[Vreimann]

Hi Guys,

So I just got back from my trip to the US and I had a very fun time with the 335D.

In all we drove 6400km in total going from Canada down to Santa Barbara.

Harold at HP Autowerks installed a set of Ohlins road and track coil overs and did an excellent job of the installation.

I also had Opti Coat pro installed on the car by Colberns Auto detailing and Nick was very good with the car. It shines now without much extra effort on the cleaning side.

In Vegas I had the car put on a Dyno just to see how much power my Evolve tune was doing. To my happiness the car put down 299whp when the outside temperatures was 105F. We were lucky enough to be in Vegas when it was nice and warm outside 118F. How lucky to get such hot weather. My wife absolutely loved the heat.

Average fuel economy for the trip was 7.5l/ 100km (31.2 USmpg) and the average speed for the whole trip was 109km/hr (68mph) and a driving time of 65 hours with air conditioning on all the time. Not bad considering how much time was spent in towns, construction zones etc...

I love this thing in the mountains when traffic is sparse, it absolutely drops anything and chews through road like nothing. Any vehicles silly enough to follow usually gave up after realizing how much fuel they use trying to keep up as this car can easily drive 150km/hr (94mph) for about 4hrs before you even think of looking to refuel. On the flats you can easily right lane sail from vehicle to vehicle to avoid the pop radar without too much fuel penalty.

Travelling down the I-15 with the M-sport down and coming back with the Ohlins is night and day difference. Going down I know was slower and this was due to a combination of alignment and suspension. Once the suspension was installed, the speed went up and the trip home saved a lot of time.

Make sure if you really want to fly that you use a good radar detector as the enforcement guys really like to pop instant on radar. Sometimes its nice to have a rabbit to follow, but there weren't to many people from Alberta travelling when I was, so rabbits were scarce.

Generally I will say that US roads are way better built and maintained than Canadian roads. The coil over damping setting at home will be much softer as our roads are crap.

Drivers in some states are better than others. Montana, Idaho, Utah generally are better than Nevada. California drivers are the worst I experienced not including my home province.
I don't understand how a simple concept of pass on the left and move back to the right lane after passing is too hard to comprehend, but after returning from California I thought I was in Britain where I was passing on the right and then moving back in the left before moving to the right to pass.

Most interesting though was the number of Toyota prius vehicles on the road doing 80-90 on I-15. I doubt there is any economy at those speeds.

As for the diesel, I did notice one thing. The 335D does not like to drive at 65-70mph. It does prefer above 80 and it really settled in nicely between 88-100 mph. When I got home the engine feels much more responsive than when I left and this must be to the proper use of the car on good roads and faster speed limits. The car just loves to be driven hard.

I'm looking forward to my next road trip to the US when I get to enjoy all the wonderful roads of the US.