Thread: All 240D owners
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Old 06-04-2008, 08:09 PM
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neptune neptune is offline
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Join Date: May 2006
Location: Seattle/Portland
Posts: 62
As said, assuming the car is relatively well maintained you should be fine. I'd spend an afternoon checking the belts, filters, fluids, and just looking for any potential problems on a car that was new to me before I took it on a long trip.
I found the 240D really enjoyed long trips, ridiculously soft suspension makes the freeways seem relaxing and the motor just clatters along quite contentedly at speed. A 240D goes as fast as it can and there's nothing you can do about it, so you just learn to relax and cruise. Toss a brick on the accelerator and enjoy the radio if you can.

Quote:
Originally Posted by ndz77-240D View Post
My 240D has been all over the place, has taken almost monthly trips from Portland to Seattle (3 hours), and I take it to Hood River down the Gorge all the time.
I pretty much exclusively drove it on 180 mile trips up and down I-5 between Seattle and Portland for around a year. And there are a few rather steep hills that it tackled on a regular basis around the area, including the hill from the ferry at Edmonds heading toward 99. It isn't quick, but it really isn't too bad.
Never had a real problem or difficulty other than people cutting me off and slowing me down right before a hill. If they don't force you to downshift its ok, and once you get accustomed to the torque curve and the giant holes between gears its pretty easy to drive in the hills. If you hit the bottom of the hill doing just over 60mph you'll be fine, much under 60 and you'll be doing 50mph or less at the top.
Biggest problem is all the people who realize that you're in a diesel and hurry to pass you, only to slow down again once they're in front of you. Then you get to pass them, which takes timing and a bit of luck. Then they promptly realize that there's a diesel ahead of them, so they speed up to pass you... etc etc. Makes for a really boring game of leapfrog for hours on end.
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