Thread: A QLD 110 in Europe

Originally Posted by spudboy

Thanks for that detailed reply. It brought back memories of Scottish Midgies invading our Combi (about 30 years ago) in a sort of black haze - most unpleasant!

Was the $10K you mentioned one way costs or was that for inbound + outbound shipping?

That's inbound and outbound, packed and unpacked at both ends and fully cleared through borders and landed. There would be ways to marginally reduce the costs, including loading and unloading yourself; and if you were brave / savvy forgoing shipping agents. The biggest rort are the AU Customs Clearance storage facilities. They have AQIS agents permanently on site doing clearances who then refer the vehicle back to the Customs Clearance House for steam cleaning. By sending it there you have no control of the vehicle's progression through clearance and get stung for steam cleaning without being able to physically see the issue. In my case I got hit for a $200 clean which I know was unnecessary - but at the end of the day you just want your truck back and you cop it. More on these guys later.

Certainly I would insist on loading yourself. On the way over they didn't strap the chassis. So I insisted they do so on the way back. To save money they strapped through the towing eyes on the rear of the chassis with a single strap instead of two which, through 1.5 months of friction from the rings' square edge, had snapped. Luckily the car didn't seem to have sustained any damage.

Add about 2% of insurable value for Marine Risks coverage each leg on top.

Some really great information here, and some stunning photos too. Thanks for sharing

Agree with everyone else - an awesome trip and great sharing of valuable info too.
Did you run into many other Defenders on your travels?

Glad it's of use to some of you. There are a lot of unknowns up there and any practical information I found on the net was very helpful in planning.

For instance, when you import a vehicle temporarily into the EU, it says you must export it out of the EU within 6 months otherwise it's no longer deemed to be temporary and you risk being hit for import duties (you do not need a Carnet for any of the places I went). When my truck went through Her Royal Majesties Customs my UK shipping agent stuffed up my forms and ended up declaring that I was relocating to the EU and bringing my car in for that reason. I spent a fair portion of time worrying about getting it out as that would be the point I presumed they would hit me for the duties. In any event it was going to be some time after 6 months, but Iceland and Morocco aren't technically in the EU, so I was going to argue that my trips there were "Export". The reality was that no one could a flying you know what. You just put the thing in a box, put it on the boat and go to the pub.

The same can be said for the Schengen Area, which I won't go into too much detail about unless someone wants it but essentially means that on an AU passport you can only spend 90 out of any 180 period in Schengen countries. I took all sorts of evasive countermeasures to try and overcome that edict, including getting a French Working Holiday Visa. Complete waste of time - I'm sure I could have spent 10 years driving around Europe without anyone cottoning on how long I'd been there for. The current political situation is changing how relaxed the borders are though.

Anyway, more interestingly, here are a few pictures my Danish mate took of the old girl crossing the Pyrenees. He is a great photographer and does a significant amount of extremely well documented travel up there. You can check out his site here. He's a bit more expansive than I am and if you read the Trans-Pyrenees sections he details how I got woken up one night camping in the middle of nowhere by brown bears; and how we nearly lost his G-Wagen down the side of a mountain. Apologies, I'm not sure how to reduce the size of the images.

Originally Posted by El Rey

Agree with everyone else - an awesome trip and great sharing of valuable info too.
Did you run into many other Defenders on your travels?

Plenty El Rey. Obviously truck loads in the UK, but surprisingly large amounts in Germany and Switzerland - they love their 4WDs, despite having absolutely nowhere in their countries to use them.

Iceland was fantastic - there would have been 50 lined up for the ferry from Denmark and in Iceland the natives run theirs with 42" tyres.

In the Rif Mountains of northern Morocco, every second car would be a Defender or a Santana. They're everywhere. It would be more fantastic if their owners weren't trying to run you off the road to sell you hashish. In Western Sahara basically every car is an old clapped out Series. I don't think I saw any old Cruisers anywhere down there.

They wave is alive and well everywhere I went. I think my wife kept a wave count somewhere - no idea where it is now though! She had to do the waving as I was on the wrong side of the car for most of the time.

Thanks knodes85 for sharing this adventure with us, I'm really enjoying reading about the travels you've made in The Northern Hemisphere.

Nathan.

Trip of a life time, just love seeing people living life and when they are in a Landy is an added bonus. Makes me feel warm and fuzzy about how much life there is to live.
what tyre did you use?

Originally Posted by NovaRover

Trip of a life time, just love seeing people living life and when they are in a Landy is an added bonus. Makes me feel warm and fuzzy about how much life there is to live.
what tyre did you use?

I ran Michelin XZL 7.5R16.

Prior to this trip I would have unconditionally pledged my allegiance to those tyres. I've done 2 sets of them in Australia, never had a puncture, never experienced blocks of tread coming off, and never been properly bogged in sand. I used to love going to Fraser and watching people hit the exits at Mach 5 only to get bogged on the first corner; while my pizza cutters and I would crawl past in low range at 16PSI like it were all a walk in the park. If they're good enough for the ADF, they're good enough for me.

I had multiple punctures during the trip. All sidewall I should add, but I picked up punctures where others did not. Luckily in Morocco OH&S is not a major issue and I had a vulcanised repair done on one that should have been scrapped for the princely sum of $2AUD. I lost lots of blocks of tread too and went through the set in 40 odd thousand kilometres.

More importantly, I got royally bogged in sand dunes approximately one million times. On level straight ground, the 7.5R16s can be aired down to almost nothing and you can get through anything. Add 800 kilos (the wet weight of all the fruit on and in my truck including drive and passenger), and rolling soft sand dunes where you have to maintain speed whilst executing extremely tight turns on crests to avoid rolling down the 60 degree fall sides and you have nothing but tears. I rolled one tyre off the rim at one point as the only way I could get up the big dunes was to run 8-12PSI. With that amount of weight, and the Puma's inadequate engine capacity, to properly impersonate a Tusken Raider you simply need wider tires. I recognise aired down longitudinal tread length comes from tyre hight but it doesn't hurt to have some latitudinal breadth to start with.

Another fun fact learned as a result of the bog-fest, MaxTrax bend like bananas in 45 degree plus ambient temperatures, and lord knows what temperature hot sand. It makes them decidedly useless if you're on a steep incline. I managed to bend them back by finding some flat scorching ground and flipping them and parking on them for a few hours.

Short story: I am now going to buy a set of 255/85/R16 BFG KM2s when I manage to restock the bank account.