In January I took off for a 1000 mile solo road trip from DC to Port Canaveral, FL to get on what had to be one of the last cruises that sailed before the Corona Virus pandemic. My son loved his disney cruise and unfortunately I was breaking up with his mom at the time which led to the solo road trip and a fairly intense Disney vacation and cruise…
One of the things that hit me is that you need to check the oil level before you go, and midway. My car at somepoint, seemed like it was low on oil and I filled up on the way. This was the first big road trip in my CLS 550 which just had a few thousand miles.
To be honest it wasn’t the easiest trip on her, between burning some oil, and later my wheels felt out of balance which apparently they were out of round which is even worse. I think some of the engine mount or tranny mounts took some wear and to be honest she felt like a brand new car before this trip, after this trip she felt like she had 10,000 miles on her. Still nice, never pushed too hard, never gave me a hard time. Fired up every time, proceeded well. But in the future for a trip like this I will get an oil change and TLC before and after.
In fact I stopped at MB Orlando (north one), to get an oil change. While it took forever, and they forgot to reset the counter the service advisor was really good. I ended up taking a few pictures with some of their newer cars and met a nice woman Beth there. Some we still talk.
The return trip went well too. I did get very tired. I actually slept in the car a bit as I realized my Mercedes is nicer than many hotel rooms and I feel comfortable in it. Took a couple hour nap at a chic-fil-a parking lot and felt really refreshed and could keep on going.
If you have a hand held tuner I would likely advise to go to stock for these long trips to prevent excess wear judging from how this trip went.
Overall I really enjoyed it, and the sleep monitor was very helpful, reminding me to take a nap.
