Family Car for Roadtrip

bennyc

Just thinking out loud really , I have always wanted to drive to the south of Spain and considering it this summer, I am going for about three weeks and staying in the Alicante area for the first 11 days and then off to the Malaga area for a week.
So the plan would be my safe and daughter fly and my son and I drive and meet them there, my some would fly home after a week which would leave me driving from Malaga to Sligo alone, so what could go wrong .
I am currently driving an old Vectra which I have no love for and my wife has an 09 Insignia which I wouldn't fancy for a trip like this.
I have a plan in the back of my head saying pick something up sub 3500K for the trip , and decide on whether to keep it or not on return.
So the question is what would the car of choice be? I am up for anything really the sensible head is saying Volvo S80 D5 or V70 , would going for an A6 or 530 be mental ?
Any suggestions welcome.

colm_mcm

Would you not just rent a car?

Bigus

Yeah it'd be cheaper and safer to fly and spend the money saved on renting something special there, or treat yourself to an expensive track day in Portimao.

Nekarsulm

I have a friend planning a similar trip this summer, driving the length of Italy's eastern coastline.
In a Land Rover Defender 110.
What could possibly go wrong?
����

Atlantic Dawn

Your number 1 priority should be a car with climate control, without it the drive would be pure hell especially with young kids.

You should look in to the Cork to Santander ferry, this would cut your driving by less than half, around 8 hours from Santander to Alicante, renting some executive car would make more sense than leaving a perfectly good car there.
http://www.brittanyferries.ie/ferry-routes/new-direct-ireland-spain-route

tabby aspreme

Nekarsulm wrote: »

I have a friend planning a similar trip this summer, driving the length of Italy's eastern coastline.
In a Land Rover Defender 110.
What could possibly go wrong?
����

There's a great heater in the Defender, he will be grand

scooby77

Good fun paying tolls etc in a RHD on your own on way back -and there's plenty of them. One of many reasons I agree with fly and rent as suggested above.

porsche boy

Sounds like a great trip. I'd love it. Go shopping about a month before your leaving date so you have a chance to fimilarise yourself with your purchace and have any minor mechanical stuff fixed.

And so what if you have to strech across to pay a few tolls, some people would take to fun out of anything. Go for it and get something with a bit of grunt, E320 merc or 530d would be lovely on a long drive, economical (ish) and cheap to buy.

pea be

If you want to do it for the drive/chalenge, go for it ... it would be a nice trip if you can have time to do some exploring on the way there and back. It would be monotonous to do a couple of long day driving stints to get there.
In France you can get electronic tag for tolls, which are great for rhd cars.

We have drove from Tyrone to northern spain , via landbridge through England.
We left home at 5am, for 8am ferry out of dublin to holyhead, overnight ferry out of southampton into caen, and we were near the spanish border by tea time that evening. That is not a hard push, with stops every couple of hours..... to stretch the legs and stop the rows in the car before they started!!

Price it up, as ferries are expensive. It was worth our while as we took a people carrier having 4 children. At that time, a people carrier was very expensive to hire in france / spain, and we were going for 3 weeks.

You will not be making a saving compared to flying/hiring a car, as most af your crew are flying anyway.

Cee-Jay-Cee

If you plan on keeping the car following your return and don't do big mileage at home then buy something petrol, at least you wont have to worry about DPF's EGR's, DMF's etc etc

bennyc

Thanks for the reply's just to clarify , there will be little driving with small kids, the theory is to head across to France, son is 17 who's all on for it, spend about 4-5 days getting to Alicante with no particular plan, just get in as much as possible, the holiday for me will be the challenge and the road trip, once there we are booked with the rest of the family for a week and moving to the south for the last week, I am playing then with the idea of driving to Santander for a couple of days and ferry back to cork.

As for renting , it could be done but I would have to look into cross border rules etc. Although the cost of a fun car for that trip could be up closer to 1500 - 2K just looking at quick quotes without the small print.

So rent for 2K or buy something fun, I am getting drawn closer to a 525 I think, although would a 535 be a better option to move on later. (well that's what I could tell myself ) , I do around 15,000 miles a year at the moment so petrol might not be out of the question.

selectamatic

It'd be a brave man that'd buy a cheapish 535d and head off on a big road trip. There's quite a few expensive things that could go wrong and if any of them were to happen on the journey you could most likely double or triple the cost to get motoring again.

When in a similar position a while ago meself and a few friends bought a 2.0 Toyota ipsum people carrier for €600 and drove it around France for the euros. We covered roughly 4500km in the space of 3 weeks and got on grand. But it was a simple n/a petrol car with a 4 speed auto box so it was basic reliable motoring and this was back when cars like this were still worth a bit too.

Nowadays you'd pick up a larger engined n/a petrol car for very little with plenty of change left over to get it fully serviced and journey prepped. And then upon return just sell it on for whatever you can get for it.