Perfect classic

Q

Quagmire

Active Member
Well after changing jobs in October and now commuting into London by train twice a week the P6 had been having a rest from driving up to Kingston and back a few times a week, with only the odd trip to the supermarket etc as its current exercise. Its actually lucky, as the Defender only ever goes on runs to the tip!

That changed this weekend :cool: I went to the Yorkshire Dales with a couple of friends for a spot of walking. Both have diesel Fiesta's so I assumed we would go in one of those, but at the last minute one guy said his wife needed the car, and the other said his needed a new auxiliary belt...

One suggested we hired a car - but that was £150 before we'd even gone anywhere.

Long story short, we went in my car. After checking the fluids, and airing up the tyres it performed faultlessly all weekend. It ate up the miles from Hook, Hampshire to Cracoe, Yorkshire and back again with ease. Total distance covered for the weekend was 597 miles. Only issue was tyres slightly kissing the inside of the wings on hard cornering with a boot full of gear, full tank of fuel and three of us onboard.

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Fuel consumption was disappointing - worked out at around 24mpg - but then we were cruising at speeds normally associated with German saloons.

Overall a good trip, and the first long excursion with the 5 speed fitted, which is what I was really worrying about as it was still a bit of an unknown after I rebuilt it.

You can't do that in many classics!
 

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Most excellent! A distance trek in a V8 P6 is top drawer. Have enjoyed a few myself and always like hearing the stories of others.
 
Drove mine from Zürich to Colin's place near Swindon and back (~2100 miles with deviations). Not a problem at all. I do miss cruise control on the motorway and you can't escape the noise due to lack of aerodynamics at speed but it'll sit happily all day at 83mph on the French autoroutes and with the ZF you can hit 32mpg if you keep the speed down a bit, so I'm surprised at your 24mpg. My fellow Swiss owner, Roger drove his to Scotland from here also.
 
Yeah the wind noise is really the only intrusive sound at motorway speeds, which is good going!

I was getting consistently better economy (25-26mpg) with the 4 speed, so something has changed. That said the car was in daily use and now isn't, so that could account for some, but not that much! I would cruise at 60mph with the old box though, so considerably slower than the speeds we were travelling at this weekend.

Will have to check the basics and see if anything jumps out as being an economy killer.
 
PeterZRH said:
Drove mine from Zürich to Colin's place near Swindon and back (~2100 miles with deviations). Not a problem at all. I do miss cruise control on the motorway and you can't escape the noise due to lack of aerodynamics at speed but it'll sit happily all day at 83mph on the French autoroutes and with the ZF you can hit 32mpg if you keep the speed down a bit, so I'm surprised at your 24mpg. My fellow Swiss owner, Roger drove his to Scotland from here also.
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Yes, we were along with Roger on that Scottish trek albeit not in a P6…no roads between there and NorCal!
 
Could be that, E10 is supposed to be less efficient.

There are loads of discussions online about ethanol.

Always going to be factors that effect mpg. An extra 250kg, driving faster, hills.

Run the car for a while and see if it improves. Might just need a tune up.
 
That's just it, it runs EFI!

I had my phone connected via Bluetooth and was keeping an eye on basic stuff during the trip, so I know the manifold air pressure sensor was working, temps were ok etc etc. I couldn't check fuelling as the lambda is dead, so it could be out of whack for some reason, and even if it wasn't, the closed loop feedback that keeps it bang on target won't work without the sensor, so that could be a contributor too...
 
BrianMac123 said:
Regarding driving noise try something like this. Pads
Where you can, even in the Boot
There are other Brands, not available at the moment.
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There ain't much you can do about wind noise. I believe someone did a thread about secondary sealing a while back (I kept the images) but not sure how effective it was.

You can pretty much control mechanical noise with a bit of work but the wind noise and low frequency road noise fed back through the bulkhead mounted suspension cannot be addressed in a substantial way. For wind noise this dominates over 50mph anyway. The sealing lip and rake of the windscreen mean you have no chance here. If you look at humble Austin designs with a relatively flat lip seal, then these are much better. I think Demetris remarked on this with his ADO16.

Unfortunately, you are also up against that clever device the human ear. The more you eliminate sound, the more the next loudest thing becomes more noticeable.

I replaced the adhesive damper in my car and added some heavy sound barrier to the floor and under the rear seats. I think the extra makes only a small difference. The only thing Rover really could have added without going crazy was a little damper and barrier in the boot (LH side where the exhaust is particularly) to limit exhaust boom a bit - probably even more so on 4cyl cars. If the boot is empty in common with many cars there's quite a pronounced sound box effect. Years ago, I took my now wife to University with the boot packed (literally stuffed) with heavy books wrapped in a duvet in a BMW e34 and I remember being surprised how dramatically quieter the car was. I suspect given how much attention under the rear seat had from the factory Rover were aware the rear suspension and boot were a source of noise.
 
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