[Lakes]

Hi all, well i drove down the coast road to victoria, left from work wednesday about 3.30pm filled the tank up with Vortex Premium Diesel near an entry point to M5 @ Resby, drove to my friends near Narooma NSW stayed the night then drove to another friends @ Emerald Vic. i filled the tank up near Emerald and had just over 1,000k up fuel gauge was reading 1/4 of a tank left got 44L in the tank to full. i stayed three days drove around melbourne then drove home to Sydney will fill tank up latter but very happy. was a lot of road work on hume hwy coming back so lot of hold ups. i left Emerald early monday so bit of traffic, stopped at Holbrook NSW for a meal then drove to syd took around 9 hours. coast road was much more enjoyable and not much traffic till just before Sale Vic. road surface was good they have done a lot of hot mix upgrades to the road specialy on NSW side.
One the Hume Hwy lot of road upgrade going on and the by pass of Woodonga /Albury being compleated has made the trip faster probably would be quicker on a weekend as being a monday the road works were in full swing.
well was a great trip and enjoyable weekend, the i30 ran faltless, and i must say it is easily the best enconomy i have been able to get from any car i have owned yet.

[Doggie 1]

Congratulations, sounds like great economy & a good trip. I can't wait to take mine on an extended drive like that.

[Dazzler]

good stuff john.. any pix to share?

[rustbucket]

Hi Folks,

Haven't posted for a while but have kept in touch with the forum. Hope all are well. Our i30 crdi SLX is still traveling well with no complaints and nothing but praise. Two weeks ago an old friend and his wife rang and told us they had just pick up a new crdi slx in moonlight blue and would we be interested in a co-ordinated drive to Port Macquarie from Brisbane where they had a time share swap for a weeks driving around that area. Armed with a couple of handheld UHF we drove down through Beaudesert Kyogle Casino Grafton and Coffs to Port Maquarie. Both cars despite the Klm difference were much the same with regards to economy and performance ( ours now has 6000 klms and theirs 1200). Drove up to Ellenborough Falls through Wauchope and Comboyne about 20klms of dirt that hadn't seen a scraper for a while. The climb saw 5.3 LPH on the trip computer but overall after returning to flatter ground back through Taree both dropped to 4.7 LPH and driving home to Brisbane via the coast road with climate control on and 110 kph in places both cars finished at 4.8 LPH. In fact the only figure that varied was the distance to empty at full (ours 580 theirs 670). My friends other car is a brand new V8 diesel Landcruiser with heaps of grunt. However he had a ball over the week accelerating up all the hills and using the great handling on the dirt and through the corners, also he couldn't believe all that came with fantastic economy. All in all a great touring car. Trip total 1750 klms all up over the week

Needlessly to say we are all very happy with our purchases

Regards

Rustbucket

[Dazzler]

Hi Rustbucket.. great story..

glad you are still pleased with your diesel -mines done nearly 35,000 and still happy....

[whitbomb07]

Hey Lakes.

It's a bit unfortunate about all the roadworks on the Hume still. I managed 4.6l/100km between Melb and Newcastle driving along there in March (with a overnight stop in Albury and detour into the Blue Mountains the next day.

I haven't driven the coastal route down to Sale before, always driven down through Canberra and down the Monaro highway before meeting up to the A1 at Cann River. The furthest I've been down the Princes is between Ulladulla and Batemans Bay if memory serves. So I don't know about the trip between there and Cann River. But Cann river to Sale is nice. I'd love to take the i30 down the Monaro, it would be a great drive for it. Unfortunately I don't have any reason to go down there anytime soon.

Good effort

Regards

Daniel

[Lakes]

good stuff john.. any pix to share?

Dazz did not take pic's, i'm a bit lazy with camera's and the compact digital i have needs too many setting if you want good pic's. don't like carrying an SLR around. but still like good Pic's & viewing them.

[Lakes]

Daniel, that's great economy you got, i'm not sure yet what my return economy was, but i was driving hard all the way back to do it in 9hours with all that road work with speed limits going from 110 to 80 to 60 then 40 and so on.
the coast road is great but after Mystery Bay there is not many views of the water, but great twisty hilly roads to drive, and some nice little towns to see especially if you have time to detour. two little towns i like are Tilba Tilba ( only about 100k south of BB) & Cobargo ( Just up from Bega & before you get to Snowy mountains Hwy ). the coast road is about 200k longer than. SYD MELB on hume hwy. i just set my aftermarket CC, and the i30 did the coast in 5th gear only time i changed was for towns or traffic.