Hey all,

I am going on a 5500KM (~3400mi) road trip in my 01 CL with 234xxx km. The trip will be about 90% highway from Vancouver, BC to Los Angeles and back over about 2 weeks. I expect hills, valleys, flat road and lots of 80mph+. I will be driving about 8hrs a day every other day.

What should I have done to it prior to going? I want to make sure that I return in my CL and not on a last minute flight out of the middle of nowhere (if you know what I mean).

 

^

change oi
make sure A/C has proper charge
make sure tires are good
clean out car
take extra food, water, coolant, and oil
have a few $$ available if needed
clean out car

 

Oil/Coolant will probably be done just prior to leaving or two days after leaving somewhere in Washington or Oregon. (depends if I can convince work to pay me 2 days earlier

Tires I was told have about 60% tread on them however they are winter tires and (up here in Canada) it would cost ~ 1500 to put new tires
Problem is that 1500 is more than my share of the trip cost...that being said, there is no chunks missing from the sidewalls, no nails/screws/bolts logged in the sides, they work as advertised.

What do you mean by clean out car? Like a vacuum and dusting or back seat removal

Have a GTFO fund setup to let me fly outta there or bring the car to a semi-operable state (unless tranny/engine failure).

 

He means make sure your tire pressure is good

 

WOW! That's a trek, not a trip!

 

'Tis but a short excursion

 

By clean out I assume he means take out unneeded stuff. Junk like extra books or random crap that piles up in many people's trunks. It's just added weight that is killing gas mileage.

Make sure to top off the windshield washer fluid.

 

My car is empty minus two paper towel rolls, a pack of gum and the owners manual + compact spare.

How full up should I fill the windshield fluid? I have a 1 gal bottle of Rain X fluid in the trunk.

 

^fill it to the top and put the cap back on

clean car = wash and remove un needed items.

tires good = properly inflated and good tread and no obvious defects

carry one extra bottle of washer fluid, 1 extra gallon of coolant (premixed) or 1 gal coolant with 1 gal water, plus water and food in case you get stranded due to unforseen circumstances. There are some pretty long treks where there are NO facilities. so before you go any long distances bewtween stations, top off ur fuel. You can expect about 29-31mpg or roughly 12-13km per liter of fuel if you keep the speed reasonable at 65-70mph or 100-115km/h

 

To catch you guys up...

Continuing...

Tomorrow I will be doing a short 400km round trip to Seattle Premium Outlets. What should I do to thoroughly test the transmission to make sure that it is in fact behaving and not just my paranoia?

 

Never mind, put the car through hell and back doing the "Sea to Sky" highway here, tailing some bikes. It seemed to run very well...

 

I'd add RoadStar to your ICBC and get a BCAA membership with CAA Plus then flush 'em when you get back.

Think about mounting a set of new all-seasons in Bellingham after you cross. Take a look at TireRack and compare prices.

 

I only have my N so roadstar is not available to me for another 7 years :/