RT Road trip.

[dantodd]

Visited the wine country for Father's Day. There is a winery way up in the Alexander Valley that bottles their grape juice unfermented. My son loves the stuff, as do his parents.

It's about 3 hours up mostly on winding highways and then quite a few backroads.

First things first, the car got 18.6 mpg on the whole trip. This is better than I expected and I suspect the recent flashing had something to do with it.

On the way up I was passed by an E320 wagon in a big hurry, with Cameron and Sue in the car I wasn't in a hurry and we were enjoying the drive.

I drove like a granny most of the day.

On the way home driving Hwy 128 with 4 cases of wine in the back I was winding my way along nice and slowly. Then we were passed by a Focus in a big hurry. Sue has a tendency to get car sick so I didn't even think about it. but when Sue said "you can catch him...." Well.... That was all the inducement I needed. I was little worried but as the wine cases started flying around the back of the car Sue didn't feel sick at all and Cameron was laughing his ass off. Apparently he loves getting tossed around in the back of the car even more than I thought. Now I have a built in excuse for driving like a maniac!!!!

Never passed the Focus as there was no chance until we hit 101 but he had me on his ass the whole way.


Two major points.
1) The Conti's SUCK. Sliding all over the place with 32psi.
2) The car has way too much roll. Needs to be lowered and better dampers.

[magnuman]

dantodd, you may want to pump your tires up to 40 PSI in the fronts and 38 PSI in the rears. My alignment guy recommended it to me, and they've been that way for about 8 months now. Corners much better than 32 PSI and wear pattern is much more even. Also a little harsher, noiser ride, but worth it IMO. Just trying to make the best of weak a$$ set of tires.