Mon 21st Mar - Road Trip Dallas, TX to Martha's Vineyard, MA
#1
03-20-2016, 09:22 PM
Mon 21st Mar - Road Trip Dallas, TX to Martha's Vineyard, MA
Road Trip to Drop off a Bulldog Pup from Dallas to Martha's Vineyard.
Total Distance = 3583 miles, Pretty much all Interstate.
Route = Get on I-30 E in Garland from E Scyene Rd, Clay Rd, Collins Rd and Bobtown Rd, 18 min (8.9 mi)
Continue on I-30 E. Take I-40 E, I-81 N, I-78 E and I-95 N to MA-28 S in Bourne 26 h (1,771 mi)
Follow MA-28 S to your destination in Ferry Rd, Falmouth, MA.
And back, probably 5 or 6 days in total. I may take a detour on the way back to visit places along the East coast. We shall see.
Taking the Jag over the pickup. Although Pick up is newer and probably more reliable ( i know that sounds bad doesn't it), I have decided to take the car.
It drives comfortable, it has cruise and I can play decent music in it over the pick ups lousy system. I can get nearly double the MPG too.
3 days drive, dallas to cooksville, cooksville somewhere closer (not know where yet) and hopefully on Wednesday be at the ferry terminal to hand over the dog and return.
I have checked and topped up all the oils, lubes and lights. I have packed a comprehensive tool kit and camping equipment (just in case) and planned my route to stick to the Interstate keeping a speed of about 70 MPH.
I have AAA RV premium just in case the worst does happen and to be honest for someone who has travelled the country on a motorbike with absolutely no worries for a month, doing it in a 180K miles, 12 year old Jag is a little daunting.
I will try and post every night to keep you all updated on mine and the cars progress.
BTW, today was not a good day to find out the spare tyre is a different size to the four running tyres, lets hope I don't get a puncture at anytime.
Total Distance = 3583 miles, Pretty much all Interstate.
Route = Get on I-30 E in Garland from E Scyene Rd, Clay Rd, Collins Rd and Bobtown Rd, 18 min (8.9 mi)
Continue on I-30 E. Take I-40 E, I-81 N, I-78 E and I-95 N to MA-28 S in Bourne 26 h (1,771 mi)
Follow MA-28 S to your destination in Ferry Rd, Falmouth, MA.
And back, probably 5 or 6 days in total. I may take a detour on the way back to visit places along the East coast. We shall see.
Taking the Jag over the pickup. Although Pick up is newer and probably more reliable ( i know that sounds bad doesn't it), I have decided to take the car.
It drives comfortable, it has cruise and I can play decent music in it over the pick ups lousy system. I can get nearly double the MPG too.
3 days drive, dallas to cooksville, cooksville somewhere closer (not know where yet) and hopefully on Wednesday be at the ferry terminal to hand over the dog and return.
I have checked and topped up all the oils, lubes and lights. I have packed a comprehensive tool kit and camping equipment (just in case) and planned my route to stick to the Interstate keeping a speed of about 70 MPH.
I have AAA RV premium just in case the worst does happen and to be honest for someone who has travelled the country on a motorbike with absolutely no worries for a month, doing it in a 180K miles, 12 year old Jag is a little daunting.
I will try and post every night to keep you all updated on mine and the cars progress.
BTW, today was not a good day to find out the spare tyre is a different size to the four running tyres, lets hope I don't get a puncture at anytime.
#4
03-21-2016, 04:42 PM
Senior Member
Looks like a nice trip if the weather is good; great for stretching the Jag's legs, er wheels.
If you go near Scituate, Ma I recommend this place for lunch or dinner The Mill Wharf Restaurant - Scituate, MA They have a painting of a mermaid on the wall that looks a lot like my wife. (Too bad they don't have a photo of her on their web site - guess she is not PG rated).
If you go near Scituate, Ma I recommend this place for lunch or dinner The Mill Wharf Restaurant - Scituate, MA They have a painting of a mermaid on the wall that looks a lot like my wife. (Too bad they don't have a photo of her on their web site - guess she is not PG rated).
#5
03-21-2016, 10:11 PM
#6
03-22-2016, 09:28 PM
#7
03-22-2016, 09:28 PM
Veteran Member
You've made the right choice. The miles melt away in the XJ, and you won't feel as beat up by journey's end.
180K? It's just broken in!
Have a great trip.
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#8
03-25-2016, 05:29 PM
OK, I have returned to Dallas safe and sound. Was putting in too many miles a day to do a daily write up sorry.
However I shall post some pictures (only a couple to be honest), but more importantly a honest down to earth write up about how the car performed throughout.
It's not all good unfortunately.
However I shall post some pictures (only a couple to be honest), but more importantly a honest down to earth write up about how the car performed throughout.
It's not all good unfortunately.
#14
03-31-2016, 12:37 PM
The long road to Maine and back.
Okay, Okay.....
So lets make this as simple as possible, as you are all aware I travelled from Dallas, TX to Martha's Vineyard in Maine. A Google Maps distance of 3628 Miles return journey. My pan was to drive direct to Maine, drop the dog off and return via the same route unless I had permission from the Fiance (to be Wife on April 27th in Hawaii btw) to venture into New York and Washington DC. More about that later.
So I left on a monday at about 08:00hrs and pretty much hit the interstate about 5 miles out and sat at 70 mph on cruise (with no AC on throughout the whole trip). I had checked and filled all oils and lubes and put air the tyres ( remember the spare is a different size to the running ones!!).
The first days drive was from Mesquite, Tx to Fairfield Inn and Suites, Cookeville, TN a distance of 734 Miles. Absolutely nothing happened during this day. The car sat at 70 mph(approx 1800 RPM), the MPG increased to about 30.1 Mpg and every thing was great. We stopped every couple of hours to let the puppy out to pee and poop and stopped to fill up with cheapo petrol. Things were going swimmingly. Time to say something like " Well this looks like it isn't going to be a problem after all" to ones self.... A good nights sleep with the puppy sneaked in, wetting the bed and sneaked out again the next morning was the real highlight.
So Day 2 - was from cookeville, to Bethlehem, PA a total distance of 726 miles. A dilemma first thing in the morning because I hadn't filled up the night before and leaving at 04:00hrs I couldn't find a gas station open. Down to 22 miles fuel left and I thought, just hit the interstate and there's bound to be one that is open. Luckily of course there was and I refueled and ate because the motel had nothing out at 04:00 in the morning. So filled up, reset Trip and hit 70 MPH and into the tennessee mountains we went.
Some lovely scenery, a lovely day and as we got higher and higher into the hills the fuel economy increased reaching 33.5 MPG at one point. I was very surprised even with the constant up and down of hills the economy got better and better until.......
Uh Ohhhh, Check engine light came on. In the middle of nowhere (breaking down in a Jag in the middle of nowhere is no good option!)On the interstate I was sort of between gas stations and cruising along dreading what the issue could be. I do remember thinking to myself, There isn't a Red and Amber light on the Cell too which is the real dread. Pulling off into a small backwater road and finding a small gas station with 1 pump and a indian caretaker I popped the bonnet and looked inside.
Now, being the prepper that I am I took a fully comprehensive tool kit which included my $10 OBD2 reader ( no joy with my Mongoose still!!). Connect it up and saw a P0430 code:
Onto internet and causes a code P0430 may mean that one or more of the following has happened:
Low threshold on the cat converter
The catalytic converter is no longer functioning properly
An oxygen sensor is not reading (functioning) properly
There is an exhaust leak
Possible Solutions First, inspect for exhaust leaks.
So I looked all over the car, put it down to the fact that I had done over 1000 miles at one engine speed constantly and was climbing ever higher into thinner air and promptly used the OBD2 to erase/reset the system. At no other time did that fault ever appear again, However this maybe likely due to the fact that I revved the **** off the thing for about 5 miles to blast out any crud in the exhaust. Then settled into the mundane 70 MPH mode again arriving at Bethlehem quite late in the evening because I was now getting tires of driving and stopped to eat and rest a lot more. Car doing about 33.3MPG at this point, and I had over 600 miles between refills and it actually said there was 60 more miles in the tank, but I was taking no more chances. ( I have all the video's to prove my statements too btw.)
Stopping at Bethlehem a few things had now really started to get on my nerves with the car.
1. After swapping the keys to take the wife( to be) key it resets the seat to her settings. No problem I thought just reset the memory setting on 1 to my settings and away we go. Well the chair reset but the mirrors wouldn't and I had to move them every time I locked the door to do anything outside. You may think this isn't so much of a pain... try doing it 10 times a day.
2. Hmmmm, The rear driver side shock seems to have dropped to 2 fingers high, all the others are 3 fingers high between the rubber and the well top. Better keep an eye on that. It also seemed like the car was no longer really floating/bouncing across road imperfections any more. I was actually becoming very wary of the clunk, clunk, clunk noise from all around when traversing the smallest of imperfection.
3. Seats sides gripping your butt and then adjusting over and over the lumbar, head, back position to get it just right for my body size. Also getting cramp in the slightly bent right leg, while the left leg had died and vanished through lack of use.
4. Lots and lots of wind noise around the whole car, and because I have wider than normal road tyres fitted that probably didn't help. The main engine undertray has been removed allowing more wind roar to penetrate into the cabin. The drivers side window and mirror are particularly bad. So I had to turn the music up and get used to it. I hope the pup like my vibes.
5. However, It still ran, getting good MPG and hopes were high.
Wednesday was a slightly shorter stint because the new owner wanted to drive to wards us and collect the pup, which of course I had no issue with. Now, Starting at 05:00 to get past New York meant I would hit the rush hour just about and be beyond it before it got crazy bad. HAHAHAHa, little did I know the rush hour starts at 6 am and finishes at 6 pm in New York and surrounding area. It was absolute mayhem. So the 3 hour drive took 5 hours and the 159 miles seemed like 500 miles. There was a nice stretch of road that allowed no lorries and twisted and turned through some nice green areas, There was the Tappenzee bridge that I had to pay a toll on, and didn't have enough money so the old gate man wrote me out a nice 10 minute long receipt that truly impressed the people caught in the lane behind me. They must all hate Texans even more now. Throughout though the car performed flawlessly, MPG had dropped a fair bit because of the stop, start type of traffic we had hit.
Meeting with the new owner of Bella was cool, a lovely woman who I know will take great care of the dog. Check map and head back onto I15 south, then it all went pear shaped. In true village idiot style I decided to drive into Manhattan and visit the sights, Times Square, Empire state building and then head out to the Statue of Liberty. Well blow my old cotton socks off, if that was not the worst decision ever. I sat in 1 mph traffic for the next 3 hours. Unable to park, pee , eat, drink or anything. Taxi drivers cutting everything off and it truly was every man for himself. MPG and patience dropped to an almighty low, I had to get out of this **** hole. So I gave up the STatue, I even gave up Washington and decided to hit the tarmac directly home.
Boom, thats when it happened, pot holes in New York flashed up the dreaded air suspension fault. Damn... Hang on, its not a red low vehicle warning just the yellow one. Lets get off the road somewhere, check the system, restart the car and watch watch happens. So at the earliest opportunity, which was probably 50 miles further on, I got out checked the car and the front and rear driver side had fallen.
I moved the heavy tool kit out of the boot and placed it all on the front seat of the car alleviating some weight from the rear. Started the car and watched the system compressor pump more air into the car and both shocks rose to near normal height. The driver rear was still only 2 fingers high compared to 3 for the other wheels. I carried on driving... 70 MPH.. mile after mile... about 35 miles later the air suspension fault lit up again. I pulled off the road, stop, start, car rises and carry on. pretty much for the remaining 1500 miles the vehicle would flash the air suspension fault and I would either disregard it or pull over and stop.
Night 3 was spent in Roanoke which was the culmination of 692 miles (not including the incursion into Manhattan for a couple of hours where very few miles were added actually). Now I was doing a lot of night driving and the flickering and on/off switching of the headlights became really noticeable. So is that the HID Bulbs, or the Ballasts or the driver switch or what. So I had a fair amount of hours twiddling the switch to see if it made any of the lights go off. It did not. SO bulb, ballast or grounding must be the cause. I drove around with the front fogs on so that when they both went out, which they occasionally did, I would still be able to see something in the dark.
Something else to look into on my return.
70 MPH all the way to Memphis, TN of thursday. MPG getting slightly worse now though. I was only getting between 30.5 and 31.5 MPG and put it down to the crappy start stop driving of yesturday. Suspension not really suspending any more. Every bump became a pain and I felt for the car going over anything bigger than a rumble strip. Every bushing is completely shot under my car by the way. Thats $960 for the full set of powerbushing new ones less the installation which I am sure are a pain. Running lights turned off to try and save them for whatever reason.... The Memphis Hotel was situated next to the airport and was nice, but nothing was free compared to all the other motels that I stayed at all owned by Marriott (Fairfield Inns). Of course stopping to reset the shocks every now and again.
I had a really good sleep and left fully refreshed the next day ( Friday) and covered the 446 miles home in about 8 hours. I really took my time and resisted the urge to speed up as I got into Texas. Stopped and started for the shocks as normal. I actually had the Red Low Vehicle warning In Memphis which really had me worried, These cars can really drive for some distance on the bump stops, but once the engine had stopped and started the compressor got to grips with everything and it rose up normally. I had actually checked all of the air connection points in the boot by removing all the furniture and physically pulling and tightening all the nuts. It made no difference.
Once Home And now have been driving for a week, I have only had 1 further air suspension fault and that was last night in the rain. No other check engine light, no other CEL/MIL thrown up. Lights still flicker and go off and on intermittently though. I just dont know what to do with this car that I have a love hate relationship with....
But there is this cute little XK Im looking at.....
Some pictures..... and a link to the video's here:
So lets make this as simple as possible, as you are all aware I travelled from Dallas, TX to Martha's Vineyard in Maine. A Google Maps distance of 3628 Miles return journey. My pan was to drive direct to Maine, drop the dog off and return via the same route unless I had permission from the Fiance (to be Wife on April 27th in Hawaii btw) to venture into New York and Washington DC. More about that later.
So I left on a monday at about 08:00hrs and pretty much hit the interstate about 5 miles out and sat at 70 mph on cruise (with no AC on throughout the whole trip). I had checked and filled all oils and lubes and put air the tyres ( remember the spare is a different size to the running ones!!).
The first days drive was from Mesquite, Tx to Fairfield Inn and Suites, Cookeville, TN a distance of 734 Miles. Absolutely nothing happened during this day. The car sat at 70 mph(approx 1800 RPM), the MPG increased to about 30.1 Mpg and every thing was great. We stopped every couple of hours to let the puppy out to pee and poop and stopped to fill up with cheapo petrol. Things were going swimmingly. Time to say something like " Well this looks like it isn't going to be a problem after all" to ones self.... A good nights sleep with the puppy sneaked in, wetting the bed and sneaked out again the next morning was the real highlight.
So Day 2 - was from cookeville, to Bethlehem, PA a total distance of 726 miles. A dilemma first thing in the morning because I hadn't filled up the night before and leaving at 04:00hrs I couldn't find a gas station open. Down to 22 miles fuel left and I thought, just hit the interstate and there's bound to be one that is open. Luckily of course there was and I refueled and ate because the motel had nothing out at 04:00 in the morning. So filled up, reset Trip and hit 70 MPH and into the tennessee mountains we went.
Some lovely scenery, a lovely day and as we got higher and higher into the hills the fuel economy increased reaching 33.5 MPG at one point. I was very surprised even with the constant up and down of hills the economy got better and better until.......
Uh Ohhhh, Check engine light came on. In the middle of nowhere (breaking down in a Jag in the middle of nowhere is no good option!)On the interstate I was sort of between gas stations and cruising along dreading what the issue could be. I do remember thinking to myself, There isn't a Red and Amber light on the Cell too which is the real dread. Pulling off into a small backwater road and finding a small gas station with 1 pump and a indian caretaker I popped the bonnet and looked inside.
Now, being the prepper that I am I took a fully comprehensive tool kit which included my $10 OBD2 reader ( no joy with my Mongoose still!!). Connect it up and saw a P0430 code:
Onto internet and causes a code P0430 may mean that one or more of the following has happened:
Low threshold on the cat converter
The catalytic converter is no longer functioning properly
An oxygen sensor is not reading (functioning) properly
There is an exhaust leak
Possible Solutions First, inspect for exhaust leaks.
So I looked all over the car, put it down to the fact that I had done over 1000 miles at one engine speed constantly and was climbing ever higher into thinner air and promptly used the OBD2 to erase/reset the system. At no other time did that fault ever appear again, However this maybe likely due to the fact that I revved the **** off the thing for about 5 miles to blast out any crud in the exhaust. Then settled into the mundane 70 MPH mode again arriving at Bethlehem quite late in the evening because I was now getting tires of driving and stopped to eat and rest a lot more. Car doing about 33.3MPG at this point, and I had over 600 miles between refills and it actually said there was 60 more miles in the tank, but I was taking no more chances. ( I have all the video's to prove my statements too btw.)
Stopping at Bethlehem a few things had now really started to get on my nerves with the car.
1. After swapping the keys to take the wife( to be) key it resets the seat to her settings. No problem I thought just reset the memory setting on 1 to my settings and away we go. Well the chair reset but the mirrors wouldn't and I had to move them every time I locked the door to do anything outside. You may think this isn't so much of a pain... try doing it 10 times a day.
2. Hmmmm, The rear driver side shock seems to have dropped to 2 fingers high, all the others are 3 fingers high between the rubber and the well top. Better keep an eye on that. It also seemed like the car was no longer really floating/bouncing across road imperfections any more. I was actually becoming very wary of the clunk, clunk, clunk noise from all around when traversing the smallest of imperfection.
3. Seats sides gripping your butt and then adjusting over and over the lumbar, head, back position to get it just right for my body size. Also getting cramp in the slightly bent right leg, while the left leg had died and vanished through lack of use.
4. Lots and lots of wind noise around the whole car, and because I have wider than normal road tyres fitted that probably didn't help. The main engine undertray has been removed allowing more wind roar to penetrate into the cabin. The drivers side window and mirror are particularly bad. So I had to turn the music up and get used to it. I hope the pup like my vibes.
5. However, It still ran, getting good MPG and hopes were high.
Wednesday was a slightly shorter stint because the new owner wanted to drive to wards us and collect the pup, which of course I had no issue with. Now, Starting at 05:00 to get past New York meant I would hit the rush hour just about and be beyond it before it got crazy bad. HAHAHAHa, little did I know the rush hour starts at 6 am and finishes at 6 pm in New York and surrounding area. It was absolute mayhem. So the 3 hour drive took 5 hours and the 159 miles seemed like 500 miles. There was a nice stretch of road that allowed no lorries and twisted and turned through some nice green areas, There was the Tappenzee bridge that I had to pay a toll on, and didn't have enough money so the old gate man wrote me out a nice 10 minute long receipt that truly impressed the people caught in the lane behind me. They must all hate Texans even more now. Throughout though the car performed flawlessly, MPG had dropped a fair bit because of the stop, start type of traffic we had hit.
Meeting with the new owner of Bella was cool, a lovely woman who I know will take great care of the dog. Check map and head back onto I15 south, then it all went pear shaped. In true village idiot style I decided to drive into Manhattan and visit the sights, Times Square, Empire state building and then head out to the Statue of Liberty. Well blow my old cotton socks off, if that was not the worst decision ever. I sat in 1 mph traffic for the next 3 hours. Unable to park, pee , eat, drink or anything. Taxi drivers cutting everything off and it truly was every man for himself. MPG and patience dropped to an almighty low, I had to get out of this **** hole. So I gave up the STatue, I even gave up Washington and decided to hit the tarmac directly home.
Boom, thats when it happened, pot holes in New York flashed up the dreaded air suspension fault. Damn... Hang on, its not a red low vehicle warning just the yellow one. Lets get off the road somewhere, check the system, restart the car and watch watch happens. So at the earliest opportunity, which was probably 50 miles further on, I got out checked the car and the front and rear driver side had fallen.
I moved the heavy tool kit out of the boot and placed it all on the front seat of the car alleviating some weight from the rear. Started the car and watched the system compressor pump more air into the car and both shocks rose to near normal height. The driver rear was still only 2 fingers high compared to 3 for the other wheels. I carried on driving... 70 MPH.. mile after mile... about 35 miles later the air suspension fault lit up again. I pulled off the road, stop, start, car rises and carry on. pretty much for the remaining 1500 miles the vehicle would flash the air suspension fault and I would either disregard it or pull over and stop.
Night 3 was spent in Roanoke which was the culmination of 692 miles (not including the incursion into Manhattan for a couple of hours where very few miles were added actually). Now I was doing a lot of night driving and the flickering and on/off switching of the headlights became really noticeable. So is that the HID Bulbs, or the Ballasts or the driver switch or what. So I had a fair amount of hours twiddling the switch to see if it made any of the lights go off. It did not. SO bulb, ballast or grounding must be the cause. I drove around with the front fogs on so that when they both went out, which they occasionally did, I would still be able to see something in the dark.
Something else to look into on my return.
70 MPH all the way to Memphis, TN of thursday. MPG getting slightly worse now though. I was only getting between 30.5 and 31.5 MPG and put it down to the crappy start stop driving of yesturday. Suspension not really suspending any more. Every bump became a pain and I felt for the car going over anything bigger than a rumble strip. Every bushing is completely shot under my car by the way. Thats $960 for the full set of powerbushing new ones less the installation which I am sure are a pain. Running lights turned off to try and save them for whatever reason.... The Memphis Hotel was situated next to the airport and was nice, but nothing was free compared to all the other motels that I stayed at all owned by Marriott (Fairfield Inns). Of course stopping to reset the shocks every now and again.
I had a really good sleep and left fully refreshed the next day ( Friday) and covered the 446 miles home in about 8 hours. I really took my time and resisted the urge to speed up as I got into Texas. Stopped and started for the shocks as normal. I actually had the Red Low Vehicle warning In Memphis which really had me worried, These cars can really drive for some distance on the bump stops, but once the engine had stopped and started the compressor got to grips with everything and it rose up normally. I had actually checked all of the air connection points in the boot by removing all the furniture and physically pulling and tightening all the nuts. It made no difference.
Once Home And now have been driving for a week, I have only had 1 further air suspension fault and that was last night in the rain. No other check engine light, no other CEL/MIL thrown up. Lights still flicker and go off and on intermittently though. I just dont know what to do with this car that I have a love hate relationship with....
But there is this cute little XK Im looking at.....
Some pictures..... and a link to the video's here:
Last edited by trosty; 04-01-2016 at 11:24 AM. Reason: added deleted material.
The following users liked this post:
joeldietzjr (12-14-2017)
#15
03-31-2016, 11:39 PM
Hey trosty,
I see that your post got cut in half. I have the rest that went out in the email notification of a new post that I received. I'll paste it below and you can copy it into your post. I'll then delete mine.
************************************************** ***
Saved from trosty's earlier post:
So stopping at Bethlehem a few things had now really started to get on my nerves with the car.
1. After swapping the keys to take the wife( to be) key it resets the seat to her settings. No problem I thought just reset the memory setting on 1 to my settings and away we go. Well the chair reset but the mirrors wouldn't and I had to move them every time I locked the door to do anything outside. You may think this isn't so much of a pain... try doing it 10 times a day.
2. Hmmmm, The rear driver side shock seems to have dropped to 2 fingers high, all the others are 3 fingers high between the rubber and the well top. Better keep an eye on that. It also seemed like the car was no longer really floating/bouncing across road imperfections any more. I was actually becoming very wary of the clunk, clunk, clunk noise from all around when traversing the smallest of imperfection.
3. Seats sides gripping your butt and then adjusting over and over the lumbar, head, back position to get it just right for my body size. Also getting cramp in the slightly bent right leg, while the left leg had died and vanished through lack of use.
4. Lots and lots of wind noise around the whole car, and because I have wider than normal road tyres fitted that probably didn't help. The main engine undertray has been removed allowing more wind roar to penetrate into the cabin. The drivers side window and mirror are particularly bad. So I had to turn the music up and get used to it. I hope the pup like my vibes.
5. However, It still ran, getting good MPG and hopes were high.
Wednesday was a slightly shorter stint because the new owner wanted to drive to wards us and collect the pup, which of course I had no issue with. Now, Starting at 05:00 to get past New York meant I would hit the rush hour just about and be beyond it before it got crazy bad. HAHAHAHa, little did I know the rush hour starts at 6 am and finishes at 6 pm in New York and surrounding area. It was absolute mayhem. So the 3 hour drive took 5 hours and the 159 miles seemed like 500 miles. There was a nice stretch of road that allowed no lorries and twisted and turned through some nice green areas, There was the Tappenzee bridge that I had to pay a toll on, and didn't have enough money so the old gate man wrote me out a nice 10 minute long receipt that truly impressed the people caught in the lane behind me. They must all hate Texans even more now. Throughout though the car performed flawlessly, MPG had dropped a fair bit because of the stop, start type of traffic we had hit.
Meeting with the new owner of Bella was cool, a lovely woman who I know will take great care of the dog. Check map and head back onto I15 south, then it all went pear shaped. In true village idiot style I decided to drive into Manhattan and visit the sights, Times Square, Empire state building and then head out to the Statue of Liberty. Well blow my old cotton socks off, if that was not the worst decision ever. I sat in 1 mph traffic for the next 3 hours. Unable to park, pee , eat, drink or anything. Taxi drivers cutting everything off and it truly was every man for himself. MPG and patience dropped to an almighty low, I had to get out of this **** hole. So I gave up the STatue, I even gave up Washington and decided to hit the tarmac directly home.
Boom, thats when it happened, pot holes in New York flashed up the dreaded air suspension fault. Damn... Hang on, its not a red low vehicle warning just the yellow one. Lets get off the road somewhere, check the system, restart the car and watch watch happens. So at the earliest opportunity, which was probably 50 miles further on, I got out checked the car and the front and rear driver side had fallen.
I moved the heavy tool kit out of the boot and placed it all on the front seat of the car alleviating some weight from the rear. Started the car and watched the system compressor pump more air into the car and both shocks rose to near normal height. The driver rear was still only 2 fingers high compared to 3 for the other wheels. I carried on driving... 70 MPH.. mile after mile... about 35 miles later the air suspension fault lit up again. I pulled off the road, stop, start, car rises and carry on. pretty much for the remaining 1500 miles the vehicle would flash the air suspension fault and I would either disregard it or pull over and stop.
Night 3 was spent in Roanoke which was the culmination of 692 miles (not including the incursion into Manhattan for a couple of hours where very few miles were added actually). Now I was doing a lot of night driving and the flickering and on/off switching of the headlights became really noticeable. So is that the HID Bulbs, or the Ballasts or the driver switch or what. So I had a fair amount of hours twiddling the switch to see if it made any of the lights go off. It did not. SO bulb, ballast or grounding must be the cause. I drove around with the front fogs on so that when they both went out, which they occasionally did, I would still be able to see something in the dark.
Something else to look into on my return.
70 MPH all the way to Memphis, TN of thursday. MPG getting slightly worse now though. I was only getting between 30.5 and 31.5 MPG and put it down to the crappy start stop driving of yesturday. Suspension not really suspending any more. Every bump became a pain and I felt for the car going over anything bigger than a rumble strip. Every bushing is completely shot under my car by the way. Thats $960 for the full set of powerbushing new ones less the installation which I am sure are a pain. Running lights turned off to try and save them for whatever reason.... The Memphis Hotel was situated next to the airport and was nice, but nothing was free compared to all the other motels that I stayed at all owned by Marriott (Fairfield Inns). Of course stopping to reset the shocks every now and again.
I had a really good sleep and left fully refreshed the next day ( Friday) and covered the 446 miles home in about 8 hours. I really took my time and resisted the urge to speed up as I got into Texas. Stopped and started for the shocks as normal. I actually had the Red Low Vehicle warning In Memphis which really had me worried, These cars can really drive for some distance on the bump stops, but once the engine had stopped and started the compressor got to grips with everything and it rose up normally. I had actually checked all of the air connection points in the boot by removing all the furniture and physically pulling and tightening all the nuts. It made no difference.
Once Home And now have been driving for a week, I have only had 1 further air suspension fault and that was last night in the rain. No other check engine light, no other CEL/MIL thrown up. Lights still flicker and go off and on intermittently though. I just dont know what to do with this car that I have a love hate relationship with....
But there is this cute little XK Im looking at.....
Some pictures..... and a link to the video's here:
I see that your post got cut in half. I have the rest that went out in the email notification of a new post that I received. I'll paste it below and you can copy it into your post. I'll then delete mine.
************************************************** ***
Saved from trosty's earlier post:
So stopping at Bethlehem a few things had now really started to get on my nerves with the car.
1. After swapping the keys to take the wife( to be) key it resets the seat to her settings. No problem I thought just reset the memory setting on 1 to my settings and away we go. Well the chair reset but the mirrors wouldn't and I had to move them every time I locked the door to do anything outside. You may think this isn't so much of a pain... try doing it 10 times a day.
2. Hmmmm, The rear driver side shock seems to have dropped to 2 fingers high, all the others are 3 fingers high between the rubber and the well top. Better keep an eye on that. It also seemed like the car was no longer really floating/bouncing across road imperfections any more. I was actually becoming very wary of the clunk, clunk, clunk noise from all around when traversing the smallest of imperfection.
3. Seats sides gripping your butt and then adjusting over and over the lumbar, head, back position to get it just right for my body size. Also getting cramp in the slightly bent right leg, while the left leg had died and vanished through lack of use.
4. Lots and lots of wind noise around the whole car, and because I have wider than normal road tyres fitted that probably didn't help. The main engine undertray has been removed allowing more wind roar to penetrate into the cabin. The drivers side window and mirror are particularly bad. So I had to turn the music up and get used to it. I hope the pup like my vibes.
5. However, It still ran, getting good MPG and hopes were high.
Wednesday was a slightly shorter stint because the new owner wanted to drive to wards us and collect the pup, which of course I had no issue with. Now, Starting at 05:00 to get past New York meant I would hit the rush hour just about and be beyond it before it got crazy bad. HAHAHAHa, little did I know the rush hour starts at 6 am and finishes at 6 pm in New York and surrounding area. It was absolute mayhem. So the 3 hour drive took 5 hours and the 159 miles seemed like 500 miles. There was a nice stretch of road that allowed no lorries and twisted and turned through some nice green areas, There was the Tappenzee bridge that I had to pay a toll on, and didn't have enough money so the old gate man wrote me out a nice 10 minute long receipt that truly impressed the people caught in the lane behind me. They must all hate Texans even more now. Throughout though the car performed flawlessly, MPG had dropped a fair bit because of the stop, start type of traffic we had hit.
Meeting with the new owner of Bella was cool, a lovely woman who I know will take great care of the dog. Check map and head back onto I15 south, then it all went pear shaped. In true village idiot style I decided to drive into Manhattan and visit the sights, Times Square, Empire state building and then head out to the Statue of Liberty. Well blow my old cotton socks off, if that was not the worst decision ever. I sat in 1 mph traffic for the next 3 hours. Unable to park, pee , eat, drink or anything. Taxi drivers cutting everything off and it truly was every man for himself. MPG and patience dropped to an almighty low, I had to get out of this **** hole. So I gave up the STatue, I even gave up Washington and decided to hit the tarmac directly home.
Boom, thats when it happened, pot holes in New York flashed up the dreaded air suspension fault. Damn... Hang on, its not a red low vehicle warning just the yellow one. Lets get off the road somewhere, check the system, restart the car and watch watch happens. So at the earliest opportunity, which was probably 50 miles further on, I got out checked the car and the front and rear driver side had fallen.
I moved the heavy tool kit out of the boot and placed it all on the front seat of the car alleviating some weight from the rear. Started the car and watched the system compressor pump more air into the car and both shocks rose to near normal height. The driver rear was still only 2 fingers high compared to 3 for the other wheels. I carried on driving... 70 MPH.. mile after mile... about 35 miles later the air suspension fault lit up again. I pulled off the road, stop, start, car rises and carry on. pretty much for the remaining 1500 miles the vehicle would flash the air suspension fault and I would either disregard it or pull over and stop.
Night 3 was spent in Roanoke which was the culmination of 692 miles (not including the incursion into Manhattan for a couple of hours where very few miles were added actually). Now I was doing a lot of night driving and the flickering and on/off switching of the headlights became really noticeable. So is that the HID Bulbs, or the Ballasts or the driver switch or what. So I had a fair amount of hours twiddling the switch to see if it made any of the lights go off. It did not. SO bulb, ballast or grounding must be the cause. I drove around with the front fogs on so that when they both went out, which they occasionally did, I would still be able to see something in the dark.
Something else to look into on my return.
70 MPH all the way to Memphis, TN of thursday. MPG getting slightly worse now though. I was only getting between 30.5 and 31.5 MPG and put it down to the crappy start stop driving of yesturday. Suspension not really suspending any more. Every bump became a pain and I felt for the car going over anything bigger than a rumble strip. Every bushing is completely shot under my car by the way. Thats $960 for the full set of powerbushing new ones less the installation which I am sure are a pain. Running lights turned off to try and save them for whatever reason.... The Memphis Hotel was situated next to the airport and was nice, but nothing was free compared to all the other motels that I stayed at all owned by Marriott (Fairfield Inns). Of course stopping to reset the shocks every now and again.
I had a really good sleep and left fully refreshed the next day ( Friday) and covered the 446 miles home in about 8 hours. I really took my time and resisted the urge to speed up as I got into Texas. Stopped and started for the shocks as normal. I actually had the Red Low Vehicle warning In Memphis which really had me worried, These cars can really drive for some distance on the bump stops, but once the engine had stopped and started the compressor got to grips with everything and it rose up normally. I had actually checked all of the air connection points in the boot by removing all the furniture and physically pulling and tightening all the nuts. It made no difference.
Once Home And now have been driving for a week, I have only had 1 further air suspension fault and that was last night in the rain. No other check engine light, no other CEL/MIL thrown up. Lights still flicker and go off and on intermittently though. I just dont know what to do with this car that I have a love hate relationship with....
But there is this cute little XK Im looking at.....
Some pictures..... and a link to the video's here:
The following 2 users liked this post by MrWhite:
joeldietzjr (12-14-2017),
trosty (04-01-2016)
#16
04-01-2016, 12:40 AM
Senior Member
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joeldietzjr (12-14-2017)
#17
04-01-2016, 08:09 PM
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#18
04-02-2016, 08:18 AM
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joeldietzjr (12-14-2017)
#19
04-02-2016, 08:21 AM
I have since had the Air Suspension failure light again on numerous occasions now and and having to figure out what I am going to do about it. I really think its the rear shock not working properly and may get a replacement for $295 from autonation.
Money I haven't really got to blow at the moment ( having taken a week off work to do this trip!!).
Ah such is life.
Here are the photos:
Here are the video's :
A Link to my Youtube channel with all my vids:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_O...=AndrewForrest
Money I haven't really got to blow at the moment ( having taken a week off work to do this trip!!).
Ah such is life.
Here are the photos:
Here are the video's :
A Link to my Youtube channel with all my vids:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_O...=AndrewForrest
Last edited by trosty; 04-02-2016 at 09:06 AM.
The following users liked this post:
joeldietzjr (12-14-2017)
#20
04-06-2016, 04:45 AM
Trosty, What an eventful trip you've had!
I'm sorry that your domesticated cat suddenly developed wild tendencies throughout your journey.
Give your cat one more tender loving care fixing up her hips (suspension) and all other ailments you noticed, and see her purring beautifully again.
But I feel aggrieved a little though about the pictures you shared with us. While all of them are nice and I suppose bring you lots of memories, the central focus of your original posting was about your round trip in your ride. Why then are you not posting as many pictures of your ride showing in the background, landmarks of the different places you visited?
Remember, ordinary cats have 9 lives. Our cats though, have more lives and have a deep sense of premonition. On realising, by premonition, that you'll post for us fewer (if no) pictures of your post trip event featuring your ride, the cat decided to act up so your feedback can bring back the spotlight to where it belongs, i.e, to your cat again.
Apologise to your cat, massage its ego a little by fixing those nigglies, then see how she'll quickly pur with joy to your heart's content.
Please reconsider and post more pictures showing curvaceous beauty of your cat with background of landmarks you went past!
I'm sorry that your domesticated cat suddenly developed wild tendencies throughout your journey.
Give your cat one more tender loving care fixing up her hips (suspension) and all other ailments you noticed, and see her purring beautifully again.
But I feel aggrieved a little though about the pictures you shared with us. While all of them are nice and I suppose bring you lots of memories, the central focus of your original posting was about your round trip in your ride. Why then are you not posting as many pictures of your ride showing in the background, landmarks of the different places you visited?
Remember, ordinary cats have 9 lives. Our cats though, have more lives and have a deep sense of premonition. On realising, by premonition, that you'll post for us fewer (if no) pictures of your post trip event featuring your ride, the cat decided to act up so your feedback can bring back the spotlight to where it belongs, i.e, to your cat again.
Apologise to your cat, massage its ego a little by fixing those nigglies, then see how she'll quickly pur with joy to your heart's content.
Please reconsider and post more pictures showing curvaceous beauty of your cat with background of landmarks you went past!