I rarely drove through france, my chosen route for italy was Oostende - Aachen - Basel - Milan avoiding france entirely. Most of my other trips were to Schruns and Bochum. I've only driven in France if I've needed to go to somewhere in france. Which I think is once.
Intend to drive to spain sometime, which will involve either a long crossing or driving through France...
Of course, proper maintanance, clean oil, and allowing a proper warm up before revving hard is the most important aspect, though anything run at full power over a long period is going to take its tole abit I would have thought..
Tim..
Stick to the speed limits. I see a speed trap/camera on every section between toll barriers. And gendarmes waiting at about every second or third pay station.
I also see large numbers of Germans standing by the side of the road looking pissed off, and searching their wallets for readies.
This is not a premonition.
True, all my cars get serviced at the same independant garage using OE parts (or upgraded ones in case of brakes or clutches if the wear is a bit excessive) and morning warm up is catered for by 1/4 mile of traffic calming preventing any thrashing...
Heh - it's France getting revenge on the Germans... Some people never forgive...
Correction, it never suffered any engine ills from being driven hard.
Cooking marshmallows on brakes anybody?
Oh and that idling problem, which yours didn't get until higher mileage, 'cos you didn't faff about at light throttle settings? :)
Yours must be unique then, judging on the Passat 2.0 TDI I have riden in.
Come to think of it, even the A8 3.0 TDI, you can feel it at idle.
VAG have yet to master the luxury diesel engine in the same vein as Mercedes, shoot even Volvo's S60 D5 manages a good stab at being invisible at idle. But none of the four pot TDI-badged models have quite got there. Yet.
The threes have an enjoyable thrum about them. You certainly feel them, but they have a weird half a Boxster throb about them.
Oh I've had the front discs smoking nicely on the S70 after a moderately hurried up hill, down dale cross country thrash, and I wasnt unleashing all of the ponys... (T5 spec 15inch discs)
Tim..
SteveH wrote after 70 bazillion posts about how ford are s*it and VW really are wonderful but not quite as wonderful as alfas:
Nomination for funniest UKRCM post of 2006.
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