How far have people gone in their k10's

caphj7

Buy & Sell Member
hi , i have a 1 litre 1985 micra k10 and i was wondering whether to drive down to newquay in it or borrow my moms car (mitsubishi colt). the car has only done 49500 miles and it runs well. i was wondering whats the furthest distance people have covered in their k10's in one go. i would love to take it down im just not sure about going a few hours down the motorway, maybe if i stopped at bristol on the way? i live in birmingham and i am going down to newquay with a friend in june/july.
 

Ems

Ex. Club Member
I used to travel down to Sussex in my old 1985 Datsun every other week, which took longer than 3 hours at times, and it coped better than a lot of other cars! Just make sure you do the checks before a long journey; tyre pressure, oil level, water level etc. You'll be fine then :)
 

misterBaz

Ex. Club Member
If it's running well then I don't see why not. Make sure all your fluids are topped up, and if they need changing, change em, make sure your tyres and lights are working etc.

Personally I would do it, and I live further from Newquay than you do. Not owned my K10 long but have put 1,000 miles on it in 3 weeks and would not worry about long journeys.

For peace of mind join the RAC/AA/Greenflag or whatever. Just a note tho, I joined the RAC and it cost me £90...then I went to Tesco and there was a temprary RAC stand outside with a guy selling breakdown cover, he was offering better cover than I already had for £40!! I asked him why and he said that that's just how they do it!...luckily I rang RAC within the hour and was able to cancel my £90 cover free of charge, then I went and bought the better cover off the guy outside tesco for £40.
 

james betley

Ex. Club Member
i have done 300 miles in one go i live in lincoln i take my k10 2 kit car shows i have done a lot more miles when i had the car so it will deffernley do the journy with ese
 

Paul H

Ex. Club Member
Oh yeah! I totally agree with that. A run does 'em good, especially a long run. Gets the old oil flowing. As long as the radiator has water, the sump has oil. Mechanics recommend the occasional check on the wheel nuts with a wheel brace once in a while, just to make sure, but they are usually gunned on pretty tight. I tend to worry about long trips in mine but the mekanik says use it! just do a good clean if yours is going near the sea air after. I'm suffering a little bit with rust, but it's to be expected with an '89 reg.:upside:
 

Courior

Fat ppl r harder 2 kidnap
Long distance,,, where shall i start. last year i did a couple of camping trips that were over a 1000 miles in 4 days, i live in south london and have made cornwall, liverpool, margate, and others all in one go. On xmas eve i was camping in snowdonia and it was wet, foggy, icy, cold etc. and on the way home from the entrance to the 1st motorway i didnt drop below 65mph for 4 hours straight (i wish the roads were that empty all the time!!) till i got off the last motorway near my house.

so yeah go for it mate just dont cruise any higher than 75mph on the clock and you should see around 360 miles to a tank and it wont drown out the radio too much lol!

PS: i got 95K on the clock and i have done 17K in the last 11 months!
 
Me and my girlfriend bought a 1989 micra as our first car last year. We drove it from sweden to Croatia and back. No problem at all :) (thats 2500 miles in total.)
drove at approx 75 mph as max speed.
The funny thing is that my girlfriends uncle talked to her about how crazy we where in doing that trip in such an old ####ty car.
later that summer he and his wife took a trip down to germany in his 2004 SAAB. suddenly it just stopped, the Gasoline pump was totally busted (dont know if its called that in english). they had to wait a week for the spare parts to be flown down to Germany from sweden, We where home in Sweden at the time and called him and asked if he wanted us to come down and pick him up with our micra :)
SAAB was pretty cool about it and actually swapped his entire engine for a brand new one when he got home to sweden, for free.

I guess any car can break down. So you never know
We bought our micra really cheap from an old lady who was the only owner of it. We drove like 8000 miles (13000 km) with it the first year and it passed the MOT without one single error!
before we did our long trip we had it serviced by a mechanic who is a good friend of my GFs father. the mechanic actually said that these types of engines are better suited for long runs than start-stop travells. so he adviced us to drive as long as we could, then just stop, rest, eat, then travel for a long while again. We could actually feel the car running better and better during the holiday, i guess its good to "clean the system" with long drives on the motorway at a pretty even speed.
 

Arnold

www.alanarnold.co.uk
Moderator
Site Supporter
I did 800/900 miles in my K10 in 48 hours once, and didnt have any problems, all types of roads, even snow thrown in.
 
I did Stockport to Ballykelly in County Derry via the Stranraer-Belfast ferry and back again over a 48 hour period with ease in my old 1.0 litre, a total distance of around 600 miles.
 

misterBaz

Ex. Club Member
4000??? in one weekend? 48 hours??

That's an average speed of over 83mph even if you didn't sleep or stop for petrol or food!!
 

lewic

Ex. Club Member
Personally I'd go for the Colt for a motorway trip, but it really depends how good your suspension (and nerves) are. Didnt do much long distance in my K10 as it bounced around too much for my liking at speed, and the lack of acceleration was scary on the motorway. Never worried about it breaking down though, and a mate has taken his to Finland and back several times without any problems!
 
Last August, we went on a holiday to Normandy (north of France). Brought the Micra along over on the ferry from Rosslare to Cherbourg. Over the course of 4 days, we must have drove at least 500+ miles. On the way back, we stocked up on cheap alcohol (about the car's weight of it!). The car brought us and the whole lot of booze back with no problems at all.

Since I bought the car in April 2004, I've done just under 20,000 miles in it to date.
 

Burfy

Ex. Club Member
I've definitely clocked over 300 miles one way (it was a two-way trip) and my Micra loved it! There's no harm in tossing in some carb-cleaner while you do your trip too :) It's best if you can run that stuff through continuously rather than little spurts at a time... I find the acceleration isn't amazing (but hey, it's 60hp?) and the top speed is perfect for where I live (65mph limit).. Not sure how fast you'll be going, but provided your front struts and tyres are in good condition and everything is aligned, you'll have a comfortable trip!
 
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