French tour in the westy

[Molydood]

Hi,

me and SWIMBO are planning a blast round france to visit the vineyards and countryside for a week. Had the great idea tonight of doing it in the westfield, hurrahh!

two questions if you would be so kind to help:

1. any tips?

2. how do you keep your luggage secure?

the plan is to stay in b+b every night (we have a book with details about each b+b, quite good), staying 1-2 days in each place maybe.

thinking of calais-paris-chablis-mersault-luxemberg ish but no real plans at all rightnow  

any help would be much appreciated :-)

cheers

PS what about breakdowns, are they likely to be a problem? depends on yer motor i guess...  

[Mark Stanton]

Grab yourself one of Paul Ash's luggage racks    

[oioi]

luggage rack is really handy, and well worth considering.

from your avatar it looks like youve got a full cage, using the rear stays and the main uprights of the cage you can bungy some of these bags to the cage over the boot box.  will keep your stuff nice and dry whilst still giving you access to boot box for spares and petrol

carry spare petrol (at least 5 litres) petrol on rural roads in france, especially on a sunday can be a nightmare.  take a decent tool kit.  take out rac cover.  best 50 quid i ever spent.  i got over 2k's worth of support when i broke down.

[Kevin Wood]

We've done a fortnight in France and thoroughly enjoyed it. Just used a small hard plastic suitcase bunjeed to the top of the boot. Camping gear in boot, clotes in suitcase.

Even had room for a couple of bottles of plonk behind the seats on the way home.

I echo Mike's comments on petrol. Best to make for Motorway services for fuel on Sundays IMO. Village fuel stations are unmanned with a chip&pin machine for payment. Problem is the French use a different chip & pin system to us.

Also, I think you're required to have a warning triangle and a set of spare bulbs.

Have fun

Kevin

[pistonbroke]

two questions if you would be so kind to help:

1. any tips?

2. how do you keep your luggage secure

1. stay away from scousers

2. dont go via liverpool  

[Molydood]

thanks for the tips, sounds good.

any idea how to stop people knicking stuff out of the car when you leave it someplace? or do you just need to make sure you check into the hotel first then drop your gear off?

hmm   

[David Alexander]

I took my car down to Faro, Portugal last year, just 3,000 miles!  I used a luggage rack made by C******m, which attaches to the spare wheel (if you have one).  It’s worth fitting a couple of map pockets in the foot wells.  I also have a roof bag (again from C******m) that sits on the boot box and attaches to the roll bar.  This will accommodate not only the roof but a few bottles of wine as well.  

At some point you will run out of petrol, I did, so spare fuel is a must.  I also took a tool kit but the only spares I took was a throttle cable.  In the end the car was great, in fact the more miles it did each day the better it ran. I also took a foot pump, warning triangle, yellow jacket and oil – but never needed any of it!

Watch out for cobbled streets.  I went down one a little too fast in Bordeaux which resulted in a battered underside.

With regard to security, I took a bike lock/cable with me and padlocked my suitcase to the roll bar, but only when parked up.  I also have a detachable steering wheel, which give you additional security.

For accommodation I stayed in hotels with secure, covered parking.  In Bordeaux I stayed at a great place where the garage looked like a disused wine cave.  The Hotel owner was also a petrol head so he was very accommodating, to the point where he wanted to drive my car around the block – I declined.  If interested drop me a pm and I’ll find out the hotel name.

This year I’m off to the bottom of Italy leaving on the Wednesday after the C2C.  So just a few miles in June then.

Cheers

David

[scott beeland]

Paul Ashwicks luggage carrier that attaches to the roll bar is a top quality bit of kit and you can get loads on it (without killing rear visibility)

Be careful with spare wheel mount ones. If they put their load on the spare wheel bracket it can result in fracturing the brackets out of the chassis and/or stress fractures around the bodytub where the mounts are flexing

[Molydood]

David, many thanks for the detail. Good idea on the cable lock, I guess I need one of those hard case jobs for that. May well drop that PM about the holtel too!

Scott, good point but I don’t have that mount anyway

[Molydood]

David, I like the black alloys, did you get them powder coated? they look similar to my wheeels other than colour

[David Alexander]

Scott - thanks for the warning about spare wheel mounted luggage carriers.  I also have one of Paul's luggage carriers but with a boot lid it makes getting into the boot a bit of a chore as you have to take the carrier of the roll bar before opening the boot.

Martin - the alloys came with the car when I bought it second hand from Westfield.  The car is part of a special model called a Carbon Sport.  Mine is number 5, built in 2001, but I don't think they made many more than that.  It has the 1800 Zetec engine with throttle bodies.  It also has carbon mudguards front and back hence 'carbon sport'.  Yes the wheels do look the same design as yours but black or more accurately dark grey.  I must admit it was the overall effect of black car with black wheels, which first caught my attention.  Although from a safety/visibility point of view I can quiet understand why there are so many yellow Westfields on the road!

Cheers

David

[Molydood]

aaaah I reckon powder coat may give a simialr effect. I too like the stealthy black look...

[SteveF]

If you want to make the most of the time abroad - and find some great roads, I'd recommend taking the ferry from Portsmouth to Santander in northern Spain - then driving back up through France - it takes 24 hours on the ferry to get there - but you get much more variety of roads - including some superb twisites in the Pyrenees - did this a few years ago in the tin-top

[Drakuul]

Brittany ferries go from Plymouth to Santander, P&O from Portsmouth to Bilbao - I'd recommend the P&O ferry (actually going to be using that for the return leg of my own Portugal trip in 8 weeks)

[Molydood]

hadn't considered landing there, good idea, will check those options out too.

thanks for all the help everybody