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Sasha's roadtrip to Kosovo - August 2016 - VDC fuse out!


sasha@lazytrips

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So I've decided to take the car on another little road trip. This time we're driving around the Adriatic Sea.

 

Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, Serbia, Montenegro, Kosovo, Albania then hop across to Italy and make our way back up.

 

Start date: 18 August

 

road-trip-map-small_2.jpg

 

 

I will try and post some photos in this topic. For more, feel free to check out my Instagram below.

 

INSTAGRAM PHOTOS: https://www.instagra...m/sasha.yanshin

 

Thanks to everybody who helped out with the car parts during the prep stage!

Edited by sasha
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Sounds like a great adventure! We did a Europe trip a few years back in the 350 and it was a great fun!!

Take lots of pictures, then when you think you have enough, take more :D

Just taking a few of the items in your list :

 

Bodywork touch ups - I would maybe wait until you get back, putting a few thousand miles on the car you will no doubt get more chips and marks?

Aircon service - YES!

Aluminium undertray - good idea

New springs all round - Agree with you keeping stock ride height, just incase the roads get unpredictable

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I've done a few insane road trips going as far afield as southern Europe & into various parts of Russia (all in the zed B) ) but never driven through areas with actual live mine fields (Drive from Sarajevo to Prizren in Kosovo through some remote mountains) so definitely expecting a variety of road quality!

 

Hopefully will get the car prep moving promptly and get the show on the road!

 

@mattross1313: Have an issue on the back of the car where I dropped my golf bag on a very expensive bumper and some weird paint rubbing issue on the side that I'd like to get fixed. Don't want people to look at you funny as if you don't care about the car in provincial Albania!

 

@RS8055: Kinda missing out on everything before the Balkans on this one - driving down from the UK to Zagreb on day 1 so will make my way through Belgium to the autobahn and put my foot down :teeth:

Edited by sasha
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@mattross1313: Have an issue on the back of the car where I dropped my golf bag on a very expensive bumper and some weird paint rubbing issue on the side that I'd like to get fixed. Don't want people to look at you funny as if you don't care about the car in provincial Albania!

 

Ah right, fair point then. I read that as just touching up stone chips and things like that. Hope you have a great trip :)

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@RS8055: Kinda missing out on everything before the Balkans on this one - driving down from the UK to Zagreb on day 1 so will make my way through Belgium to the autobahn and put my foot down :teeth:

 

Ah that's a shame! Well you'll be looking at a solid 15-16 hour drive there! If you're taking the Belgium/Germany/Austria/Slovenia route, then be careful on your timings as that route will travel around Koln and Frankfurt which can be notoriously jammed up during certain parts of the day!

 

Really want to join in one of these road trips with the zeds, but struggling to find many groups who travel down together.

 

In the entire country of Luxembourg there are only 20 members of a specific luxembourg Z owners group... one of which I will be convoying with to Berlin for Reisbrennen 2016 next month! :thumbs:

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@RS8055: Kinda missing out on everything before the Balkans on this one - driving down from the UK to Zagreb on day 1 so will make my way through Belgium to the autobahn and put my foot down :teeth:

 

Ah that's a shame! Well you'll be looking at a solid 15-16 hour drive there! If you're taking the Belgium/Germany/Austria/Slovenia route, then be careful on your timings as that route will travel around Koln and Frankfurt which can be notoriously jammed up during certain parts of the day!

 

Really want to join in one of these road trips with the zeds, but struggling to find many groups who travel down together.

 

In the entire country of Luxembourg there are only 20 members of a specific luxembourg Z owners group... one of which I will be convoying with to Berlin for Reisbrennen 2016 next month! :thumbs:

 

Yeah - I don't think it'll take me that long. Been that way to parts of north Italy and central Europe multiple times before.

 

45 mins to Eurotunnel

45 mins to get through to France (including loading/unloading)

30 mins to get to Belgium

2 hours through Belgium to Black Forest.

 

Have made the diagonal through Germany in 4 hours on a good day. Even if it takes 6/7 that's just 10 hours to Austria and Zagreb is pretty close from there. Leave at 7, be there for dinner.

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If u need any help in Croatia feel free to ask

 

Sent from my SM-G850F using Tapatalk

 

Thanks! Already booked most of the Croatia leg. Going Zagreb > Zadar (maybe via the lakes) > Sibenik > Trogir > Split > Hvar > Bosnia, then coming back from Montenegro to Dubrovnik and catching the ferry across to Bari!

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did a similar trip on bikes last year. go to lake Bled in Slovenia, 100% worth the trip.

 

Did you look at potential difficulties with Kosovo? seem to remember reading something about you can have difficulties going into Serbia from Kosovo (or one way...all a bit vague in my memory now, we didn't go to Kosovo)

 

 

Yankeesiter. roads are excellent for most of that (no idea of Kosovo, Albania though), we had no language issues really, in Bosnia English was rare but you always get by with some interesting miming. depending how much you want to rough it accomodation is cheap and food/drinks cost nothing unless you're in very touristy places or high end restaurants

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did a similar trip on bikes last year. go to lake Bled in Slovenia, 100% worth the trip.

 

Did you look at potential difficulties with Kosovo? seem to remember reading something about you can have difficulties going into Serbia from Kosovo (or one way...all a bit vague in my memory now, we didn't go to Kosovo)

 

Visited lake Bled and Slovenia on a previous trip so starting the road trip proper from Zagreb this time.

All aligned on the various borders. The issue only arises if you enter Kosovo, then try to leave via a Serbian border + we're avoiding north Kosovo so here's hoping everything is straight-forward!

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  • 3 weeks later...

If anybody is wondering how to optimise the luggage situation on road trips in the car, I highly recommend the solution in my last insta photo.

 

100cm x 40cm travel bag fits in the boot like OEM.

Note to mods: I have no affiliation with the product. It's just an awesome fit.

 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B018H6SYPG/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_U1uTxb7CH0Q2Q

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Bit of excitement on day 2. Nice and easy drive to Zagreb, but something gave in on the ABS. Kicks in at low speed constantly and sometimes triggers ESP. Pretty likely one of my wheel speed sensors is knackered - not something that I will quickly sort here so out comes the VDC fuse from under the bonnet. At least this way I don't have electronics switching off power to the wheels or cutting my brakes for no reason.

 

Will jack up the car when we get to Montenegro and see if there's anything obvious going on with the rear speed sensors (pretty confident it's a rear as braking is largely unaffected even when abs comes in) without taking the wheels off.

 

Old school driving on full manual with a beautiful array of warning lights on the dash. 😎

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