First interstate trip done in the XJ (Stock 96 Limited). Melbourne to Sydney to Blue mountains and back.
stats adjusted 5% because im running 29's
2306km all up.
Averaged 13ltr/100k's on the way up and on the way back.
303ltrs used and averaged spent 1.15 per liter so $350 spent on petrol all up. vs Flying that worked out well for the 2 of us.
Didnt drive around sydney at all as i didnt want a headache, girlfriend found an apartment on Air Bnb in Maroubra and we used bike/public transport. Saw bondi beach, ferry to manly and scenic walk, NYE fire works (getting that view was not easy!! 2 hours in a line to get bags checked and 10 hours staking out a spot), sightseeing in sydney paddys market, darling harbor etc, camped in blue mountains at Ingar wentworth falls. Saw one of the three sisters as we were essentially in engulfed in low hanging clouds, good view at perrys lookdown, wentworth falls, few town centers etc. Then on the way home we caught the rain storm that went through Sydney, bucketing down on the Hume all the way home.
Jeep ran very well, didn't miss a beat the whole trip. Only issue was with tyres, last minute I swapped on what I thought was a reliable set of 29's made in Korea Nexen's which Ive had in storage, they had a lot of tread left and had no cracks but during the trip and mainly im guessing the rocky 4wd fire trail getting to a Ingar campsite in the Blue Mountains caused the tyres crack up, had to use a spare for the trip back. I think tyre shine maybe prevented some of the cracking as a lot of the crazing is on the inside of the tyres. Not sure if lowering the pressure would've saved them, I just ran max allowable pressure 35psi.
Tyres certainly looked promising before I left but I guess its just old age, they're dated 4207 so 42nd week of 2007.
spare makes it look more mad max with the old ford steel rim and offroad Goodyear
while under the jeep my bump stops grabbed my attention, stock suspension bottomed out a lot on the fire trail getting to camp.
