[Geradeaus]

Headed out west for some mountain / open road driving and recently returned. I had a number of days of heavy driving to get out to the Rockies and to get back to Florida and the car performed brilliantly. I've got my driver's seat dialed-in perfectly and never had any back pain or discomfort. Fantastic seats! My two favorite modes are Eco Pro for general driving and Sport mode for fun driving. I still can't believe I was averaging 40.1 mpg over the first 1,000 miles of driving!

The trip confirmed that the 30i is plenty of car for my driving needs. Never once wished for more horsepower and a number of times was happy I didn't have it as I think accelerating out of curves would have overpowered the rear wheels. The all-season tires performed great - never heard any squeal on aggressive turns and they gripped well in wet and cold. The trunk was plenty big for me to pack everything I needed including the wife's luggage for the first part of the trip (she flew home after visiting with our daughter in Austin). The paint held up well even though I didn't wash it for the last four days of the trip and it was coated in dust and mag chloride. I did clay the hood and front areas and re-wax them once home. All the bug stains came up and the shine is as good as new.

Highlights of the trip include:

* NOT hitting a deer driving through Wyoming and South Dakota - they are everywhere!
* Getting hit in the windshield by a rock in Colorado. Not sure if I'm in for a replacement or a repair.
* Marking 150 mph on the speedometer on a back road in Wyoming.
* Attaining 40.1 mpg on the first leg of the trip which was mostly 79 mph interstate driving in Eco Pro mode.
* Attaining 36.4 mpg for the entire trip of 6,657 miles which included many miles of triple-digit driving in Sport mode!
* Driving arguably the best route for sports car driving - CO-145 / CO-141 from Telluride to Gateway. It's got everything from mountain twisties to wide-open canyon runs and no cops / traffic (at least when I drove it).
* Driving in a blizzard on an attempt at the Beartooth highway pass. In a moment of better judgement I turned around before the road iced over.
* Seeing bison, cows, elk, deer, chipmunks and tons of insects on the road. Avoiding colliding with all of them except the insects and the poor suicidal chipmunk (squash!).


A few pictures of Ginger - my beautiful red Z4 on the trip:
* 40.1 MPG Documented
* Pensacola Rest Area
* Garden of the Gods
* Pinkerton Hot Springs
* CO-145 / 141
* Colorado River Road
* Apens @ Rocky Mountain N.P.
* Windshield Damage
* Wyoming
* Grand Tetons
* Continental Divide
* Bison on the Road
* Weather @ Beartooth
* Devils Tower
* Devils Tower
* Needles Highway, South Dakota
* Crazy Horse Memorial
* Badlands N.P.

[Horseman]

Fantastic photos. Thank you very much for sharing. Sorry to hear about the rock. That suuuuuucks.

[TAZ007]

Great shots and does that rock chip impede the HUD?

[Westside Guy]

Thanks for sharing the fabulous pictures and I am sure you had a blast.

Sorry about the rock hitting the windshield. Just remember that in Florida it is $0 deductible for glass replacement like this!.

[Kwajtrader]

Great trip and awesome photos. That is a bummer about the windshield. Hopefully your insurance covers most of it, and it’s not something you need to repaint.

[Geradeaus]

Originally Posted by TAZ007

Great shots and does that rock chip impede the HUD?

No, thankfully the HUD display wasn't affected by the damage as I get all my direction and speed info from it. I find it weird looking at the actual speedo in the gauge cluster.

If Safelite can't repair the damage I'm just going to wait until I take another rock to the windshield before replacing it. Unfortunately, the odds are pretty good that I'll take on more damage to the glass in the future.

[Geradeaus]

Originally Posted by Westside Guy

Thanks for sharing the fabulous pictures and I am sure you had a blast.

Sorry about the rock hitting the windshield. Just remember that in Florida it is $0 deductible for glass replacement like this!.

Yeah, $0 deductible is great, just not sure about OEM vs. replacement glass. I'll have to do some research to see what the lease requires vs. the insurance company provides.

[Geradeaus]

Originally Posted by Kwajtrader

Great trip and awesome photos. That is a bummer about the windshield. Hopefully your insurance covers most of it, and it’s not something you need to repaint.

The rock came at me like a bullet and though I was bummed, the thought did cross my mind about what the damage would have been if it had come in about three inches lower! Glass is probably the easiest thing to have fixed and definitely the cheapest for me ($0 deductible in FL).

[Westside Guy]

Originally Posted by Geradeaus

Yeah, $0 deductible is great, just not sure about OEM vs. replacement glass. I'll have to do some research to see what the lease requires vs. the insurance company provides.

That is one good thing about auto insurance in Florida. One of my neighbors had his windshield replaced by Safelite and that was how I learned about the $0 deductible. When I lived in NY I paid extra for full glass coverage.

Your local BMW dealer's body shop might do this windshield replacement also so let them work out the cost with your insurance company. That being said, you might never know if it is OEM or not but being that you lease the Z4 vs. owning it it may be a non issue to you.

[TAZ007]

Originally Posted by Geradeaus

No, thankfully the HUD display wasn't affected by the damage as I get all my direction and speed info from it. I find it weird looking at the actual speedo in the gauge cluster.

If Safelite can't repair the damage I'm just going to wait until I take another rock to the windshield before replacing it. Unfortunately, the odds are pretty good that I'll take on more damage to the glass in the future.

Keep me posted. I was told the OEM windshield was double pained for the HUD to work properly. Not sure on it but something to watch out for.

[Westside Guy]

Originally Posted by Geradeaus

Headed out west for some mountain / open road driving and recently returned. I had a number of days of heavy driving to get out to the Rockies and to get back to Florida and the car performed brilliantly. I've got my driver's seat dialed-in perfectly and never had any back pain or discomfort. Fantastic seats! My two favorite modes are Eco Pro for general driving and Sport mode for fun driving. I still can't believe I was averaging 40.1 mpg over the first 1,000 miles of driving!

The trip confirmed that the 30i is plenty of car for my driving needs. Never once wished for more horsepower and a number of times was happy I didn't have it as I think accelerating out of curves would have overpowered the rear wheels. The all-season tires performed great - never heard any squeal on aggressive turns and they gripped well in wet and cold. The trunk was plenty big for me to pack everything I needed including the wife's luggage for the first part of the trip (she flew home after visiting with our daughter in Austin). The paint held up well even though I didn't wash it for the last four days of the trip and it was coated in dust and mag chloride. I did clay the hood and front areas and re-wax them once home. All the bug stains came up and the shine is as good as new.

Highlights of the trip include:

* NOT hitting a deer driving through Wyoming and South Dakota - they are everywhere!
* Getting hit in the windshield by a rock in Colorado. Not sure if I'm in for a replacement or a repair.
* Marking 150 mph on the speedometer on a back road in Wyoming.
* Attaining 40.1 mpg on the first leg of the trip which was mostly 79 mph interstate driving in Eco Pro mode.
* Attaining 36.4 mpg for the entire trip of 6,657 miles which included many miles of triple-digit driving in Sport mode!
* Driving arguably the best route for sports car driving - CO-145 / CO-141 from Telluride to Gateway. It's got everything from mountain twisties to wide-open canyon runs and no cops / traffic (at least when I drove it).
* Driving in a blizzard on an attempt at the Beartooth highway pass. In a moment of better judgement I turned around before the road iced over.
* Seeing bison, cows, elk, deer, chipmunks and tons of insects on the road. Avoiding colliding with all of them except the insects and the poor suicidal chipmunk (squash!).

Two questions:

1) do you have 18 or 19 inch tires on your car?

2) what was the psi on your tires when you started off on the days that you were driving those triple digit speeds ?

[Geradeaus]

Originally Posted by Westside Guy

Two questions:

1) do you have 18 or 19 inch tires on your car?

2) what was the psi on your tires when you started off on the days that you were driving those triple digit speeds ?

I've got 18 inch wheels with Michelin Pilot Sport All-Season tires mounted. I had them installed specifically to handle the sub-45 degree temps I was likely to (and did) encounter.

All tires were inflated to 32 psi when I started the trip from sea-level with temps in the 90's in Florida. As I raced (100 -130 mph bursts) across the northeast corner of New Mexico heading to Colorado I checked the pressure (programmed button '5') and the pressure had increased to 40 psi and the temps were running over 116 degrees in each tire. The outside air temp was well over 90 degrees.

I wasn't sure whether the altitude change contributed to that pressure change or not but after letting the tires cool in Colorado Springs they were still showing 36 / 37 psi so I let some air out for my high-altitude driving. As the temps dropped into the 30's the pressure dropped and I ended up having to put a couple of pounds of pressure back into each of them.

Still not sure how altitude affects the pressure. It's probably not relevant. I think air temperature has a way bigger impact.

I think the tires may have been a little squishier in the corners than the summer performance ones, but I never got them to squeal and I drove as aggressively as I felt capable on public roads so no loss in the tire change. I'll run these out (45,000 warranty) through the lease and then re-mount the original tires at lease-end.

[Geradeaus]

I was considering getting the oil changed before heading out on this trip as I was worried I would get notification of maintenance due while on the drive. I didn't - even though the car has over 9,500 miles on it now. The condition-based maintenance is still telling me I have 1,300 miles left before the oil change is due.

It looks like high-altitude and Sport mode driving didn't lower the allowable miles before oil maintenance. I did use some oil on the trip - the oil check graph is now one slot low from the max level that the car showed before starting out. There are still (it appears to me) two more bars left above the minimum oil mark, so no need to top off the oil.

I'll probably run the car to 10,000 miles and then try to schedule the oil maintenance even though the system says I'm not due until 10,800 miles.

[COKen]

I think the way that the oil life is computed gives a bias to highway driving by giving the oil a bit more life over city driving.

[Westside Guy]

Originally Posted by Geradeaus

I've got 18 inch wheels with Michelin Pilot Sport All-Season tires mounted. I had them installed specifically to handle the sub-45 degree temps I was likely to (and did) encounter.

All tires were inflated to 32 psi when I started the trip from sea-level with temps in the 90's in Florida. As I raced (100 -130 mph bursts) across the northeast corner of New Mexico heading to Colorado I checked the pressure (programmed button '5') and the pressure had increased to 40 psi and the temps were running over 116 degrees in each tire. The outside air temp was well over 90 degrees.

I wasn't sure whether the altitude change contributed to that pressure change or not but after letting the tires cool in Colorado Springs they were still showing 36 / 37 psi so I let some air out for my high-altitude driving. As the temps dropped into the 30's the pressure dropped and I ended up having to put a couple of pounds of pressure back into each of them.

Still not sure how altitude affects the pressure. It's probably not relevant. I think air temperature has a way bigger impact.

I think the tires may have been a little squishier in the corners than the summer performance ones, but I never got them to squeal and I drove as aggressively as I felt capable on public roads so no loss in the tire change. I'll run these out (45,000 warranty) through the lease and then re-mount the original tires at lease-end.

I would guess that the high speed driving and an extremely warm outside temperature is more of a factor than the high altitude.

[Geradeaus]

Originally Posted by COKen

I think the way that the oil life is computed gives a bias to highway driving by giving the oil a bit more life over city driving.

Yes, I would agree based on my extended range before the required oil change. I definitely put a lot of highway miles on the Z4 and to get 40.1 mpg there was obviously not a lot of stress put on the engine.

[Westside Guy]

By the way, I just noticed that the bison and your interior are a great color match!

[Mixitt]

Simply amazing, thanks for sharing. That red fits well into the countryside!

[Yamatokh]

Nice trip and great photos! Glad to see Z4 is capable for long trip journeys.

40mpg is amazing! With M40i the best I have seen is around 38mpg (pure highway driving with cruise control)

Wondering how you pack your luggage in Z4 trunk? Did you do any laundry along the way?

I am planning a long trip soon, so these practical info will be very helpful.

Thank you.

[Geradeaus]

Originally Posted by Yamatokh

Nice trip and great photos! Glad to see Z4 is capable for long trip journeys.

Wondering how you pack your luggage in Z4 trunk? Did you do any laundry along the way?

I am planning a long trip soon, so these practical info will be very helpful.

Thank you.

Thanks for the comments. I traveled initially with my wife and we each packed a standard carry-on size suitcase. They fit very nicely in the trunk and there is room on both sides and in front of them. I did laundry a couple of times at the hotels at night. Check out the hotel amenities page to get an idea of what each offers. I had one hotel that the machines were free! A few dryer sheets and laundry pods in a zip-loc bag and you'll be set.

I found the car incredibly comfortable and even on the 12+ hour driving days I never felt physically worn out. I've got my driver's seat dialed-in and it just envelopes me with total support. Love it!

Happy travels!

[Westside Guy]

[QUOTE=Geradeaus;28134134]
I found the car incredibly comfortable and even on the 12+ hour driving days I never felt physically worn out. I've got my driver's seat dialed-in and it just envelopes me with total support. Love it!
[QUOTE]

Do you ever feel that the seat belt was positioned too high and was cutting across your neck?

[cdavis93]

Looks like you had an amazing time! These photos are gonna be keepsakes later on