My Le Mans 2012 Trip

[ScottD3]

902 miles, 80 litres of fuel, 2 ferries, 1 fan belt, 1 broken turbo, 3 ports, 12 burgers, 5 days, 4 hot dogs, 12 cans of cider, 1 kebab, 4 pot noddles, 20 coffees, 6 instant pasta dishes, 100meg of data, 6 text msgs, 60mins of phone call and one really enjoyable adventure.
It all started off on Wednesday the 4th of July.
Left Plymouth at 18:00 to meet up with my friend in Exeter for a quick nap to get up at 02:00 for our road trip to Poole to catch a ferry to Cherbourg, then on to Le mans.

July the 5th - 8th.
On the way to Poole we met up with a V8 MG midget, V8 Cobra and a our support vehicle, a Toyota Hi-lux Surf.
Our convoy now consists of a Audi A4, Clio 182, V8 Cobra, V8 Midget and a Hi-Lux Surf.
With the convoy complete we set off for our ferry.

The trip to Le Mans was fine.
Nothing really special happened, some nice roads, couple of nice cars, lovely weather, typical French sceneries and roads.

Bout 20-30mins out side of Le mans my car started to lose power. Any form of a slight incline and it would find it hard to get up the hill, slow down, drop a gear and put my foot down and nothing. It will climb the hills but not very well and struggle to over take cars.

I limped it in to the camp site, set up camp and had a quick look over the car.
Could not see any thing, so forgot about the car and enjoyed my weekend in Le Mans.

Not sure what to say about Le Mans Classic, Its vast. loads of stalls, cars, people, stuff going on.
Its expensive. Not something for my self, 15 euros for a burger and chips, 7 euros for a pint of beer and over 60 euros for a T-shirt.
I never bought any thing. lol

The weather could never make its mind up. It was hot, sunny, cold, windy, raining and generally a pain in the ***!!
But the amazing array of cars made up for the weather.

The next 3 days was spent walking around the tracks, stalls and enjoying the sights and sounds of the cars.

Here is some images.

One of few Audis. I think there was 6, mine being one of them.

I don't think I fit in here very well.

There is even more
Le Mans pictures by Axios - Photobucket

I'm still uploading, so check back over the next couple of hours.

 

[ScottD3]

Sunday 8th of July.

Me and my passenger decided to pack up the tent and head off to Cherbourg.
With the car being poorly we wanted to give our selfs loads of time to limp back, just in case any thing happens it gives us an extra day to get the car towed to the port and hopefully home.

3 hours later we made it to Cherbourg with no issues or troubles.
We drove to the ferry in the hope of blagging a earlier ferry and get home a day earlier. This did not work, they wanted 180 euros to catch a earlier ferry and we decided to find a B&B and spend the might in Cherbourg.

We found a nice hotel with a private garage. This was a bonus cause it stopped me from worry about a car full of kit.
We stayed in Le Lourve (http://www.hotel-le-louvre-cherbourg.com). Highly recommended. Lovely hotel and nice staff.

With a nice hot shower, proper toilets and a comfy. I had really good night sleep. So much better than staying in a tent, during the rain, getting woken up at 08:30 by race cars screaming past our tents and rain hammering on the roof.


Monday the 9th.
We got up for breakfast, checked out and took a walk in to town to find something to do till our ferry landed at 19:45.

We walked round town for a couple of hours and then made out way to Cité de la Mer (La Cité de la Mer à Cherbourg, en Normandie, parc de loisirs dédié à l’océan profond : aquariums et sous-marins.Une visite et un divertissement familial. | La Cité de la Mer | Le site internet de la Cité de la Mer).

I can't recommend this place enough, it is truly amazing. Got a nuke sub you can walk round, Titanic museum, Interactive submarine tour which is great fun, even for a 20 and 40 something, it was such a laugh. They got an aquarium with a sort of a petting tank, where you can touch sharks, sting rays and other fish in the tank......In short go. even if its a day with the kids. Its amazing.

I have pics of the sub but I will sort them out tomorrow for you all.
******************Images**********************

We left this place, walked back to the car and drove to the ferry port.
As we approached the ferry port, just about to join the round about my belt snapped.
I lost power steering, alternator, cooling fan and water pump.

I lumped it to queue and left it there. We was 2 hours early so we took this time to get some food, relax some more and talk to the Brittany Ferries personal and explain to them what is wrong with the car.

On the ferry terminal is British burger bar ran by a British bloke.
I don't know what it is but there is something odd about walking up to the burger van in france and ask for a bacon, egg roll and chips.
It was my taste of home.
The Brittany Ferries people was really help full, I queue jumped a couple of times and got out of the port quicker. Despite seeing some **** in a 911 try and run over a Port personal cause he asked him to stop to let me in.

Time to leave it there.

I will carry this on tomorrow when I'm a bit more awake.

It took us 7 hours and 2 break down trucks to get home Monday night/Tuesday Morning.

To be continue...................

 

[ScottD3]

Monday the 9th 22:00.
Drove off the ferry and out of the port with no turbo, no power steering, no alternator, no fan and no water pump.

Limped it through the port and spoke to a couple of the yellow jacket guys to explain my situation.
They radioed through to people up front who helpped me out quicker by opening lanes, stopping people to let me in front and they let me park in the port offices car park till the tow truck turned up.

Just before boarder control and in the middle of everyone trying to get out, one of the yellow/orange hi-vis guys got about 4 cars in front and tried to stop a 911 to make space for me to go in to his lane cause its going quick.

After 4 attemps of trying to stop this Porsche, the guy stood in front of the Porsche and told him to stop. The Porsche drove in to the hi-vis guy.
After several harsh words to the Porsche guy, I was flagged through, I felt like having a word with the Porsche guy and explain why he was stopping him but I was to tired and would have ended up lamping him, so I stayed in the car and mentioned it to boarder guy, he did not seem happy and said he'd make this a bit difficult from him.
We left the port and turned in to the port offices car park where we met up with a couple of Morgan Aeros who has also broken down.

They was waiting for the AA and we was waiting for our truck.
After 45 mins, they AA man turned up said he can't tow it cause its to low and requested a flat bed for them. He told them that will take 3 hours and ours was an hour away.

4 people and 2 cars waiting for break down trucks we decided to break out the camping stove and coffee. The joys of just coming back from a camping trip, we can sit on the road side and have nice cup of coffee.
Win in about 30 mins our break down lorry turned up, loaded us on the back and we was away.
************Images***************

About an hour down the road this break down truckt started to get slower and lose power, big red flashing light on the dash, sign saying STOP pull over and a picture of a injector.
Pulled over, phoned his mech who said its a injector fault and bring it back to the yard to swap trucks.
we drove back to the yard, dropped off this big comfy new but poorly truck and picked up a older, less comfy, noisy but faster truck.
Loaded on to the back of that and 7 hours later we made it home.

Nothing really happened on the trip back, which is a good thing cause I don't think I could handle it any more.
Moved my friends items from my car to his car, he drove off home and I went to bed.

Its now 5am on tuesday the 10th and I'm in bed sleeping.
Nothing happens with the car till Tuesday at 18:30 when my friend comes over with his VCDS and we check for fault codes.

3 engine fault codes and only one really stands out. Manifold pressure irregualar.
********Fault code*******

Having a quick look on Ross-Tech's site and they say its a fault with the N75 or the turbo.
With no obviuse signs of the turbo being dieing I'm going to side with a faulty N75.

Wednesday 08:00
Break down truck been dispatched to move the car to the garage for repairs.

Wednesday 09:30
I'm in work, car has been delivered to the garage.
Time to do some work, relax and get some sleep.
Thats the end of this saga.
I hope you enjoyed my waffel and that there is not to many errors that made it hard to read.

P.S. I would recommend Le Mans classic.