Ok, so it ended up that the last three weekends there's been a visit to Cohuna!
The week after the pic above in the last post, we had to return Basil to my sis as she was back at work. The trick was completing suspension work on the VT (all rear bushes replaced and the last lot on the front end done too). Basil got an oil change - I've moved to 10W-40 semi synthetic.
One late night trip and here they were the morning after on the Gunbower Island:
^ I have to remind myself that both vehicles are of the same age, I keep thinking that the liberty is younger...
Probably one of my favourite pics of Basil to date:
^ The rear patch on the body damage is really easy to see when he's clean and the paint shows its metallic as the sun brings it out. It's also very easy to see when the car is clean! But still much better than having left it.
We took a little trip into Cohuna itself. The town was quite sleepy on this Sunday morning:
While we were off to the shop, Basil "made a friend" (just like my sister, leave them for a minute and they know someone new!):
We left Basil and a week later I was back again, in Basil (big car shuffle happened), to pick up my sister's better half and head off to my brother's wedding at Mt Hotham. On the drive up there I got the best fuel economy seen so far at 8.2L/100km with sis's drive down and my drive up to Cohuna, fill up was in Echuca (good fuel price).
We did a bit of shared driving, then at Harrietville I got back in the driver's seat to have some fun heading up the Mt. We left Harrietville at a bit after 7:15pm and arrived at Dinner Plain (for dinner of course!) at 7:55pm. It was a nice run. At the point of Australia's highest sealed road (1850m) I snapped a few pics - it was later than I was hoping but anyway, it still looks pretty good I reckon:
^ Mt Feathertop off to the right in the pic
^ Mt Buffalo in the centre of pic with dusk above it.
Chilling out in Hotham Heights near Fountains and the Arlberg:
And quite a special event I guess - up on the Summit of Mt Hotham, not many vehicles get access up here, let alone a road going liberty. At this point he was playing chauffeur for guests at the wedding.
Once off the Mt and re-fuelled, we (read: I) got the worst economy we've seen so far - 9.2L/100km. Pretty stoked about that considering heading up the Mt was generally half to WOT with a driving style trying to keep revs above 3500rpm. I have wondered if my sister filled it to the brim like I do, as this can have an effect on the figures. Either way it'd still be near the 10L/100km.
With those fuel figures I'm pretty stoked. I was worried that the 2.5L would be thirstier than the L series and end up costing my sister more in fuel than she would've with retaining the L. So glad we moved up a number of pegs to the Liberty and I also love the Gen 3 shape, probably the best of the Libertys I reckon.
A few things will need to be done soon. The rear muffler will need replacing, it's rusted quite badly now, this happened quicker than I expected. The front struts are probably about due for replacement, with 340kkm on the clock they've done well. I found a hole in the exhaust that was cut by the dudes that welded the hole they found during the RWC. That's ironic.
I've not driven the EJ20 version of this vehicle, but if anyone is looking for a Gen 3 liberty I'd recommend going the EJ25 RX model for the get up and go and the other little extras that come in this spec.
Cheers
Bennie
It used to be 28 days, even 14 would be reasonable. But I guess this is where they also drum up business as a "side effect" to Vicroads changing the policy.
