The Alfa Went To Ireland

Just back from a 10 day overseas trip to Donegal in the Alfa - which
is a rare breed there! 

Out on the western coast there were a few roads that were no-go for
the Alfa due (in the main) to adverse camber though settlement was
also an issue on the peat bogs. The Garmin satnav was absolutely
amazing - it appears to have *every* road and track in Donegal mapped.
It sometimes took us on *shortcuts* that a normal car would not have
blinked at but, in the Alfa, things were often a lot more exciting
and, frankly, tiring!

Some observations:

1/ UKP to Euro exchange rate of 1.22 was quite painful. 
2/ Diesel in the ROI can be bought at 1.30 Euro but 1.30UKP here.
3/ 450 miles at an *average* rural speed of 31mph. Donegal average was
about 20mph!!! That was while trying to drive as hard as possible
without scraping the underside of the car!
4/ 46mpg
5/ P&O slightly scuffed my car by leaving a cone leaning on the
paintwork for the duration of a rough crossing. :-(
6/ Drove for 9/10 days and suffered between 10-20 underbody scrapes
and bangs each day. Most of the scrapes were at the
worst-of-the-UK-scrapes level of severity. 
7/ Wife and bairn had to stay in the back seats for the duration west
of Letterkenny to try and keep weight away from the scraping front
end. Wife wasn't best pleased and felt frequently nauseous!
8/ Obligatory stone got trapped between the brake ****eld and disk.
That makes a superb bearing-about-to-fail-in-next-30-seconds metallic
screech. Reversing a couple of yards cured.

Most amazed by:

1/ Magnificent houses (put shame on the UK)
2/ Resiliency of Alfa polypropylene under tray - took everything
Donegal could throw at it and didn't budge or bits break off - it just
scuffed. Without it I would have burst the sump on several occasions
(for sure).
3/ Engine tractability - I'm not used to driving slow.
4/ Apart from one suicidal sheep that (when it saw the van - a Citroen
Berlingo - just ran straight towards it from 200m away in a bizarre
take on the game of chicken) they have a better road sense than many
human pedestrians!!!
5/ Citroen Berlingo - go anywhere (at any speed!) in Donegal without
scraping - I had a couple of amazing roller-coaster rides in one.

Most disappointed by:

1/ Alfa's idea of suspension and, in particular, body control. As a
direct comparison, a BMW was vastly, hugely, embarrassingly better.
:-((  Little wonder Alfas are rare in Donegal - if I stayed there I
wouldn't have one either. :-((
2/ Weather - wind, cold and rain *every* day FFS!  :-(((

Back in the UK, I can breath a sigh of relief having got all the Dog
**** and piss and Sheep **** off the flanks of the car and now look
forward to a more serene and less sick inducing life with the Alfa
again! ****ny.

Phew..survived!

-- 
Z
Scotland
Alfa Romeo 156 2.4JTD Veloce Leather
'Oil' be seeing you..
(Email without 'Alfa' in subject will be auto-deleted..sorry!)