Brits on Tour
CM’S latest road trip.
With just a day to test the roadworthiness of our 2001 BMW 3-Series E46 before heading off on a 1000-mile trip to the Continent, I was feeling a little less nervous. The German four-door saloon was now performing better than it did before it went into the garage for a few repairs. With a fresh MOT certificate, a new radiator and coolant, a fixed leaking downpipe, fresh oil and filter, a new cam cover gasket and revitalised front suspension, it was driving perfectly. The only warning issued by the garage was that it might still be leaking engine oil.
Two weeks previously, I had no passengers in the BMW with me. So I made contact with my old mate Ken, whom I’d known from previous French tours involving Jaguars – lots of them – and had been part of a breakdown crew who could orchestrate roadside repairs if (when) they broke down.
At first, Ken thought my invitation to join me on an all-expenses trip was a wind-up. Eventually he said: “Can I bring Vic? He’s a mobile mechanic.”
“Of course”, I said. “There’s loads of room in a 3-Series.”
The car was ready, my passengers were here... and so was Gavin, a CM reader driving with us to France in his 1990 Mazda MX-5 Eunos. We set off in convoy at midday on Friday, heading towards the Port of Dover.
The BMW six-pot was purring along nicely and we hit the M20 for some faster road speeds. All good so far.
The DFDS ferry crossing service was smooth and both cars were parked up in Calais for the night while we refuelled ourselves at the local food outlet/ shopping centre at Cité Europe.
Where are we going?
The next morning – in what was to become a daily ritual – we checked the BMW dipstick before firing up the engine. It needed a top-up at Calais. Was there a visible leak underneath? Not really. No worries then.
We headed south-west onto the French motorway system towards our overnight stop in Rennes, 320 miles away. Our first stop would be the port of Honfleur for lunch. I did the first stint of driving, clicking on the cruise control at 80mph. The E46 computer was showing an ever-increasing average fuel consumption, getting into the mid-30s before it was time for Ken to take over.
You can cover many miles on the ultra-quiet French road system – we were averaging over 60mph. Ken had the accelerator firmly planted as we hit a steady incline on the dual carriageway, before: “Oh shit, we’ve lost power.”
As Ken spoke, the orange EML illuminated, but the engine was still firing, albeit not on all cylinders. The next rest area was two miles away.
It was only Day One and we’d travelled just 100 miles from Calais, so I was fearing the worst for a few sweaty minutes. But as we slipped the gearstick into neutral while taking the slip-road into the rest area and coasting to a stop, the EML went out. Phew! I had loaded my code reader in the boot with my luggage, so plugged it in for a diagnosis.
The ECU had cut power to cylinder 3 for some reason, but now it was back running on all six.
We built up speed again and all was well as we arrived at Honfleur for lunch. With the sat-nav now set to ‘no tolls’, we enjoyed some non-motorway driving down to Domfront for a quick refeshment stop, before arriving at Rennes in the late afternoon, where we had arranged dinner with CM reader Don Stickland, who was touring France.
Drinking to excess
Our now regular engine oil check the next morning revealed that the BMW was down to the minimum mark on the dipstick. Where was the oil going? Gavin reported seeing a bit of blue from the exhaust occasionally while following us, but the amount the engine was using, you’d think a cloud of smoke would be visible. Not to us, it wasn’t.
Twenty-odd miles south-west of Rennes is the Manoir de L’automobile car museum at Lohéac. The previous evening, we had made arrangements to join Donald Stickland and his friend Jason on a tour of the museum. After half-a-day looking at the splendid exhibits (turn to page 92 for photos of some of the highlights), we made our departure, saying we’d be back one day for a longer look.
Donald and Jason were heading off in different directions, while we were turning north towards Bayeux for our next overnight stay. The BMW was behaving itself and we felt the engine was actually becoming more responsive during acceleration. With only 150 miles to reach Bayeux, all was well.
The next morning, we started heading for home, dropping by the coastal town of Arromanches-les-bains, one of the sites of the Normandy landings in 1944. We had breakfast in a small café, and reflected back on the historical importance of this small town.
Driving out of Arromanches, we stopped off at the 360° Circular Cinema on the cliff-top, which shows a documentary film about D-day. It’s loud and sad at the same time.
We now had to head back to Calais. Both cars were running superbly and we arrived back quicker than expected, enabling us to catch an earlier DFDS ferry. Once back on UK soil, we bade farwell to Gavin and all agreed it had been a good few days of motoring.
The BMW did drink all five litres of engine oil I’d stored in the boot. That’s a litre every 200 miles – not good. While some of this could be blamed on engine leakage, I can’t believe it lost that much. So where did it go?
These six-cylinder BMWS have a complex breather hose system that requires complete renewal at this age. It’s not expensive to buy the pipework, so I’m hoping this will help the engine breathe a little better.
The BMW on-board computer said we had averaged 35.8mpg – not unreasonable calculations, as I’d worked out an average of 35.1mpg from tank-to-tank top-ups. Rather good for a heavily-laden saloon of 2200cc. In fact, it probably used more oil than fuel!
Two days after arriving home, the BMW showed itself up: the coolant header tank decided to split. Luckily, Febi sell the part to fix it. I just need to find time to do the job.