The joys of cheap travel amplified by going off-season:
Dublin to Maastricht with Ryanair, return for two people - €41
Golf-sized car for the week, unlimited mileage - €155
The flight was an hour late going out on Friday but we didn't mind too much. With the plane about 20% full that meant straight into the emergency seats, legs out and flet aschleep. We landed in Maastricht which reminded me of one of the few joys of low cost travel - the small, sometimes ex-military airports which allow you to get off the plane and drive off in a rental about 15 minutes later.
The Hertz guy offered a Hyundai Somethingorother - no. Mk5 Golf - no. Estate Focus petrol - eh... what's the engine size asked I and he said 1.0 but it was not till after I remembered that the Ecobooscht was supposed to be quite good so maybe next time. We were going to do a good few km's so eventually I took a derv Focus hatch with 1100km on the odometer.
You can't really go wrong with Hertz in northern Europe, at least in my experience. The cars are generally Fords, sometimes Mazdas and there's generally a VW to fall back on without having to resort to Japanese and Korean offerings. Past gems have been a Focus Grand C-Max, another time I got a cavernous Mondeo estate, before that there were Mk5 Golfs, a few Mazdas and so on. A few of my fellow bloggers even hit the absolute jackpot with a pair of V6 3.0 TDI Audis out of Frankfurt-Hahn. But generally speaking the cars are clean, with some toys, usually quite new and generally good value for money. I must say I like renting with them, so for the first time in my life I even went and joined a Clubcard style loyalty scheme - the - wait for it - Hertz #1 Gold Club - in the hope it might get me the odd schnaky upgrade. So far it yielded a dividend where the chap in Maastricht had all my details and only took a copy of the licence and credit card, end to end it was no more than 5 minutes with two of those spent discussing the cars on offer.
Anyway, this Focus was no exception to the above. It came with plenty of spec too, auto wipers, dimming rear mirror, cruise, park assist (wierd), the usual heated front screen, aircon etc. I couldn't figure out how to synch the phone as the car's menu was in Dutch which was a bit annoying but that was nobody's fault.
Overall quite a slick machine, but as NeinElf! pointed out the working class Fords usually are. Multilink at the back (which appears to compromise an awful lot of boot space, I must say), great front end grip but sadly dulled by the now commonplace fully electric steering. The car is not near as sharp as the Mk1 Focus to drive but still has some chassis sparkle, and it sports trick traction control which brakes the inside wheel when you're starting to push wide which gives lots of front end grip. The gearchange good for a cooking grade car, cloth seats are very supportive, ergonomics all good... in summary I must say I liked it even if the looks are a little unresolved. I am a huge fan of the first Focus and while the Mk2 was not as nice this is a bit closer to form. Wife gave it the thumbs up too.
The one gripe I have is that the gearing is generally good requiring little stirring of the gears which some modern diesels can suffer from, but in this Focus the first is 'geared' all wrong. It 'feels' too short yet bogs down early and you have to slip the clutch to get moving. My guess is that this is due to mapping or a torque limiter which the fly by wire throttle/throttle delay amplifies and a quick scout of owners forums mentions that others have the same gripe, but they said a remap cures it and that it gets better with time.
Anyway, headed for Belgian border - roads and drivers as bad as ever. Set cruise for 130km/h in Holland and then Belgium, spending a night there before continuing on through Luxembourg and into Germany. The day after we got on the A44 near Kassel - one of the best autobahns I know for äbsolute flet and as it was a Sunday and there were no trucks decided to have a 40-50km B.U.R.N. which initially never dropped below 180km/h and once the car had loosened out a bit more topped out at over 200-210 a few times (downhill). Wednesday brought us to Cologne and then Thursday we headed back to the airport.
All in all, four countries visited and 1200km in all done in the rental. No back pain, no issues, overall a successful trip. But here's for the best bit: When I picked it up it was not completely brimmed, sitting just 'on' 1/1 rather than over it. We got €20 diesel in Luxembourg @ 1.24c (16.12L), then filled in Germany (€45 @ 1.44c = 31.25L) and then filled again just before the Dutch border, 30km from the airport (€35 @ 1.50c = 23.33L). I was half asleep so about half a litre splashed out on the ground when the tank filled before I could stop it but overall the car used 60.68 litres (€100!) of derv for 1200km which I make out to be...
a rock solid...
56.83mpg!
The real figure was possibly slightly higher as the car went back with a tiny bit more diesel than I got it with and I also spilt some when filling up, but what a result for a cooking hatch sitting on the cruise on countries with motorway speed limits, doing 140-160km/h on the autobahn where safe to do so and getting one fast run at VMAX.
750 miles for €100? I still can't get over it.
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