Reporting back...

Just returned from a 3-week trip to Italy with the Disco II and caravan, and
reporting for duty Sah.

Disco performed brilliantly throughout, cruising at 65-ish all day with no
problems. Figures were:

2865 miles driven
659.35 litres of diesel used
19.75 mpg (2 mpg worse than normal UK figure).

Good bits: temp gauge never went above half-way, even pulling the van at
cruising speed in 35 deg all day, or up a hill to a site in S France which
required first gear and full throttle for well over a mile. Saw lots of
Defenders in Tuscany, mainly standard vehicles used on the vineyards and
olive groves. Said hello to them all. Tom Tom was awesome.

Downside: used about a litre of oil - not too bad considering - and about a
litre of coolant, which suggests a leak somewhere. No sign of any leakage,
so must be tiny. (Do they still make Barr's?) Slight worry when there was
a huge drip of water from behind the rear n/s wheel whenever we stopped.
Got underneath, even tasted it (!) - pure water. Worked out in the end
(correctly) that the evaporator for the rear air-con must live there, but
worrying for a time.

I was also a bit concerned at the start about the engine. After all,
putting 24 litres of unleaded into an empty diesel tank isn't the best thing
to do 4 days before you set off, is it? Searched this group and the
interweb, and did all the right things before we set off, and I seem to have
got away with it. (With work and other commitments that week, draining the
tank wasn't an option.)

We'd been promising ourselves this holiday for about 10 years, and it was
fantastic, although we are now totally broke. 1500 unread messages on afl -
'sgonna take a while to get through that.

Back to work tomorrow to earn the money to pay for it. Bugger.

--
Rich
==============================

I don't approve of signatures, so I don't have one.

Richard Brookman <[email protected]> uttered summat worrerz funny
about:
> Just returned from a 3-week trip to Italy with the Disco II and
> caravan, and reporting for duty Sah.
>
> Downside: used about a litre of oil - not too bad considering - and
> about a litre of coolant, which suggests a leak somewhere. No sign
> of any leakage, so must be tiny. (Do they still make Barr's?) Slight
> worry when there was a huge drip of water from behind the rear
> n/s wheel whenever we stopped. Got underneath, even tasted it (!) -
> pure water. Worked out in the end (correctly) that the evaporator
> for the rear air-con must live there, but worrying for a time.

Been there! And probably had the safe oh **ck! reaction. Was my first motor
with Air con though on the Disco 1 and I'd only had it recharged the week
before..... phew!

> We'd been promising ourselves this holiday for about 10 years, and it
> was fantastic, although we are now totally broke. 1500 unread
> messages on afl - 'sgonna take a while to get through that.

We are definately hoping to do Italy. This year the main hols are a Week in
Looe and a Week in Woolacombe back to back to save some pennies for a good
session next year. We've done Biarittz for the last 2 years overland all the
way only taking advantage of the Santanda return the last time so we had
more holiday and less travel. I definately think 3 weeks is right as a
minimum for overland to Italy else it becomes more of a bind than a Holiday.

You doing the Oct unofficial? Could do with swapping some noted on this one.

Lee
--
www.lrproject.com

a.f.l. & 101ers Unofficial October 2006
<http://www.lrproject.com/afl__101_owners_unofficial.htm>

"Anti's - Give
them enough rope and they'll be stuck in a ditch with alot of rope ;-) "

Lee_D wrote:

||| We'd been promising ourselves this holiday for about 10 years, and
||| it was fantastic, although we are now totally broke. 1500 unread
||| messages on afl - 'sgonna take a while to get through that.
||
|| We are definately hoping to do Italy. This year the main hols are a
|| Week in Looe and a Week in Woolacombe back to back to save some
|| pennies for a good session next year. We've done Biarittz for the
|| last 2 years overland all the way only taking advantage of the
|| Santanda return the last time so we had more holiday and less
|| travel. I definately think 3 weeks is right as a minimum for
|| overland to Italy else it becomes more of a bind than a Holiday.

Definitely. We allowed 5 days to get there and 4 to get back (different
routes) which allowed for a couple of nights at a site in France if the mood
took us - which it did. We still had 12 nights on the main site in Italy.
I can give you some site recommendations if you like. Italy is HIGHLY
recommended iif you ain't been before. Food, wine, art, history, views,
people - all A1. And the Italians love kids, which makes a nice change from
the grudging attitude of a lot of the UK.

|| You doing the Oct unofficial? Could do with swapping some noted on
|| this one.

All being well, yes. I'll need to book the holiday at work, and they won't
be pleased! Although the holidays are reasonable (22 days plus BH etc) they
don't like anyone to take more than a week at a time. I put my request for
3 weeks solid to my boss when he was busy with something else, back in
November. When he realised what I had done he was not best pleased, but I
had his signature.

Yes, we'll have a chat around then, DV.

--
Rich
==============================

I don't approve of signatures, so I don't have one.