GR86 What did you do with your GR86 today

Sonic said:
Ooh, non resonated as well you cheeky boy! You are just gonna love it. Hope the ESG is off, coz you won't need it with this beauty..
We can now be 'Exhaust fwriends' ... 🎶 "We're Sexeh and we know it .." :love:
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It was your influence + feedback from the member who got a PAX ride in yours that did it. Therefore…when my neighbours complain about the cold start I will direct them to deepest darkest Fife.

First impressions are that it is actually quite a bit quieter than I thought it would be. (Cold start excepted)
Resonated must be very quiet.

That’s said, perhaps I just wasn’t driving it hard enough (old exhaust rattling around in the back)
 
Alistair31 said:
It was your influence + feedback from the member who got a PAX ride in yours that did it. Therefore…when my neighbours complain about the cold start I will direct them to deepest darkest Fife.

First impressions are that it is actually quite a bit quieter than I thought it would be. (Cold start excepted)
Resonated must be very quiet.

That’s said, perhaps I just wasn’t driving it hard enough (old exhaust rattling around in the back)
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Yup, it’s not as loud as people fear when they read ‘non-resonated’. It gives the car a nice OEM+ sound on a gentle and neutral throttle, with more of a lovely base note that suits the car.
If you drive around town with the window open it’s a pleasure to hear as the sound bounces back from walls and buildings.
Opening the throttle hard at the National Speed Limit signs make for a smile-inducing rasp, and fluffing the throttle on a downshift can induce several pops/bangs (but a lot more civilised than your average Focus ST).
Enjoy 😉…
 
I think that I completed my longest day of driving so far in the GR86 yesterday.

IMG-20240504-WA0000.webp


A combination of mainly motorways, dual carriageways and A roads from Dorset, to Coventry, to Preston and then back to Dorset. All on the day before a Bank Holiday weekend. 😱

Knowing what the traffic might be like on the way home, I kind of had a loose plan of stopping at a hotel if the traffic was bad / I started to feel tired. With 3 1/2 hours in Coventry, 2 1/2 hours in Preston and a 1/2 hour stop for dinner, plus a few toilet breaks, I probably did too many hours yesterday, but the timescales / work schedule meant that I really needed to fit both of these visits in on the same day. 🙄

Anyway, it worked out fine. I had two great meetings, got some emails / calls done and was home safe and sound before 11pm.

So, about the drive and the reasons that I kept going....

I experienced all the weather that you tend to get in the UK, except for snow and ice. I had some nice dry roads and sunshine, to some truly horrendous conditions on the M6 and M5, heading back down south with standing water, rain and road spray. Amazingly, I only experienced some relatively slow traffic at 2-3 stages on the drive back home, otherwise nothing worry about. Although using the M6 toll road up to Preston saved me about 45 minutes due to congestion/accident on the normal route and the M5 did get closed closer to Bristol, but I planned to come off before then anyway.

The highlight was when I came off the M5 at the A417 and headed across to Cirencester, then down the A429 to Malmesbury and the A350 home. These roads had hardly any traffic, where dry and very enjoyable, with some fast sweeping bends, slower bends and fun roundabouts. 😀

The other things that stood out where about the car and how I approach a road trip like this.

The car copes so well with this sort of thing. The seats and driving position are amazing, so comfortable and well set up for driving with everything and your fingers, including my coffee. Then the steering, gearshift, pedals, damping, agility. But also the sure-footedness on the motorway, in the rain. 👍

The planning, nothing serious, just taking a full flask of coffee with me, refuelling with Tesco Momentum 99, a KFC, toilet breaks when needed and 2 cans of Redbull. 🤣🤣🤣. Certainly not my usual diet, but okay occasionally.

The car really does help you stay awake, but I find it great for long journeys, hence the reason that I just kept going. Anyway, I just thought that some of you would find this interesting and wondered if you do the same, or hate doing long drives in it.
 
OPC100 said:
I think that I completed my longest day of driving so far in the GR86 yesterday.

View attachment 27564

A combination of mainly motorways, dual carriageways and A roads from Dorset, to Coventry, to Preston and then back to Dorset. All on the day before a Bank Holiday weekend. 😱

Knowing what the traffic might be like on the way home, I kind of had a loose plan of stopping at a hotel if the traffic was bad / I started to feel tired. With 3 1/2 hours in Coventry, 2 1/2 hours in Preston and a 1/2 hour stop for dinner, plus a few toilet breaks, I probably did too many hours yesterday, but the timescales / work schedule meant that I really needed to fit both of these visits in on the same day. 🙄

Anyway, it worked out fine. I had two great meetings, got some emails / calls done and was home safe and sound before 11pm.

So, about the drive and the reasons that I kept going....

I experienced all the weather that you tend to get in the UK, except for snow and ice. I had some nice dry roads and sunshine, to some truly horrendous conditions on the M6 and M5, heading back down south with standing water, rain and road spray. Amazingly, I only experienced some relatively slow traffic at 2-3 stages on the drive back home, otherwise nothing worry about. Although using the M6 toll road up to Preston saved me about 45 minutes due to congestion/accident on the normal route and the M5 did get closed closer to Bristol, but I planned to come off before then anyway.

The highlight was when I came off the M5 at the A417 and headed across to Cirencester, then down the A429 to Malmesbury and the A350 home. These roads had hardly any traffic, where dry and very enjoyable, with some fast sweeping bends, slower bends and fun roundabouts. 😀

The other things that stood out where about the car and how I approach a road trip like this.

The car copes so well with this sort of thing. The seats and driving position are amazing, so comfortable and well set up for driving with everything and your fingers, including my coffee. Then the steering, gearshift, pedals, damping, agility. But also the sure-footedness on the motorway, in the rain. 👍

The planning, nothing serious, just taking a full flask of coffee with me, refuelling with Tesco Momentum 99, a KFC, toilet breaks when needed and 2 cans of Redbull. 🤣🤣🤣. Certainly not my usual diet, but okay occasionally.

The car really does help you stay awake, but I find it great for long journeys, hence the reason that I just kept going. Anyway, I just thought that some of you would find this interesting and wondered if you do the same, or hate doing long drives in it.
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Estimated mpg??
 
Cambman said:
Estimated mpg??
Click to expand...
Oh, I was getting close to 40mpg before I turned off the motorway. Then it dropped to about 38mpg by the time I got home due to 85 miles of A roads. I was just going with the flow and sticking to the speed limits for most of the way until these last 85 miles. Then a combination of some fun, fast road driving and revving it out and then just going with the flow again when coming up against the little traffic that I did come up against until safe to overtake.
 
OPC100 said:
I think that I completed my longest day of driving so far in the GR86 yesterday.

View attachment 27564

A combination of mainly motorways, dual carriageways and A roads from Dorset, to Coventry, to Preston and then back to Dorset. All on the day before a Bank Holiday weekend. 😱

Knowing what the traffic might be like on the way home, I kind of had a loose plan of stopping at a hotel if the traffic was bad / I started to feel tired. With 3 1/2 hours in Coventry, 2 1/2 hours in Preston and a 1/2 hour stop for dinner, plus a few toilet breaks, I probably did too many hours yesterday, but the timescales / work schedule meant that I really needed to fit both of these visits in on the same day. 🙄

Anyway, it worked out fine. I had two great meetings, got some emails / calls done and was home safe and sound before 11pm.

So, about the drive and the reasons that I kept going....

I experienced all the weather that you tend to get in the UK, except for snow and ice. I had some nice dry roads and sunshine, to some truly horrendous conditions on the M6 and M5, heading back down south with standing water, rain and road spray. Amazingly, I only experienced some relatively slow traffic at 2-3 stages on the drive back home, otherwise nothing worry about. Although using the M6 toll road up to Preston saved me about 45 minutes due to congestion/accident on the normal route and the M5 did get closed closer to Bristol, but I planned to come off before then anyway.

The highlight was when I came off the M5 at the A417 and headed across to Cirencester, then down the A429 to Malmesbury and the A350 home. These roads had hardly any traffic, where dry and very enjoyable, with some fast sweeping bends, slower bends and fun roundabouts. 😀

The other things that stood out where about the car and how I approach a road trip like this.

The car copes so well with this sort of thing. The seats and driving position are amazing, so comfortable and well set up for driving with everything and your fingers, including my coffee. Then the steering, gearshift, pedals, damping, agility. But also the sure-footedness on the motorway, in the rain. 👍

The planning, nothing serious, just taking a full flask of coffee with me, refuelling with Tesco Momentum 99, a KFC, toilet breaks when needed and 2 cans of Redbull. 🤣🤣🤣. Certainly not my usual diet, but okay occasionally.

The car really does help you stay awake, but I find it great for long journeys, hence the reason that I just kept going. Anyway, I just thought that some of you would find this interesting and wondered if you do the same, or hate doing long drives in it.
Click to expand...
Brilliant stuff and totally agree about suitability for long drives. I never seem to get much better than mid / high 30’s MPG though 🤷‍♂️
As an aside I managed 4 countries in a day on the way to Goodwood revival last year (Northern Ireland, Ireland, Wales and England - pretty small countries I know, but still..)
 
OPC100 said:
Oh, I was getting close to 40mpg before I turned off the motorway. Then it dropped to about 38mpg by the time I got home due to 85 miles of A roads. I was just going with the flow and sticking to the speed limits for most of the way until these last 85 miles. Then a combination of some fun, fast road driving and revving it out and then just going with the flow again when coming up against the little traffic that I did come up against until safe to overtake.
Click to expand...
😳 That's brilliant! I used to get 39mpg from my GT, but so far (on 4500 mls) the GR has only coughed up 35mpg, on 97 petrol. Perhaps I'd better buy some lighter driving shoes...
 
jb1750 said:
Brilliant stuff and totally agree about suitability for long drives. I never seem to get much better than mid / high 30’s MPG though 🤷‍♂️
As an aside I managed 4 countries in a day on the way to Goodwood revival last year (Northern Ireland, Ireland, Wales and England - pretty small countries I know, but still..)
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I tend to get worse when just driving locally, or if the traffic is stop / start, but on these longer runs for work, I just stick to the speed limits and take it easy. When the traffic is flowing, I quite often get to 40mpg.

I bet that 4 countries drive had some great roads. 👍
 
Cambman said:
😳 That's brilliant! I used to get 39mpg from my GT, but so far (on 4500 mls) the GR has only coughed up 35mpg, on 97 petrol. Perhaps I'd better buy some lighter driving shoes...
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I've only ever used super unleaded, so that probably helps and so does a light foot. Funny thing is that I still have fun when driving in traffic. Some of the good mpg is when just using momentum, like sometimes when I'm stuck behind traffic with no chance of overtaking, I don't accelerate as fast as them on straights, but always catch up around the bends. So I'm keeping a more constant speed, being more economical and having more fun on the twisty bits. It just adds a bit more variety to the drive.
 
GRaven said:
I may need to stick a batman mascot on the dash to fit in soon. 🦇
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My Pop! Batman figure has been out of a job since I got rid of my KonaN (the colour of which was actually called Dark kNight), bought the GR86 and replaced him with a Sonic ...
Poor ol' BatmaN, I'd even made him a VibraNium shield out of a chrome button and a Hyundai 'N' logo sticker; alas, his 'Focus ST' crime crime fighting days are over, now he sits on a desk hidden behind my box of pens...
Dark_kNight_BatmaN.jpg
 
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Drove it out the garage so I could add a splash of colour to the garage! Thanks to the zoo team for the poster, goes nicely with the Toyota print. (the car will actually be getting driven properly tomorrow!)
IMG_5661.jpeg
 
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OPC100 said:
I think that I completed my longest day of driving so far in the GR86 yesterday.

View attachment 27564

A combination of mainly motorways, dual carriageways and A roads from Dorset, to Coventry, to Preston and then back to Dorset. All on the day before a Bank Holiday weekend. 😱

Knowing what the traffic might be like on the way home, I kind of had a loose plan of stopping at a hotel if the traffic was bad / I started to feel tired. With 3 1/2 hours in Coventry, 2 1/2 hours in Preston and a 1/2 hour stop for dinner, plus a few toilet breaks, I probably did too many hours yesterday, but the timescales / work schedule meant that I really needed to fit both of these visits in on the same day. 🙄

Anyway, it worked out fine. I had two great meetings, got some emails / calls done and was home safe and sound before 11pm.

So, about the drive and the reasons that I kept going....

I experienced all the weather that you tend to get in the UK, except for snow and ice. I had some nice dry roads and sunshine, to some truly horrendous conditions on the M6 and M5, heading back down south with standing water, rain and road spray. Amazingly, I only experienced some relatively slow traffic at 2-3 stages on the drive back home, otherwise nothing worry about. Although using the M6 toll road up to Preston saved me about 45 minutes due to congestion/accident on the normal route and the M5 did get closed closer to Bristol, but I planned to come off before then anyway.

The highlight was when I came off the M5 at the A417 and headed across to Cirencester, then down the A429 to Malmesbury and the A350 home. These roads had hardly any traffic, where dry and very enjoyable, with some fast sweeping bends, slower bends and fun roundabouts. 😀

The other things that stood out where about the car and how I approach a road trip like this.

The car copes so well with this sort of thing. The seats and driving position are amazing, so comfortable and well set up for driving with everything and your fingers, including my coffee. Then the steering, gearshift, pedals, damping, agility. But also the sure-footedness on the motorway, in the rain. 👍

The planning, nothing serious, just taking a full flask of coffee with me, refuelling with Tesco Momentum 99, a KFC, toilet breaks when needed and 2 cans of Redbull. 🤣🤣🤣. Certainly not my usual diet, but okay occasionally.

The car really does help you stay awake, but I find it great for long journeys, hence the reason that I just kept going. Anyway, I just thought that some of you would find this interesting and wondered if you do the same, or hate doing long drives in it.
Click to expand...
You can reset the timing? I thought it was a "feature" and stuck at 99.9hrs :ROFLMAO:
 
Honister pass a good road to drive? Never found the lakes good for driving.
Hartside pass is awesome (assuming you mean the one in the Pennines?) !
 
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