A 4300-mile, 15-day road trip? No Zweat!
 

As I was preparing for a two-week road trip in my Z, I saw a couple of new threads asking about shorter road trips, so I am posting my recent experience.

"Sometimes I get this crazy dream
That I just take off in my car
But you can travel on ten thousand miles and still stay where you are"
W*O*L*D--Harry Chapin

Like the late, great Chapin's beleaguered DJ, my fantasized road trip has always been just to load up and go with no destination(s) in mind and no time constraints. This trip was the closest I've been to realizing that dream.

My wife and I have talked for years about taking an extended fall road-trip to New England. A year or two ago we decided 2015 would be the year. When I got my Z 18 months ago, she immediately decided that would be the vehicle. Since she planned to trade for a new car this year, I agreed thinking we could re-evaluate when she got her new car. Her plans changed, so the Z it was!

The trip was a blast! We spent two full days just getting to the "target area." Once there, we spent most of our time seeing the country-side, avoiding large cities, and not pursuing any specific sites. I had done enough advance planning to find some drives that should be scenic as well as providing a fun driving experience. Our trip consisted of only one- or two-night stays in any given location. After getting a healthy dose of New England, we spent two and a half days driving south on Skyline Drive and the Blue Ridge Parkway.

Other than figuring out how to pack our two weeks' changes of clothes, there were absolutely no issues with traveling in the Z. We put on interstate miles, rural highway miles, slow winding mountain miles, and stop-and-go miles through towns and villages. We drove it to the top of Mt Washington in New Hampshire even though one mile of the drive is unpaved. I was surprised how bad some of the roads in New England are and was happy I don't have to drive my Z on them regularly.

I stopped at a Nissan dealership about halfway through the trip for an oil change. Apparently that dealership doesn't get a lot of Z traffic as most of the mechanics stopped by to take a look at it. Or maybe they were wondering how in the hell we crammed all that stuff in there. When they were done, the service manager himself brought the car around. Nice folks. And they charged about a third less for an oil change than my local dealer. My local dealership will hear about that from me on my next visit.

The trip-meter on the odometer in the image below is carport-to-carport.

Now to get to removing the dirt and bug-guts :rolleyes:

They may have charged less because they put in the wrong oil...lets hope that is not the case.

A side from that the Z is a great road trip car, as long as you can fit what you need in the back. I've done a few long trips with mine, so much fun!

I was afraid they had put in the wrong oil when they told me the price, but the invoice showed they put in the full synthetic that I requested. It didn't seem like they got many requests for it so they might have mis-priced it. I hadn't considered that possibility.

Thanks for sharing! Sounds like an awesome trip :tup:

Glad to see more people not afraid to put miles on their Z's :driving:

Great to know that our Z's travel well with its limited luggage space.

Yep. It was nice to learn. We found that the "secret" was packing in a lot of small bags rather than anything of significant size. Selling that idea to my wife was a real chore before we left home though. We both refused to "compromise" and spend a couple of hours of vacation time at a laundromat or to wear dirty clothes, so we found a way to make things fit :icon17:

I always had just enough space to be able to see at least a tiny bit via the inside rear-view mirror. I found that it wasn't that much of a loss since that view is limited anyway. (Shorter people may lose more of the view, so YMMV.) And having a back-up camera was a huge help when the hatch was filled to capacity.

i did a 10'dayer and brought some extra detergent and bucket to wash my socks and pan... manties.

the z is a fun car on road trips for sure. only PITA is getting hit with stop-n-go traffic after a long stretch of uninterupted vrooming.

Awesome! We take a similar (much shorter) annual fall trip up to Door County, WI to take in the fall scenery. Past two years we took the Z and it was a blast. The rural roads and the fall colors are epic. This year though, since she's pregnant, she gets uncomfortable in the Z for extended periods so we rented a Maxima. The scenery was still beautiful but I sure missed the Z.

good to hear you had a great time. :D

Yes! Road trips!
 

I've done several! These Zs are made for road trips. My last one was 6096 miles, 6 weeks. Heading for the Ozarks early next month!

WOW, that is what I want to do, it is just finding the time....

I found these to be interesting. I'm sure most of you have seen it before though.
http://www.amazon.com/Nissan-370Z-Cu.../dp/B0037IJ4A4