Just been on an all-night blast from one side of Germany to the other. Is it just my car, or are there some really poor surfaces on their autobahns?
Not much point doing 200km/h if you feel your teeth are about to fall out?! And i'm sure the suspension on my car is creaking and groaning at low speeds today, as a direct result?
If it's not their road surfaces, I'll be regretting the 17-inch wheels and "sports" suspension on the Volvo :-(
I'd read that Audi A4s had "firm" sports suspension, but I didn't really expect this on a Volvo?!
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"17-inch wheels and "sports" suspension"
Ah well there you go, you obviously wanted it firm. I cant see that german autobahns will be any worse than UK roads. Not that you will be doing 200km/h on those.
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TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
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Do car buyers understand what they're getting when they order "Sports suspension with ultra-low profile tyres"?
Very firm suspension, in all it's elements, will give good cornering and handling characteristics at the expense of ride quality.
On a motorway, or autobahn, you don't need good cornering you need good ride, so don't order sports suspension if you don't need it!
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It's reassuring to hear that the Germans are not planning any more military adventures in Europe, east or west.
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"Very firm suspension, in all it's elements, will give good cornering and handling characteristics at the expense of ride quality."
Not in the real world, it won't. If your suspension had to deal with real world bumps, then too firm will just mean your wheels spend time in the air rather than following the road and giving you grip. Hit a big bump on a bend when you have hard suspension and you'll know all about it.
Yes, on a nice, smooth track, not so on a road.
V
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They must have deteriorated quickly in the last couple of years since I last drove then.Having driven over 2k miles on autobahns,I found them excellent.Although these miles were covered in various mercs.
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The autobahns in (former) East Germany are generallly better than the ones in (former) West Germany. The western stretches are about on a par with ours, whereas countless DM and Euros have been thrown at (former) East Germany.
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It depends where you are in Germany. The extreme west is poor, the middle better and as boxsterboy said the east is all pretty new.
My RS4 just monsters even the bad bits at 270kph+
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The surfaces are very much a mixture. In general, IMHO, the UK ones are much of a muchness - nothing special, but pretty consistent. In Germany, there is much more of a range from excellent to very poor. I drive to Austria a couple of times each year, so admittedly I see more or less the same ones.
The biggest issue which you need to be aware of, particularly with your wide low-profile tyres, are "spurillen" - grooves in the road channelled out by the high volume of HGVs. Firstly, these will tend to deflect your car from a straight line, and secondly, in the weet, surface water will accumulate making your car prone to aquaplaning. The short term answer, where traffic volumes permit, is to avoid the nearside lane in wet weather for safety's sake. Where they are particularly bad you will see warning signs at the side of the road. Do not underestimate how much of a problem they can be!
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When I'm doing high speed I drive mostly in lane 2 on the poorly surfaced roads mostly for the reasons you mention. As I'm using the roads in this way only when they are empty it's no problem.
Obviously only a maniac or a committed (probably should be) German driver drives quickly when it's wet.
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A2 and A4 are like billiard tables both east to west to the Polish border the berliner ring and the A44 are newly resurfaced,A9 is newly rebuild ,A14,A72 are new ,A17 is new they leave UK roads light years behind.I do not know which roads you went on but they were not the roads the rest of us drive on.
A4 from Eisenach to the polish border is a race track as is the 2 may I sugest you check your tyres/wheels /suspension/tyre pressures.
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I travel in Germany quite a bit and can only echo the comments of Andy Bairsto (above). 10 years ago you did encounter some rough stretches, but recently there seem to have many improvements and I can't recall driving on any poor surfaces.
So-called 'sports suspension' is generally a bad idea, especially on a car used on British roads. It may looks and sound trendy to have hard springing and tyres with shallow sidewalls, but in practice on an undulating road you are working the sidewalls very hard (heats up the tyre) and you're more likely to lose tyre contact leading to a typically 'skittish' feel, not to mention discomfort. Sports suspension works well only on very smooth road surfaces.
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Well, I confess that I am 100% guilty of choosing the the wheels and suspension for aesthetics, without realising quite how much firmer the ride would become... My own fault. Didn't have any discomfort on the French autoroutes though?!
I drove straight down the middle of (west) Germany: Hamburg to Basel. Better surfaces around Frankfurt and further south, but the first stretch down to Hannover was bumpy as hell!
Handling is good though, there are bends on the motorway in the hills around Gottingen and Kassel which would have 50mph limits in the UK. Bit of a rollercoaster at 100+!
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FYI This official site ( updated weekly) lists all German planned repairs expected to last 8 days or more.
www.bmvbs.de/Baustellen-informationssystem-.373.htm
Pick out the route number from the map and select it in the drop down box.
Results very informative for German speakers !
English readers can pick out location, length and temporary speed limits.
AutoBild earlier this year was grumbling about the poor state of their motorways. The good old days...
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Not quite repairs, but there is a lot of work going on in southern Germany to widen the motorway which runs from Karslruhe via Stuttgart/Augsburg to Munich from 4 to 6 lanes - specifically, between Augsburg and Munich, and between Karlsruhe and Stuttgart - and some of them are going on to 2010! One stretch is 37km, so it's gonna be fun....just came back yesterday and I can assure you that it's no fun!
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I regularly drive through Germany , as a rule heading to the south east and south west on business. I tend to find German roads are very good apart from the long delays at roadworks. Tend to find that the whole route is very smooth riding apart from Belgium which is diabolical road surfacing.
Everything is smooth and quiet in Germany and it is only returning to England that the poor surface in the UK and the variability of surfaces is drawn into sharp focus.
My boss has a V70 on (and I quote him) "silly bling alloys". And that is just the 17" Thor ones. When I ordered my S60 with 16" he was keen to pull rank and swap the wheels between our cars. I resisted prefering the ride on the 16" (even though it is still hard).
You will find at approx 70k miles on either wheels that the suspension will have settled down a bit (or your spine will have got used to it!).
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