Roadtrip North Europe: 1000 miles, 23 pics

[Justabanana]

First of all, sorry for the dirty car in many of the pics - I know the general rule in every car forum is not to post pictures of a filthy ride but winter here is warm and wet and it's impossible to keep the car clean even for a minute. Also, I'm no pro photographer.

And second; a little introduction seems to be in order tho I've been lurking the forum for ~6 months now:
I'm Jarno and I live in Finland. My ride is an AW -08 123d with motorsports package. Not much extras, I'm a poor sod :biggrin:
The story of my car is about the following:
It's autumn of 2007, I'm in my previous job. Bored, I open a local car mag at a random page - featuring an article with pics about the new BMW 1-series coupe. The first time ever I see the coupe. 0.01 seconds later the decision to purchase the car is done . It arrived to me september 2008.

These pictures are from my trip from Espoo to Tornio where I visited some friends. I left 4:30 am friday 28.11 and got there about 6 pm.

The first step in ensuring a safe journey and a low fuel consumption is to choose a calm, relaxing soundtrack.



Early hours a few hundred kilometers south of Jyväskylä









To take roads like these one really needs The Ultimate Driving Machine



Arrived at cousin's place in Oulu. The car is heartbreakingly filthy...



Approaching Tornio.



And there. What a relief it was to get the car washed. (Or "washed" as it was a brushless machine wash)



The consumption rose a bit over the factory annouced 4.4l/100km because of urban driving in Oulu and Tornio and several stops I made during the trip. (the image below should be in US gallons)



Using these parking slots requires some skill...



Following pics are from Sweden's side at Haparanda. Damn swedes' have stolen our proper winter it seems!





This beautiful structure is the church of Haparanda... Church of Belzebub I guess.





The town hotel





It gets dark early.





The hangover has been dealt with, it's monday and time to hop on the road again. Taking the first coffee break in a town called Ii.



Posting this pic to protest against these brain-melting roads...



Dirty again.





Soon after returning home I washed the car with grease-remover, then car shampoo and gave it two layers of Autoglym wax.

Well that's about it. As an outcome I must comment the 123d is a great winter car. The seat heaters are powerful as is the additional cabin heater (the diesel generates so little extra heat an addition is a must). The car also functions well on long journeys. It has the same max torque as the 135i with less consumption (but loses in sounds... and that's a big minus...). Well, the drive is a bit wobbly. I think it's the tires. Im running on Nokian Hakkapeliitta R studless winter tires. 205/50/17 front and 225/45/17 rear.

The pictures are in photobucket, they have worked in other forums I've posted. Hopefully here too.

Oh, and merry christmas everyone!

[atr_hugo]

Thanks - nice pix (gotta be a Lutheran church ; -), and a Merry Christmas to you!!

[AchtungF80]

ohhh how much I long for a 123d!!!

[Boogie]

Nice car! Looks very similar to my 120d!

Must say you've got balls to buy a white car in such a snowy country!

Your consumption is LOW btw! When doing highways i do between 5 and 5.5l/100km. Now I mostly do citytraffic and it's at 6l/100km! Still much less than my 120d hatch which i had before (pre facelift) which did 7l/100km on highways :s

Good luck with it, and enjoy

[Storm]

Children of Bodom rule! They are one of my favorite bands! Great taste in music and in cars. :thumbup:

[ChrisM135i]

cool roadtrip, thx for sharing your journey!

btw. Maybe your fuel consumption of 4.4l / 100 km is a result of the speed limit at finland / sweden? :biggrin: About a few years ago, i visited sweden and a friend told me, that there is a strict speed limit of about 100 km/h. Is that right? I guess your fuel consumption will be much higher, if you visit germany at your next roadtrip..

[jbenington86]

nice 52mpg

[ben14142001]

Awesome pics!

-Ben

[Justabanana]

Originally Posted by ChrisM135i

cool roadtrip, thx for sharing your journey!

btw. Maybe your fuel consumption of 4.4l / 100 km is a result of the speed limit at finland / sweden? :biggrin: About a few years ago, i visited sweden and a friend told me, that there is a strict speed limit of about 100 km/h. Is that right? I guess your fuel consumption will be much higher, if you visit germany at your next roadtrip..

The speed limit for most of the journey was 80km/h (~50mph) in fact and I didn't go over 90km/h even if I had the chance. So I kinda cheated with the consumption, drove a little slow :wink:. With speeds over 100km/h the consumption is 5+l/100km.

At autobahns it'd grow to... I dunno 6+l/100? That won't stop me from coming to Germany and trying it out next summer tho

[jbenington86]

Originally Posted by Justabanana

The speed limit for most of the journey was 80km/h (~50mph) in fact and I didn't go over 90km/h even if I had the chance. So I kinda cheated with the consumption, drove a little slow :wink:. With speeds over 100km/h the consumption is 5+l/100km.

At autobahns it'd grow to... I dunno 6+l/100? That won't stop me from coming to Germany and trying it out next summer tho

when i drive on the autobahn I get less than 20mpg but thats driving 100+mph :biggrin:

[ChrisK]

A beautiful road trip in the snow gives you a automatic pass on the clean car rule :headbang:


Very nice pictures!

[bozola]

Nice pics..

I would TRIP over myself to get a H/B Diesel powered 1 in the US