[Junebug85]

Got back from a 1700 mile trip to Germany with the Mrs 2010E92LCI this weekend. I've done driving holidays in the past and have driven lots abroad but since I got my 335d in Nov 17 I wanted to take this on a long tour. With us both being car mad... this was perfect.

Started in Leicester (Dover to Dunkirk) and the first stop over on the journey was Stuttgart. Here we visited the Porsche and Mercedes museums. If you haven't been I would definitely recommend the MB one! It has a lot of history and a lot to see!

The second stop on the trip was Munich for obvious reasons. Here we spent a few days. I've been to the BMW Welt and BMW Museum before but it was nice to see new and updated things. We managed to get onto a factory tour too. I was told it was booked up to mid July but managed to get onto an afternoon tour. I was really excited about this as its where the F30 is made along with the F31, F32 and F82.

We had our reservations about taking the car as we thought it would become boring, tiresome (comfort wise) - the F30 isn't as good as the F10 in that area I think. However the car was nothing like that. We both thoroughly enjoyed the driving (especially on the way to Munich). Having HUD and SLI was a big help. Setting the units to km made it so much easier with the HUD. At high speeds you could focus on the road instead of looking down and back up again. The car in summary was great. Ok, it's not the greatest and the fastest etc... but it wasn't all about speed. As a long distance cruiser the car definitely works. The engine is great! I was able to push it hard and it coped well! I've had a few doubts coming from an F10 but over time they have faded away. The only thing with the F30 at high speeds is the road noise and feels 'light' compared to the predecessor.

I did manage to hit the special number and a few over... 255kph was indicated on HUD which makes it 158mph . The car handled great at high speeds and having ACS played a big part I think, especially cornering at high speeds. On 2 separate occasions I was behind a 640i GT and a 435d who kept pulling away from me even at speeds of around 150mph. That was great fun but I imagine cars over there are not limited...

On the way back we stopped off in Brussels for some sightseeing and to break up the journey back.

Spent most of yesterday cleaning the car as it was filthy. Even roped my dad into helping me on Father's day!

Out of all of it, driving on German roads was great. Brussels was a different story! Was stressful at times but we made it. I was concerned at times as the car is very low at the front with the splitter. There are some big speed humps over there! Underground car parks and slopes made me sweat a little (managed to scrape it twice on the cobbled streets in Brussels but no damage done). Driving back home from Dover made us realise how bad our roads really are over here!

Some pics below of what was a really enjoyable and memorable trip. . No photo's of the factory tour as they don't allow cameras. Posting this now I'm thinking I should of took more pictures but while I was there I wanted to experience it all rather than be tied up taking lots of pics.

10 of the 80 taken...

[aloo6]

Beautiful pictures

[mikeoz]

Fully agree on Belgium. Very busy with bad potholes even on outside lands on M.ways.
Not a nice place to drive.
Sounds like you had a nice time overall.

[rossm]

Nice pics thanks for sharing. When touring Europe I always either head towards the South of France or into the alps - Switzerland, Italy, southern Germany, Austria etc. Never really think to head into the cities or do museum trips

[Tengocity]

Originally Posted by rossm

Nice pics thanks for sharing. When touring Europe I always either head towards the South of France or into the alps - Switzerland, Italy, southern Germany, Austria etc. Never really think to head into the cities or do museum trips

I was thinking just the same. Mrs Tengocity would probably be a happy to do a little less Alpine passes, and a little more pretty city street cafes!

[djcowlin]

Nice trip. I visited the BMW Welt exhibition a few years ago but got the timing wrong and the factory was closed.

I believe you can have the speed limiter deleted in Germany if you so wish, which might explain how people can keep going beyond 255 km/h. I'm impressed that you managed to get up to that speed - my speed limiter in the passenger seat kicks in at under 200...

[Junebug85]

Originally Posted by djcowlin

Nice trip. I visited the BMW Welt exhibition a few years ago but got the timing wrong and the factory was closed.

I believe you can have the speed limiter deleted in Germany if you so wish, which might explain how people can keep going beyond 255 km/h. I'm impressed that you managed to get up to that speed - my speed limiter in the passenger seat kicks in at under 200...

Thanks pal.

It took a few attempts to get to that figure. The Mrs did okay... I scared her a few times but said its all part of the thrill . She got up to 145mph and she said that's enough for her!

Had to use a dettol wipe on the steering wheel afterwards to get rid of the sweaty palm marks!

[Tengocity]

Originally Posted by Junebug85

Thanks pal.

It took a few attempts to get to that figure. The Mrs did okay... I scared her a few times but said its all part of the thrill . She got up to 145mph and she said that's enough for her!

Had to use a dettol wipe on the steering wheel afterwards to get rid of the sweaty palm marks!

Maxing out on the autobahn is harder than most folk realise! The right bit of road, plus the right traffic, are not always as easy to find as you think.

[chris-c]

Sounds like you had a fun trip.the 435d could have been remapped to have a higher limiter as I think a few remaps allow that but the 640i would have been stock as even when BMW mppsk the *40i cars the limiter is still the same.

[sahajesh]

Originally Posted by Tengocity

Maxing out on the autobahn is harder than most folk realise! The right bit of road, plus the right traffic, are not always as easy to find as you think.

Agree - it's not often you can get a clear stretch of road for long enough. All it takes is someone in a slower lane to pull out to overtake and you have to slow down rapidly.

In my recent trip, going from Munich to Innsbruck, that was a decent stretch of road and 3 lanes from memory too.

[Junebug85]

Originally Posted by Tengocity

Maxing out on the autobahn is harder than most folk realise! The right bit of road, plus the right traffic, are not always as easy to find as you think.

Totally agree. The drivers are quite disciplined but you get the odd few that pull out into the fast lane. I also found that braking distances at those speeds is critical, it can catch you out!

[Alscoob]

Cracking pictures, must put that on my list to visit.

Anywhere around Brussels is a nightmare to drive especially the bloody ring road, catch it wrong & you have 4 lanes of stationary traffic both ways for miles and miles ! Looks like you had a fantastic though.

[chris-c]

People don't seem to appreciate how long it takes to stop once you get up in the numbers. You get used to braking from 70 so you get accustomed to shedding speed from 70 to 50 or whatever but get the starting speed at more like 110-120 and things take much longer.

[Tengocity]

Yes the braking at that speed can take a bit of getting used to! I put a big brake kit on the 335d for track work, but their ability to wipe big big speeds off on the autobahn was very reassuring.

[mikeoz]

Very true. I found 3 weeks ago that I didn't get a clear enough but to max out. Plus lots of road works. I have also found over the years on the 2 lane bahns that lorries tend to look and see a spec in the distance not realising your doing 150 pull out and then your right on them braking. Normally some eastern euro lorry but to be fair it's hard for them to judge distances at those speeds.

[djcowlin]

Plus the speed enforcement on the restricted sections is more stringent than it is here, so you need to lose a lot of speed quickly when the limit drops to 120 km/h.

[Junebug85]

Originally Posted by djcowlin

Plus the speed enforcement on the restricted sections is more stringent than it is here, so you need to lose a lot of speed quickly when the limit drops to 120 km/h.

They have some weird looking cameras over there! I used the TomTom Android Camera app. It worked quite well.

The only thing it did was say there were a few mobile speed cameras reported a few mins ago but we didn't see any :

[EvilDrPorkChop]

Originally Posted by Junebug85

They have some weird looking cameras over there! I used the TomTom Android Camera app. It worked quite well.

The only thing it did was say there were a few mobile speed cameras reported a few mins ago but we didn't see any :

Yes when we went there's some for trucks which I thought were speed cameras at first.

[mikeoz]

If you mean the over head gantry cams they are the Tollcollect system for Trucks...as you say.

[djcowlin]

Yes - these look quite scary but can be safely ignored, for the moment. If they do finally introduce Autobahn tolls for foreign drivers (see https://www.thelocal.de/20170324/wha...l-mean-for-you) then I imagine they will be used to enforce those.

[mikeoz]

They have been talking about that since they were built