[M2OG]

Hey everyone,
I'm thinking about driving from California to Pennsylvania and am curious if anyone has taken their car on a similar 2000+ mile trip.

I have a spare wheel/tire/jack kit and understand I'll need to take it easy with the go pedal because of our tiny 13 gallon fuel tank. That said, has anyone encountered any pitfalls I might not be seeing?

[JustinHEMI]

Interesting timely thread..., I'm going from PA to California and back in September. Using this site to lay out my route,

https://www.roadtripusa.com/


Looking forward to responses, thanks for starting thread.

[M2OG]

Originally Posted by JustinHEMI

Interesting timely thread..., I'm going from PA to California and back in September. Using this site to lay out my route,

https://www.roadtripusa.com/


Looking forward to responses, thanks for starting thread.

Hilarious, where in CA are you?I assume you're going to Pittsburg, I'm heading to Philly, thinking about late August or September myself.

[DanG]

I have driven from Seattle to Montana and back in my M2. Delightful drive with zero problems. Helped that I have SiriusFM in my car so I had music all trip.

[JustinHEMI]

Originally Posted by M2OG

Hilarious, where in CA are you?I assume you're going to Pittsburg, I'm heading to Philly, thinking about late August or September myself.

Sorry read it again, I'm going the opposite direction. I'm planning on basically driving the northern tier states, down the pacific coast highway, then through Az and picking up Rt 66.

[M2OG]

Originally Posted by JustinHEMI

Sorry read it again, I'm going the opposite direction. I'm planning on basically driving the northern tier states, down the pacific coast highway, then through Az and picking up Rt 66.

Derp, got it.

I'm going back and fourth but plan on taking the most time effective route to get to PA but going back I would consider a more relaxed pace

[JustinHEMI]

Gotcha, yeah mine is purely a classic road trip to see road side attractions and such. I was booked to visit Chernobyl, but with the pandemic, the airline cancelled my flight. So, I thought, "let's see America the old fashioned way!" haha

[Moflow]

I drove from Seattle to San Francisco and back. The small gas tank isn't actually all that bad if you're just chilling at 70 mph. I notice it a lot more in mixed city and highway driving.

[DarthFader]

Just got back from a long road trip with a fellow M2 driver and our families. Drove from Wisconsin to San Diego - with some stops along the way. Had a great time. No issues/pitfalls whatsoever with the cars. Both of us could easily go over 300 miles a tank - which is about the time we felt like stopping anyway. We traveled over 5k miles on the trip. No sore body parts.

Go for it and enjoy the car. It's a decent grand touring car.

A pic from the Grand Canyon.

[sdshack]

I recently did a ~1,600 mile round trip drive on the East coast. The small gas tank wasn’t a big deal as I averaged about 27mpg on the interstate, but the road noise got unbearable after a while. There were lots of milled sections on the interstate that made the cabin noise so loud my passenger and I couldn’t even hear each other without raising our voices.

[DarthFader]

Originally Posted by sdshack

I recently did a ~1,600 mile round trip drive on the East coast. The small gas tank wasn’t a big deal as I averaged about 27mpg on the interstate, but the road noise got unbearable after a while. There were lots of milled sections on the interstate that made the cabin noise so loud my passenger and I couldn’t even hear each other without raising our voices.

I was worried about this too, however just before the trip I switched to Pilot 4S tires and it was much quieter in the cabin with the new tires - I also upsized to M3 specs. Even the wife commented on how quiet the cabin was.

I don't ever remember the M2 being this pleasant on a roadtrip. Perhaps the Pilot 4S is quieter than the Pilot SS.

[sdshack]

Originally Posted by DarthFader

I was worried about this too, however just before the trip I switched to Pilot 4S tires and it was much quieter in the cabin with the new tires - I also upsized to M3 specs. Even the wife commented on how quiet the cabin was.

I don't ever remember the M2 being this pleasant on a roadtrip. Perhaps the Pilot 4S is quieter than the Pilot SS.

Could be — I had P4S on the CSLs on my old E46 M3 and that car was significantly quieter on the interstate.

My PSS aren’t that worn down though, so I’m going to start with some of the OEM sound deadening measures others have taken on the forum and go from there.

[mssVT98]

My wife and I drove from DC to northern Vermont and back last summer and had a great time. The car was perfect and plenty comfortable for a long drive. Rock solid through a long, heavy storm at night on a deserted mountain highway. I say go for it.

[GoneIn4Secs]

Originally Posted by JustinHEMI

Gotcha, yeah mine is purely a classic road trip to see road side attractions and such. I was booked to visit Chernobyl, but with the pandemic, the airline cancelled my flight. So, I thought, "let's see America the old fashioned way!" haha

Youre going to chernobyl for site seeing?

[tranck]

62K miles here - yeah, no problem with long drives period.

[JustinHEMI]

Originally Posted by GoneIn4Secs

Youre going to chernobyl for site seeing?

Yes. I'm a US commercial senior reactor operator and as such, can get access to off limits areas of the plant for professional knowledge and development.

[richard in NC]

So far the longest trip I've done is about 250 miles in a day. Once to Atlanta and once to the beach. My M2C seemed OK for trips but rather firm on bad roads. I notice the loudness compared to other cars but can appreciate it when getting to the twisties. My biggest complaint is the small tank and lack of range. Even when interstate cruising its not much over 300 miles.

[Fedorov]

I'm going on a 560 miles trip tomorrow for the 3rd time in the M2. Imo road niose clearly depend on the smoothness of the surface, when it smooth it is really quiet and comfortable, if not it's a bit more rough clearly.

Fuel consumption clearly acceptable, a bit worse on highwat than my 335 e92 but better in the city. I use start/stop and city driving is clearly less consuming of petrol than the 335 e92.

But I digress, it's totally fine to take a long trip in the M2 imo..

[lax01]

Originally Posted by JustinHEMI

Yes. I'm a US commercial senior reactor operator and as such, can get access to off limits areas of the plant for professional knowledge and development.

Wow...very cool. Do post if you ever get to take this trip!

[JustinHEMI]

Originally Posted by lax01

Wow...very cool. Do post if you ever get to take this trip!

For sure! I'm hoping maybe next year but I want to have this pandemic behind us. I don't want to get stuck in Ukraine.



On the topic of road trips, I did drive my car from Atlanta to Pittsburgh and I'm now on my way to drive back of the dragon which is a about 400 miles from me. The car does well on these trips, but I do have to force myself to stop every 2 hours to stretch. There's not much to do with your right leg when cruising. It is noisy sometimes, but I'm otherwise happy with the mileage when cruising.

I also have to resist being taunted by every sporty car on the road. I already have 3 points on my license this year.

[lax01]

Originally Posted by JustinHEMI

For sure! I'm hoping maybe next year but I want to have this pandemic behind us. I don't want to get stuck in Ukraine.

I do NOT blame you on that - have had a friend-of-a-friend who did the trip to Pripyat with some "extreme" tourism - it sounds like a very cool trip - trying to convince the SO to consider it sometime in the future

[stulio2181]

Took my '18 from Austin to Davis Mountains. Blew my charge pipe outside of Del Rio on hwy 90 traveling at ludicrous speed. Rigged a wire harness looping through the fuel rails to "pull" the charge pipe back into the intake. Surprisingly it held and no CEL but had it replaced promptly once I got back to civilization. Boggles my mind they still have this POS plastic pipe when everyone knows it regularly fails on the N55.