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At the end of April, we're driving to Plymouth - 300 miles south from our home - and boarding an overnight ferry (Brittany Ferries call it a "cruise") to Santander in the north of Spain. We're then doing a variety of visits to friends, wonderful cities and beaches all around the Iberian peninsula and if things go to plan we're talking a total of about 3,000 miles and closer to 3,500 if we head home through France rather than via one of the northern Spain ports.
The car of choice for the trip is our recently acquired 1998 XK8 convertible which has already done close to 100,000 miles. In the last few hundred miles it's had a full service and it's had all the work you'd have hoped for a car of this year including full timing chain kit, water pump, hoses etc. By the time we leave, it will also have had a part-refurb of suspension and a thorough check up of the underside of the car.
My question is, what should I pack besides the speedos and warm weather gear? Normally, I just jump in the car and go but I don't want to rely on finding the right parts and tools in Portugal and Spain should things go wrong.
Bear in mind this is a six week trip (probably) and I have a wife who doesn't like to travel light. I need to focus on maximum return on minimal space. The roof will be down most of the time so we can't rely on packing stuff in the back seats.
Any particular things to check before departure would also be useful information.
We do have the safety net of European breakdown and recovery cover but that's a last resort....
We do have the safety net of European breakdown and recovery cover but that's a last resort....
That's all you need. There's no point taking spare parts and tools, because you can guarantee that whatever you need, you won't have. Unless you have a tow bar and can take a parts car on a trailer, of course!
There is zero point worrying about what might go wrong, otherwise you may as well fly and rent a car. I drove to Alicante from Berkshire in my 1998 BMW Z3 a few years ago, through France and Spain, and it was fine across the 3000 miles or so. I'd rather take a well-serviced older car than a new thing.
It's a trip I've done several times in my XK8 over the last 25 years and, apart from a badly cracked windscreen caused by a stone on the motorway in Madrid which could wait for replacement until we got home, the car ran perfectly. In more recent times, I've had no breakdown insurance as the car was too old for my insurer to provide cover. Either way, I've always taken a selection of hand tools and a sticky mushroom type tyre repair kit as being limited to 50 mph on the space saver would be frustrating.
I've never taken any spares apart from the obligatory bulbs. However, you don't mention a gearbox and filter service and fluid change or differential oil change and I would be hesitant to travel far from home in an XK8 of that mileage without attending to those first.
I returned from my last Spanish trip last Sunday. We're in the UK Midlands and covered 3330 miles, door to door. The weather was absolutely appalling everywhere apart from Andalucía. The continuous rain for virtually the whole journey turned to snow on the southern side of the Pyrenees, stretching down to about 100 miles north of Madrid, both going down and coming back 10 days later. We had to cope with snowploughs and salt gritters which resulted in the car being caked with white salt residue. I did not really expect that in March! Thankfully, we were in a powerful 4 x 4 rather than the Jag this time.
Obvious basics which you probably already know being an experienced sort of chap, but sometimes its easy to forget the basics:
bring some kitchen towels/blue shop towels just in case you need to poke around anywhere and clean your hands or parts. a few rubber gloves handy too.
Small OBD2 scanner if you have one. These cars throw codes every so often and its nice to be able to check on the spot if its a "ignore it and keep driving" code or a learn how to ask "do you fix jaguars" in spanish kind of code.
hand sanitizer and baby wipes.
zip ties. universal toolkit handy if any random bits of underbody trim decide to start flapping about. I've had that happen on toyotas too... zipties always useful.
Enough phone chargers for both of you with the right cables
All of this fits in the area of the trunk where the OEM owners manual goes.
Other basics - pull the spare tire/donut and check it actually holds air/is good. replace if necessary. Mine was flat when I got my car.
Check the lug wrench is there, and jack. Verify you can actually raise the car with the in-car jack. If you have locking wheel nuts, make sure you have the key!
loosen and tighten the wheel nuts with the supplied lug wrench. Its not much use to you if the shop tightened them to insanity torque and you can't undo the damn things. I've been on a few long drives in the US without phone reception and it might happen in a long trip in europe too if in mountains. Always make sure you have everything in the car to change a wheel if you need to, sometimes bits go missing in the intervening years/owners..
Top up your screen wash reservoir. Check your wiper blades.
That and check coolant, oil, brake fluid
Oh yeah, also the trunk floor where the spare sits has two positions, lower and upper. The upper position is for those with a full size spare. If you have a space saver, make sure you drop the boot floor to the lower position. It can be tricky to do so, its very snug. The previous owner of my car had never bothered and I blew his mind when I showed him he had a couple cubic feet of extra space he'd never used. So if you need all the space, that might help.
That's all you need. There's no point taking spare parts and tools, because you can guarantee that whatever you need, you won't have. Unless you have a tow bar and can take a parts car on a trailer, of course!
You've got six consecutive weeks vacation which is unfathomable to me here in America, so worst case I guess would be you have to leave it with a shop somewhere along the way, rent a car to continue your trip and come back for it later. If you want to do the spare parts thing, bladerunner is right, its very hard to predict out of thousands of parts which you will need. After having difficulty sourcing parts for a repair on a trip back in my younger days racing, I started to buy wrecks and part them out so that I'd always have spares. I'd pack a bunch of spare parts for a trip and did once in Canada wind up needing a clutch slave cylinder that I'd brought along. I must've carried a couple hundred pounds of spares and only ever needed that one. But I once phoned my brother to go break into my house and overnight me a part from my stash. He was so afraid my elderly neighbor was going to call the police on him it was hard to convince him to do it (she couldn't hear anything anyway). The concept though I think is not bad. If you've got obsolete spares, no need to pack them to take with you, rather, make sure they are accessible, clearly labeled, and leave a key with a neighbor, relative or friend. You can phone and ask that person to overnight ship you the part you need. Only pack some tools, gloves, and some grubby clothes or overalls (those cheap, disposable overalls like painters wear are great to keep in the boot anyway to protect your good outfit in case you need to swap your spare tire),
One thing I would suggest though is do a little research ahead of your trip, pinpointing where there are still JLR dealers and independent Jaguar specialist repair shops along the way. If the car starts acting up, it will be comforting to know where is the nearest help. Do we keep going forward to our next destination city or should we turn back or even deviate off the planned route to reach the nearest city where we can get a hotel room, calm ourselves down and have it checked out in the morning? When I was younger, I used to make note of where members of my car club lived along my route in case I needed help. I was once driving through Arizona late one night with a brewing problem, but I forged ahead knowing that one of the members ran a repair shop in Tucson and that at least the closer I got before it broke completely, the less the towing charge would be. I made it there. I always have to be back at work in a week though so I'm always planning a trip down to the second and freaking out when something goes wrong. I wish I was retired so I could make a leisurely six week road trip.
That's all you need. There's no point taking spare parts and tools, because you can guarantee that whatever you need, you won't have. Unless you have a tow bar and can take a parts car on a trailer, of course!
There is zero point worrying about what might go wrong, otherwise you may as well fly and rent a car. I drove to Alicante from Berkshire in my 1998 BMW Z3 a few years ago, through France and Spain, and it was fine across the 3000 miles or so. I'd rather take a well-serviced older car than a new thing.
You know what - that's been my attitude since I first drove to the South of France in 1981 in a knackered Alfasud 1.5ti which was held together by rust (I wish I still had that car)! You're right, of course, but I did think it might be a little bit of fun to imagine what I might take along - the boot is so much bigger on the XK8 than it was in the new BMW 4-series convertible we took last year that I thought I'd take advantage...
I've never taken any spares apart from the obligatory bulbs. However, you don't mention a gearbox and filter service and fluid change or differential oil change and I would be hesitant to travel far from home in an XK8 of that mileage without attending to those first.
It's had all but the differential oil change and I've got no evidence of that every being done. Would you do that one before leaving - I've seen that it's a bit of a fiddly job.
Obvious basics which you probably already know being an experienced sort of chap, but sometimes its easy to forget the basics:
bring some kitchen towels/blue shop towels just in case you need to poke around anywhere and clean your hands or parts. a few rubber gloves handy too.
Small OBD2 scanner if you have one. These cars throw codes every so often and its nice to be able to check on the spot if its a "ignore it and keep driving" code or a learn how to ask "do you fix jaguars" in spanish kind of code.
hand sanitizer and baby wipes.
zip ties. universal toolkit handy if any random bits of underbody trim decide to start flapping about. I've had that happen on toyotas too... zipties always useful.
Enough phone chargers for both of you with the right cables
All of this fits in the area of the trunk where the OEM owners manual goes.
Other basics - pull the spare tire/donut and check it actually holds air/is good. replace if necessary. Mine was flat when I got my car.
Check the lug wrench is there, and jack. Verify you can actually raise the car with the in-car jack. If you have locking wheel nuts, make sure you have the key!
loosen and tighten the wheel nuts with the supplied lug wrench. Its not much use to you if the shop tightened them to insanity torque and you can't undo the damn things. I've been on a few long drives in the US without phone reception and it might happen in a long trip in europe too if in mountains. Always make sure you have everything in the car to change a wheel if you need to, sometimes bits go missing in the intervening years/owners..
Top up your screen wash reservoir. Check your wiper blades.
That and check coolant, oil, brake fluid
Oh yeah, also the trunk floor where the spare sits has two positions, lower and upper. The upper position is for those with a full size spare. If you have a space saver, make sure you drop the boot floor to the lower position. It can be tricky to do so, its very snug. The previous owner of my car had never bothered and I blew his mind when I showed him he had a couple cubic feet of extra space he'd never used. So if you need all the space, that might help.
Great advice! I've had a couple of X308's so know about the boot floor trick - I bought a space saver for my Super V8 to liberate the extra capacity. I now have a starting checklist so thanks.\
It's had all but the differential oil change and I've got no evidence of that every being done. Would you do that one before leaving - I've seen that it's a bit of a fiddly job.
There's no right or wrong answer but I changed both the autobox oil and diff oil on my 1997 XK8 at 75k miles and the autobox fluid was reasonably OK and would have been fine for another 25k miles but the diff oil was dreadful ..... black, burned and as thick as treacle. I had never seen diff oil as bad as that. I would not wanted to have set off on a long high-speed road trip with oil in that condition but, of course, that doesn't necessarily mean that your is anywhere near as bad.
Your recovery insurance will be useless if the cost of recovery is more than the value of the car.
You may have to pay to get it transported to the ferry if the insurance leaves you high and dry.
So to comply you need spare bulbs.fire extinguisher 2 yellow jackets warning triangle breathalizer first aid kit.Headlamp patches.
For the car ....Spare aux belt 15mm spanner, some oil and water . Never go anywhere without a 7mm socket and drive.
Make sure YOU can get the wheel nuts off.
If you are clever make sure you have an 82 deg thermostat and wire the fans to full speed when the ignition is on.
A large card in portugese saying " Automatic do not tow. Flatbed only" with the diagram from the manual.
Drive on the Right
Remember the 7 P's
Prior Preparation Prevents **** Poor Performance.
Since I began keeping detailed records in 1997, I've done 37 Continental trips totalling 91,374 miles and 548 days in Continental Europe. During these I've had 2 breakdowns. A burst cooling transfer hose on an XJ40 on a Christmas Day afternoon in northern France (a seriously bad time to have problems regardless of location) and a failed injector on my current XK.shortly after crossing the Pyrenees into Spain The chances of a breakdown on a well maintained and prepared vehicle are LOW. I've also had 5 punctures but don't classify this as a breakdown.
Tolls are awkward with a RHD vehicle and for convenience I have Toll Tags for France, Spain and Portugal. Drive through the 'autotoll' lanes without stopping and the accrued tolls are invoiced at the end of the month. https://www.emovis-tag.co.uk/
I carry SDD diagnostics on my laptop together with Mongoose Pro, jack and wheel brace (make sure the wheels are correctly torqued and not rusted to the hubs before leaving), torch, multitool, insulating tape and duct tape. I don't bother with other tools as the list of "just in case" would leave no luggage space. Vehicles now require a UK sticker and Spain requires 2 emergency triangles.
Jaguar Dealers are few and far between but it's useful to know locations, addresses and contact details for those along or near the chosen route.
The last place anyone wants to go on holiday
Basic repairs can be carried out by small garages but anything major will need a dealer
Gibraltar
Breakdown insurance is essential. Recovery is expensive. It took the Jaguar Dealer in Burgos four days to get a replacement injector for my XK and don't forget repairs away from home are also expensive. That incident cost me just under 1000 UKP in repairs alone and an additional 1200 miles in a courtesy car to our destination and back to collect the XK.
Over the years I've been stopped three times by Police in France, once in Spain and once in Italy. All wanted to see documents and scrutinised them very closely. Strangely, once across the Channel and into the Schengen Zone, travel after Brexit is little different than before. I've crossed France/Spain and France/Italy borders without any additional formalities of showing passports or vehicle checks.
Finally, don't forget we're an International forum. Local knowledge could only be a post away.
In Spain you can carry a V16 flashing beacon ("Baliza V16") instead of warning triangles. You no longer need to risk your life trying to assemble triangles at the side of the motorway, just put the flashing beacon on your roof:-
You've got six consecutive weeks vacation which is unfathomable to me here in America, so worst case I guess would be you have to leave it with a shop somewhere along the way, rent a car to continue your trip and come back for it later. If you want to do the spare parts thing, bladerunner is right, its very hard to predict out of thousands of parts which you will need. After having difficulty sourcing parts for a repair on a trip back in my younger days racing, I started to buy wrecks and part them out so that I'd always have spares. I'd pack a bunch of spare parts for a trip and did once in Canada wind up needing a clutch slave cylinder that I'd brought along. I must've carried a couple hundred pounds of spares and only ever needed that one. But I once phoned my brother to go break into my house and overnight me a part from my stash. He was so afraid my elderly neighbor was going to call the police on him it was hard to convince him to do it (she couldn't hear anything anyway). The concept though I think is not bad. If you've got obsolete spares, no need to pack them to take with you, rather, make sure they are accessible, clearly labeled, and leave a key with a neighbor, relative or friend. You can phone and ask that person to overnight ship you the part you need. Only pack some tools, gloves, and some grubby clothes or overalls (those cheap, disposable overalls like painters wear are great to keep in the boot anyway to protect your good outfit in case you need to swap your spare tire),
One thing I would suggest though is do a little research ahead of your trip, pinpointing where there are still JLR dealers and independent Jaguar specialist repair shops along the way. If the car starts acting up, it will be comforting to know where is the nearest help. Do we keep going forward to our next destination city or should we turn back or even deviate off the planned route to reach the nearest city where we can get a hotel room, calm ourselves down and have it checked out in the morning? When I was younger, I used to make note of where members of my car club lived along my route in case I needed help. I was once driving through Arizona late one night with a brewing problem, but I forged ahead knowing that one of the members ran a repair shop in Tucson and that at least the closer I got before it broke completely, the less the towing charge would be. I made it there. I always have to be back at work in a week though so I'm always planning a trip down to the second and freaking out when something goes wrong. I wish I was retired so I could make a leisurely six week road trip.
You hit the nail on the head - I retired about 12 months ago so can now fulfill my desire (after 30 years of business travel), to avoid airports and just drive abroad, if I can.
All good advice, thanks. I'm going to drop a note out to the local Jag enthusiast clubs along the route so I can call in on any meets they might be having.
Since I began keeping detailed records in 1997, I've done 37 Continental trips totalling 91,374 miles and 548 days in Continental Europe. During these I've had 2 breakdowns. A burst cooling transfer hose on an XJ40 on a Christmas Day afternoon in northern France (a seriously bad time to have problems regardless of location) and a failed injector on my current XK.shortly after crossing the Pyrenees into Spain The chances of a breakdown on a well maintained and prepared vehicle are LOW. I've also had 5 punctures but don't classify this as a breakdown.
Tolls are awkward with a RHD vehicle and for convenience I have Toll Tags for France, Spain and Portugal. Drive through the 'autotoll' lanes without stopping and the accrued tolls are invoiced at the end of the month. https://www.emovis-tag.co.uk/
I carry SDD diagnostics on my laptop together with Mongoose Pro, jack and wheel brace (make sure the wheels are correctly torqued and not rusted to the hubs before leaving), torch, multitool, insulating tape and duct tape. I don't bother with other tools as the list of "just in case" would leave no luggage space. Vehicles now require a UK sticker and Spain requires 2 emergency triangles.
Jaguar Dealers are few and far between but it's useful to know locations, addresses and contact details for those along or near the chosen route.
Breakdown insurance is essential. Recovery is expensive. It took the Jaguar Dealer in Burgos four days to get a replacement injector for my XK and don't forget repairs away from home are also expensive. That incident cost me just under 1000 UKP in repairs alone and an additional 1200 miles in a courtesy car to our destination and back to collect the XK.
Over the years I've been stopped three times by Police in France, once in Spain and once in Italy. All wanted to see documents and scrutinised them very closely. Strangely, once across the Channel and into the Schengen Zone, travel after Brexit is little different than before. I've crossed France/Spain and France/Italy borders without any additional formalities of showing passports or vehicle checks.
Finally, don't forget we're an International forum. Local knowledge could only be a post away.
Graham
After the earlier comment, I'm going to check up on my breakdown cover - if I'm not covered, I'd rather know before I left home. I love the advice on the tags - we lived in Barcelona for five years a few years ago and I ran a right hand drive Volvo for the whole time we were there. It would have been hell without a tag but I didn't realise you could get them without a Spanish bank account.
There was one scam that was running when we lived in Spain and that was the old "you have a puncture" trick. Someone would pull alongside you on the Autopista pointing at your back wheel. You'd pull over and they'd mug you and take your car - they picked on UK drivers. I was never stopped by the police either in Spain or in my twice yearly drives back through France to the UK. Maybe they thought anyone who drove a Volvo V70 with a roofbox wasn't interesting enough!
A few years ago we drove through France visiting friends and family all the way down to the Med, then to Santander via the Pyrenees about 3wks in total. I came down on the all you need is breakdown cover side of the argument in the end, because my assumption was It no difference to breakdown on the M5 or some Autroroute in Europe; I'm unlikely to have the exact tools parts I need either way. Plus I wanted some space to bring wine back and Wife took a huge suitcase!!!
The only issues we had was the driver seat bolster took a beating from near daily use plus frequent driver changes, and on drive back home from Plymouth I noticed a noisy rear wheel bearing, which I believe sound worse than they are on these cars.
Although it is an old we really felt like we were travelling in style.
03-17-2024 | 06:47 AM
What to Pack for a Continental Trip?
handy if any random bits of underbody trim decide to start flapping about. I've had that happen on toyotas too... zipties always useful.
I made it there. I always have to be back at work in a week though so I'm always planning a trip down to the second and freaking out when something goes wrong. I wish I was retired so I could make a leisurely six week road trip. 
