sharing the cost with a friend.

Yes, the flights only take about an hour. But they don't. You have to get to the airport, park, go through security, collect baggage, collect a rental car, etc.

The flights also have headline prices of £20 per person each way; but that's at odd times of day without luggage. Think nearer £250 - £300 each return for usable flights. Plus £200 to park at the airport.

The only slight snag is that in 2022 Edinburgh introduced a ULEZ in which you cannot pay to drive in a non-compliant vehicle; you just get fined. However, it has a two year grace period during which no fines will be issued prior to June 2024. Not only can I accept getting some snotty letters from an impotent, woke local authority. I shall positively relish it!

[barkster1971]

give the wiring to the coilpacks a good checking over, they get very crumbly due to their location.

[ascott1]

Hi there,

I'm sure your V90 will be fine. Only minor thing might be to be careful about relying on the AA for recovery, if going out to the Western Isles etc and problems appear on the way up there.

2 years ago I took a V70 to Skye, Harris and Lewis which developed clutch squeal and slip on Harris. I got this diagnosed by a friendly garage in Stornoway but t'Internet seemed to suggest that cars couldn't be recovered using island ferries. (I'm not with the AA through poverty, but don't think insurance companies' recovery would be any better and probably a lot more limited). In our case, the car was still running so I got it carefully onto the ferry to Ullapool then pressed on towards Inverness. In the end we made it to Glasgow where a taxi-type transmission repair shop was able to fix it in a few days.

[Rversteeg]

Originally Posted by griston64

If it was Regent red it could've been me ! We were away on the West coast for a few days as well. I daily my 940 and I hardly ever see any other 940's around Glasgow

Funny enough I quickly forget colours and only the make/model seem to stick in my memory. I believe in both cases it was a dark blue estate.

I was also surprised by the high speeds allowed on UK roads. On most roads 60 mph is allowed, even if there are laybays where people stop and go. In my country 50 mph is the max and on roads with junctions, laybays, houses etc it is more and more limited to 40. Or does the indication "slow" have any legal implication?

Have you got a mortgage in principal arranged to pay for the fuel?

It is even more expensive over here in NL: I pay 1.75 GBP for a ltr of petrol and 62 p/ltr for LPG.
I found prices for LPG in the UK vary a lot. Cheapest around 75 p/ltr, highest price over 1 GBP. With LPG having 25% less energy per ltr, the advantage over a ltr of unleaded petrol at 1.44/ ltr is not that great anymore.

[loki_the_glt]

Originally Posted by Rversteeg

I was also surprised by the high speeds allowed on UK roads. On most roads 60 mph is allowed, even if there are laybays where people stop and go. In my country 50 mph is the max and on roads with junctions, laybays, houses etc it is more and more limited to 40. Or does the indication "slow" have any legal implication?

The "slow" indication is advisory, although in the event of an accident the local constabulary will look unfavourably on anyone who, in their opinion, disregarded it.

[Forrest]

In summary so far it sounds as though some good spares to take are any relevant hoses I have got in stock. I think I have got both top and bottom radiator hoses. I changed the oil cooler hoses (which are quite different to those on a 940) when I changed the oil cooler gaskets to stop a small leak.

Also, some spare coil pack leads. I have got a couple of bags full of cheap Chinese ones which I generally use to dismantle and splice into other similar, but generally less critical, failed connectors. However, they would do a turn if needed.

Does anyone know if the fuel pump relay is the same as on the 940? Ditto the crank position sensor. As far as I can tell the white relay that is a common failure point on the 940 is not used on the whiteblock 960/V90.

Thanks.

[Forrest]

As this holiday is now complete I thought it worth a quick update. The car didn’t quite perform flawlessly but it did not let us down either. In the end the small stock of spares I took consisted of six cheap coil pack leads, a lower radiator hose and a white fuel relay which I don’t think is relevant to the V90 Mk1. Fortunately, we didn’t need any of these!

The route was rural Gloucestershire to Loch Ness then Edinburgh and back home. We used the car every day in the Highlands for getting around but not in Edinburgh as we were a five minute walk from a tram stop.

I neglected to note the mileage when we left but I’m pretty sure we did between 1,500 and 2,000 miles. We did record the spend on petrol in order to split the cost so when I have that figure from my friend I can come up with a more accurate estimate of distance.

The two slight problems we had were a very slight loss of coolant around the reservoir cap in the very hot weather on the way up last week and a return of the periodic P0422 catalyst efficiency error which a new, albeit cheap, replacement cat seemed to have solved since last year.

I don’t think the coolant is getting unduly pressurised. I think it probably was just due to an old cap and hot weather. I’m leaning towards the return of the P0422 error being the rapid deterioration of a cheap cat but will probably try new sensors first.

All in all I think the 26 year old car did exceptionally well on such a long trip in quite gruelling conditions. It’s a shame I won’t be able to do it again for a bit because next year Edinburgh will start fining drivers of non Euro 4 petrol cars and vans. However, the good news is that the Scottish definition of an historic vehicle for LEZ exemption is 30 years not 40, so only four years to wait before I can go back!

[360beast]

Glad you had a great time Forrest, I went up in May to Loch Lomond and it was absolutely stunning and I'll definitely be going back, hopefully every year.

I wouldn't let a LEZ tax put me off of going (luckily the focus is exempt anyway) let's face it for a week's worth of driving your extra expenses will be about £50, not exactly breaking the bank.

[RollingThunder]

Glad your trip went well. I loved our trip to Scotland, we'll probably be back next year - we went in our 850R