hi all,
Just my thoughts after my first really long trip in the Zed. I started in Marbella (extreme south of Spain), went to Toledo, onto Madrid, then to San Sebastian in the extreme North of Spain, over to France, stopped in Bordeaux, onto Germany where I had a nice blast on the Autobahn, got up to around 200km/h for a while and the car felt rock solid with the feeling there was still power there. On the way back we stopped in Lyon, then Barcelona, Valencia and finally back to Marbella. In total it was around 5200 kms. My car is a 2003 3.0 manual with around 125k kms on the clock. I averaged around 8L per 100km, mostly 98 fuel and found the car really comfortable to drive on the motorway, twisties, around town etc. It is amazing how much stuff you can get into the car if you are creative. My GF is from Germany so we brought some of her stuff back with us and used every spare inch of space and were amazed how much you can get into the car. The Satnav was excellent, we never used a map once and found the cruise control really good on the long motorway stretches.
Recently I changed my tyres from the runflats to a brand I didn't know, the Star Performer UHP. I have 18" 108's. I did quite a bit of research and was going to go for the Falkens but thought I'd see what else was around. I saw the Star Performers and I got my GF to check the German sites to see what kind of comments they had as they are pretty serious about their cars. Overall the comments were really positive and used on some pretty big cars and the price difference between the ones I bought and the Falkens was pretty big. I don't do track days and don't drive that hard so I thought I'd give them a go and if they turned out to be crap just replace them. Well now that I've done over 8,000 - 9,000 kms and this trip with some high speed autobahn driving, driving in rain etc I have to say I am really impressed and they feel a lot better than the runflats I replaced. I can't compare them to the Falkens as I have no experience of them but now that the tyres have run in they hold the road well, I have pushed them quite hard driving up the twisty mountain road where I live and they hold the road very well. If anyone is considering them I have no complaints and provided they continue to behave I would consider them again. Here in Spain I paid 330.00 euros for all 4 tyres delivered and 50.00 euros to have them fitted. I also had them aligned for another 35.00 which I would highly recommend.
A quick comment about the Autobahn and driving in Germany, I think they have a good system, around town people really drive within the speed limits and in an orderly and safe way, on the autobahn drivers can put their foot down, if they see you coming in the mirror they just move out of the way and let you go. I felt safer on the autobahn at 200 then I do on some of Spain's motorways doing 120 with some of the lunatic drivers around me.
All in all great fun driving the car, I am still really impressed with it after two years and over 60,000 kms and even though the Zed is now 7 years old it still got lots of looks. Reliability wise the car was perfect, no problems at all and I look forward to doing more of these trips. :driving:
Just my thoughts after my first really long trip in the Zed. I started in Marbella (extreme south of Spain), went to Toledo, onto Madrid, then to San Sebastian in the extreme North of Spain, over to France, stopped in Bordeaux, onto Germany where I had a nice blast on the Autobahn, got up to around 200km/h for a while and the car felt rock solid with the feeling there was still power there. On the way back we stopped in Lyon, then Barcelona, Valencia and finally back to Marbella. In total it was around 5200 kms. My car is a 2003 3.0 manual with around 125k kms on the clock. I averaged around 8L per 100km, mostly 98 fuel and found the car really comfortable to drive on the motorway, twisties, around town etc. It is amazing how much stuff you can get into the car if you are creative. My GF is from Germany so we brought some of her stuff back with us and used every spare inch of space and were amazed how much you can get into the car. The Satnav was excellent, we never used a map once and found the cruise control really good on the long motorway stretches.
Recently I changed my tyres from the runflats to a brand I didn't know, the Star Performer UHP. I have 18" 108's. I did quite a bit of research and was going to go for the Falkens but thought I'd see what else was around. I saw the Star Performers and I got my GF to check the German sites to see what kind of comments they had as they are pretty serious about their cars. Overall the comments were really positive and used on some pretty big cars and the price difference between the ones I bought and the Falkens was pretty big. I don't do track days and don't drive that hard so I thought I'd give them a go and if they turned out to be crap just replace them. Well now that I've done over 8,000 - 9,000 kms and this trip with some high speed autobahn driving, driving in rain etc I have to say I am really impressed and they feel a lot better than the runflats I replaced. I can't compare them to the Falkens as I have no experience of them but now that the tyres have run in they hold the road well, I have pushed them quite hard driving up the twisty mountain road where I live and they hold the road very well. If anyone is considering them I have no complaints and provided they continue to behave I would consider them again. Here in Spain I paid 330.00 euros for all 4 tyres delivered and 50.00 euros to have them fitted. I also had them aligned for another 35.00 which I would highly recommend.
A quick comment about the Autobahn and driving in Germany, I think they have a good system, around town people really drive within the speed limits and in an orderly and safe way, on the autobahn drivers can put their foot down, if they see you coming in the mirror they just move out of the way and let you go. I felt safer on the autobahn at 200 then I do on some of Spain's motorways doing 120 with some of the lunatic drivers around me.
All in all great fun driving the car, I am still really impressed with it after two years and over 60,000 kms and even though the Zed is now 7 years old it still got lots of looks. Reliability wise the car was perfect, no problems at all and I look forward to doing more of these trips. :driving:
