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Vacation with the V


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We are going to use the V a lot this summer. I use it as a daily driver, even in wintertime but this will be the first vacation use. First I'm going on a trip with my seven year old daughter (wife has to work) to celebrate my father’s 75th birthday. The celebration will be in a northern part of Sweden so I suppose that trip will be about a thousand miles. The second trip will be with my family down to Germany through Denmark (I'm allergic to ferries or rather against dents and scratches from other cars). We are going to the southern part of Germany (Berchtesgaden) and enjoy the scenery, probably visit the "eagles nest" and of course enjoy the V at speed on the autobahn! Hopefully I can convince my wife to ride on a museum small gage railway in a part called Harz. Very steep grades and tight curves on that railroad and they use ten-coupled steam locomotives, the most powerful in Germany with their 700 bhp. Not a Big-Boy with almost 7000 bhp, but a large power for a narrow gauge railway.

After that it is probably time for new tires...

 

I hope that you guys are enjoying your vacations!

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Have a good safe trip Jan, sounds like fun!  

Pre-1995 - DTC codes OBD1  >>

1996 and newer - DTC codes OBD2 >> https://www.obd-codes.com/trouble_codes/gm/obd_codes.htm

How to check for codes Caddyinfo How To Technical Archive >> http://www.caddyinfo.com/wordpress/cadillac-how-to-faq/

Cadillac History & Specifications Year by Year  http://www.motorera.com/cadillac/index.htm

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  • 2 weeks later...

I correct myself. It should say "The most powerful narrow gauge steam loco in Germany". The most powerful german steam loco is I believe the series 44 (standard gauge). It would be nice to ride a passenger express train like the series 18. It can manage express trains up to 110 mph!

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hi all!

 

I’ve just returned home after a total of 2000 miles of driving. We went to southern Bavaria through Denmark for a week J The temperatures was about 90-95F but the V didn’t mind, until I smelled coolant when I was fueling it up…because of a lousy dealer job.

Some of you might remember that I let an authorized dealership change the compressor free of charge (replacement because of abnormal sounds). I almost always do what needs to be done on my own cars but since the compressor isn’t exactly free of charge I had to let a shop do the work to get it for free. I told them that I didn’t mind to wait another hour for them to get finished. I’d rather have them do a proper job than rush things through, but that didn’t help at all obviously... When I bought the car from them I pointed out to them (well actually I wrote a long mail) that they claimed the engine oil was changed (it was not), they used cheap after-market brake pads, they did not inform me that the coolant was due for a change etc. etc. Since I do most of the work myself it wasn’t really a big thing. I expected it and thought I could use it as leverage in order to get free stuff, like navigation DVDs etc. According to various sources you can expect that about 60-80% of the Swedish garages charge you for work that hasn’t been done or that they miss faults that should’ve been corrected.

Ok. I popped the hood and saw that a coolant hose was rubbing against an idler wheel. The retards obviously didn’t care too much about proper routing and clamping. Nothing to do because the gas station didn’t have hose clamps, pipes etc. I had to call a towing truck after dealing with my insurance company. So there we were. Me, my wife and my daughter in 95F in the middle of nowhere in former eastern Germany. After a couple of hours the towing truck arrived, I drove the V up on the back of the truck and had to leave my wife, daughter and all luggage behind on the gas station because there wasn’t room for all of us and the guy who collected the car wanted me to drive the car off the truck as well. Now it was early night, he drove about 20 miles to some shady part of an old town in former DDR (the truck didn’t have air-conditioning and the driver was smoking, everyone seems to smoke in Germany don’t they?). We unloaded the V and expected to get a cab back to my family but then the guy started the repair. Some hose clamps, a pipe and some coolant later I was heading back to collect the rest of the family and our stuff. Much delayed we arrived at our first planned stop. I will sort things out with the dealer for sure.

The V has performed very well, especially given the conditions it was used in. There are always a lot of construction works going on at the German Autobahns but there are also a lot of places where to put the pedal to the metal and go at whatever ridiculous speed you deem safe. The fastest I drove was 286 km/h (almost 178 mph) after the GPS. I say GPS because European speedometers must show 5% higher than actual speed. For long stretches I drove about 125-155 mph with a fully loaded car at about 95F. I once braked REALLY hard from about 165-170 mph to a full stop because of a sudden traffic jam. Everything seems in order, no leaks, smells or funny noises. The V behaved very well, always power when needed and quite comfortable for a sport sedan. No car could outrun me but several of them could keep up for a little while, at least until they had to break for another car before switching lanes to get up to speed again. Imagine for instance a VW driving at 120 mph in the left lane, switching to the middle lane in order to let my pass by while accelerating up to 150 mph (in case I couldn’t keep up and pass him he could go back to the left lane again), slamming the brakes hard because of a truck in front of it and return back to the left lane again to keep up with me. Many BMWs, Mercedes, Audis and VWs did that but they lacked the acceleration even if the top speed perhaps didn’t differ that much. I have also driven on the steepest grades in my life, 24%! Average fuel consumption for the trip was 14.9 mpg which is impressing given my driving!

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Sounds like you had a great trip, thanks for the update, the V performed well.  Too bad it's not possible to find good mechanics, that's why we do it ourselves!  

Pre-1995 - DTC codes OBD1  >>

1996 and newer - DTC codes OBD2 >> https://www.obd-codes.com/trouble_codes/gm/obd_codes.htm

How to check for codes Caddyinfo How To Technical Archive >> http://www.caddyinfo.com/wordpress/cadillac-how-to-faq/

Cadillac History & Specifications Year by Year  http://www.motorera.com/cadillac/index.htm

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