As the weather improves, it’s inevitable that thoughts turn to setting off on a long-distance road trip – maybe to the further-flung parts of Ireland, or even overseas into Europe.
But if you’re planning to take your own car on such a jaunt, there are a number of ‘pre-flight’ checks and preparations you should make to ensure the vehicle goes the distance on the trip – and then happily gets you home safely at the end of it all. Here’s our quick rundown of top tips to make your automotive adventure a success.
Water, water, everywhere
An obvious starter for ten: car interiors get hot in the summer. This counts whether the vehicle is moving or not, because large glasshouses (the area of all the windows in the car) with the sun beating down on them only serve to heat up the cabin faster. And if you’re going on a road trip, then the chances are you’re going to be driving along for many hours at a time, day after day – best, then, to have a coolbox or similar in the car, to keep plenty of bottled water nice and cold, and any other snacks that like to be chilled fresh. It’ll be a boon if you get caught in a traffic jam and you’re dying for a drink as the temperatures rise into the 20s.
Check the coolant – and the A/C
It’s not just passengers in the cabin who are going to get hot – the car’s engine will, if it’s fitted with one (EVs get a pass here). The coolant system is essential to keeping the engine from boiling over in hot conditions, so make sure there’s plenty of coolant (a mix of ionised water and anti-freeze) in the vehicle.
Similarly, if the car has an air-conditioning system fitted, you’ll want to check the refrigerant in that. Topping this up yourself is no easy task unless you’re a handy mechanic, so your best bet is taking it to a reputable garage that does an air-con ‘regas’ for a reasonable price and getting it all checked over.
Don’t neglect the wash-wipe
If you’re an eternal optimist who thinks the weather is always beautiful in summer, you might think to yourself that there’s no need to worry about the wash-wipe system, because you won’t be using the wipers at any point on the trek. However, flying insects are far more prevalent in the warmer weather and can often splatter the windscreen, so you will need to have plenty of wash-wipe fluid to ensure good forward visibility for the duration of the trip. You can obviously completely top the under-bonnet reservoir up at home before you set off, but it’s best to take a full bottle of screen wash fluid with you, as you might be able to get fresh water while out and about on your adventure, but ready-mixed fluid-and-water is not so easy to come by, outside of large petrol stations.
Take care of the veterans
If the car you’re planning to take on the road trip is of the older persuasion, you’ll need to do more to it than simply check the coolant, A/C and wash-wipe reservoir. Extremes of heat take their toll on weak batteries and while we might all be more familiar with the biting cold knackering battery packs, the same can be said of exceedingly high temperatures. If you’re in doubt as to the condition of your car’s 12-volt battery, most motor factors will do you a battery check for a small price. And even a replacement battery shouldn’t be much more than €80-€100 for a regular lead-acid item. Better that than being stranded somewhere en route because an old battery has finally expired.
Beyond that, obviously check the condition of the tyres and ensure there’s no visible wear to the sidewalls (bulges or cracks in the bit of rubber facing outwards of the vehicle, surrounding the wheel itself). Have a look at the tyre treads (the grooves cut into the rolling surface of the tyre) to make sure they’re all nice and deep, and that no portion of any tyre has gone bald. Inflate all the tyres to the correct pressure according to the owner’s manual, or any marked stickers on the body of the car.
And have the oil checked out by a good mechanic. If you’ve just had a full service on the car, then no worries, but if the vehicle has done thousands of kilometres since the last time you looked at the dipstick, then it’s best to be safe and get fresh oil, or at least a top-up if the engine’s levels are low.
Plan your route – take your time
It’s tempting to look at a variety of interesting destinations that are, geographically speaking, not that far away from one another, look up the distances and drive times on something like Google Maps and then work out an itinerary that crams as much into each day of the road trip as possible.
But if you’re driving hundreds of kilometres at a time to see various tourist attractions, also attempting to take in two or three locations spread at such distances, you’ll just get tired and irritable, especially if you don’t allow any contingency for either traffic build-up or other unforeseen circumstances. And you won’t really have any time to enjoy the sights at each of your stop-offs, either.
Instead, keep the itinerary realistic, limit yourself to a set amount of achievable distance in a day, and then – if your car has navigation, or it can mirror your smartphone and project it onto its in-cabin screen – programme in the addresses for all your chosen destinations before you set off. Not only will this give you a good idea how long you’ll be in the car each day, but most nav systems now can actively divert you around hold-ups on the route, preventing you from getting caught in a snarl-up.
Check all the lights
Again, as the daylight hours are longer in summer and the sun stays up until late in the evening, you might reckon you won’t ever be driving at night during the road trip. However, you never know what traffic conditions you could face, or whether you’ll take a wrong turning at some point on the journey and end up driving much later in the day than you intended. And you don’t want to be on unfamiliar roads, far from home, with only one functioning headlamp, or in heavily congested, distant cities with dodgy brake lights at the back of your machine. Go round and check all the car’s exterior bulbs are working properly before setting off, and if they aren’t then have the defective bulbs replaced. It should only cost you a few cents at most, unless the vehicle has LED illumination – in which case, have a garage look at the car to sort the issue.
Shade is your friend
Less of a pre-trip prep point and one for the journey, but assuming you are going to be parking the car in multiple different locations for lengthy periods at a time on the road trip, then seek out parking spaces which are in the shade (either of nearby buildings, under cover, or adjacent to trees). If it’s lovely weather and you’re wearing shorts or similar garments which don’t cover all your legs, the last thing you want is to come back to a car where the leather/leather-effect seats have been heated to something akin to the surface of the sun because you parked in direct light for three or four hours. Finding any shade to put the car in will keep the cabin cooler and thus your comfort levels more bearable.
Check foreign legislation requirements
As we’re part of the EU, if you’re going to Europe then you don’t need to worry about slapping ‘IRL’ stickers on the boot lid. However, you do need to adjust the headlights for countries where they drive on the right to avoid dazzling other road users. This job might simply be a case of tapping some settings in the infotainment on newer cars, but it will more likely require headlight-adjuster stickers, available from all good motor factors and stores. And watch out for clean-air initiatives in cities across the continent: for instance, you can’t drive into Paris, even in a foreign-registered car, without the relevant Crit’Air sticker. There are more places which have these sorts of rules and regs, so research the bigger destinations on your journey to make sure you’ve checked them out carefully before you head to any such location – and get the car prepped with the necessary paperwork or identifiers beforehand if required.