First Trip in the “New Car”

In a previous post I talked about the selection of my New Car, a
Peugeot 307 HDi.
Here is a brief account of our first trip in this car.

Just a quick reminder about the car for those of you that have not
read my article about the purchase process. This car is a five door
hatch, with a 2.0L diesel engine ( that’s right diesel ) providing
power through a 5 speed manual gearbox. On top of the normal specs I
had 16” alloy wheels and a tow bar fitted. It seems that
Australians in general cannot comprehend a diesel car that is not a
truck or 4WD. My wife and I find it very amusing when service station
attendants come rushing out to “warn” us that we will
damage our little hatch if we put that diesel in it. All my friends
and family could not understand or comprehend a diesel car, they
thought if would be rough, noisy, smelly and useless at any cruising
speed. They are wrong on all counts. The car is no rougher or noisier
than the petrol 307’s and provides excellent highway performance and
comfort. Our 307 was very miserly on fuel and gentle on the
environment, producing less carbon monoxide emissions.

We have owned the Peugeot 307 for about five months now but have
only used it around town and on weekend trips. I had two weeks
holiday at the beginning of July (winter here) and decided to go
north for the winter for about 10 or 12 days. Basically we had three
nights booked at a resort at Arlie Beach (in the Whitsundays) which
is about 1100Kms north of Brisbane, Australia. Then we spent five
days in Townsville where my little brother lives.

Having two children (10 and 4) along with my wife and myself we
decided to take the trip slowly and stopped twice on the way up and
back, having progressively shorter trips each day. Those nights we
stopped in cabins at caravan parks, supplying our own linen. This
meant carrying enough for four people over 10 days and included bed
cloths, so the car was full to say the least.

Even with the car fully loaded it did not feel sluggish at all,
acceleration was still good, ride handling and ride comfort seems
unaffected. It would have been easy to drive farther than we did each
day, with the climate control keeping things comfortable and our CD’s
keeping us amused. We took every opportunity to head of the highway
to check out dams, fairy cottages and lookouts and the Peugeot
handled all the different road surfaces and inclines without any
effort.

Here are some interesting facts about
our trip: