Most continuous times you've driven your van

im doing a cross country trip soon and i plan on doing long stretches of driving and it got me to thinking

A) is there anything extra to be concerned with driving the van for 16 hours straight for a couple days in a row? There will be short stops for fuel and bathroom breaks of course

B) i feel like its probably not an issue since there are people who can put 60-100k miles onto a sprinter per year and they surely are covering several hundred miles a day

C) i probably have less endurance to drive for 16hours than my van does, although i will have my friend do a bit of the driving

D) whats the most hours/miles youve done at a time, and for how long?

Id space my driving out more but we have limited time to get my friend back to portland

As far as the van is concerned, an hour is not much different than 10. The fluid temps will stabilize at their regulated temps after less than an hour of driving normally.

There is no additional wear or reliability factors that come into play after XX hours of driving.

It's good to drive 24/7. It will let you know if anything goes wrong...of course you have checked all the fluids and tires, that's an everyday thing, right? I can't post how long I've driven on a straight trip, something about laws...

As Midwestdrifter noted there is no difference to the van whether it's driven 1 hour or 100 hours or 1,000 hours at a stretch, as long as fluid levels are maintained. In fact in terms of engine life the longer the average period of operation the better.

Humans however are another story.

.

The only biggie is how long can you stay awake, and what amount of coffee and/or kind of chemicals you are willing to put in your body to remain so.

I don't want to be the guy coming at you when you forget to turn the wheel coming down the hill around that bend.

Frequent driver changes can work, but when 2:00 am rolls around lots of peoples brains go into shut-down.

We have driven our 2008 sprinter RV for hours on end, and the seats, in spite of their rather industrial appearance are very comfortable for long trips, as is the ride.

Fuel stops are only required every 6-8 hours, so if you want to max that out, you might need on-board facilities...

In any case, good luck with that!!

I haven't had any problems on all day drives. I think as long as you're not pushing the engine too much you're fine. If you have a scangauge or Torque phone app and BT transmitter to connect phone to OBD, you can watch your LOAD percentage and keep it low.

terra_firma said:

Id space my driving out more but we have limited time to get my friend back to portland

Click to expand...

Pick a spot to put him on an airplane, and then continue at a leisurely fashion.

Mr Murphy loves people with deadlines....

--dick

autostaretx said:

Check the weather for massive storms.


Then

Pick a spot to put him on an airplane, and then continue at a leisurely fashion.

Mr Murphy loves people with deadlines....

--dick

Click to expand...

Fixed it for you. Murphy loves deadlines with Airlines too.

Good responses!

It's not so much a deadline as it just a goal for my friend, so i think i'm OK there.


Stupidly i wrote "TIMES" instead of "TIME" in the topic name. I can't edit that can i?

Haven't gone over 26 hours straight with two drivers and that was only 1100 miles.

I agree that the engine doesn't care how long it runs continuously.

When towing with co-drivers we've done 27+ hours. The old method with V8 vans was each driver would run a tank. (The faster you drove, the worse the mpg, the shorter your shift.)

With the Sprinter extended range we choose a rest stop every three hours or so to stretch and change drivers when needed. Just getting out and moving around helps to keep you alert.

My family rule when traveling. Never pass up an opportunity to pee. I've never complained about needing to stop for the kids or other passengers, except when it is 20 minutes after having just stopped. The rule pretty much eliminated that problem. (pun intended)

vic

I've done transcontinental lots of times, solo. A great experience.

Your biggest fatigue producer is noise. No matter how quiet you think it is, it isn't. At the very least, wear ear plugs. At the very best, active noise cancelling headphones. Pure magic.

Take your time on the way back.

I've done several 1000 mile days in mine. Just add fuel.

Im going to see how long we can go without stopping since im terrible at wasting time at rest stops. I always manage to turn a bathroom brake into 30 mins of browsing, buying food etc because i dont wanna get back behind the wheel!

I need larry david's "pee flap" from that hbo movie clear history

Something I recently discovered but others already know; audiobooks are great time fillers and actually make you NOT want to stop (because you're wrapped up in the story). Podcasts of radio shows are good, too, and are usually available for free download. Old Howard Stern, pretty much anything on NPR (science Friday, Radio Lab, this American Life, etc). Old Art Bell, or the new Coast To Coast that took it's place. Audiobook MP3's can be downloaded, or if you are of the shadowy-internet type, found as torrents for free.

surlyoldbill said:

Something I recently discovered but others already know; audiobooks are great time fillers and actually make you NOT want to stop (because you're wrapped up in the story). Podcasts of radio shows are good, too, and are usually available for free download. Old Howard Stern, pretty much anything on NPR (science Friday, Radio Lab, this American Life, etc). Old Art Bell, or the new Coast To Coast that took it's place. Audiobook MP3's can be downloaded, or if you are of the shadowy-internet type, found as torrents for free.

Click to expand...

Dude i hear you on that x10!

I listen to audiobooks in the car, while im doing yardwork, while im working on my house doing hours of endless spackling, and definitely 8hrs a day when my friend pays me to grind metal for him! Anything to drown out my thoughts when im bored!

I have a lot of the game of thrones books left too so i should be good!

Just to tack a little more onto thos thread i was looking up apps and other travel planning websites that could help me with this trip. So far i think im definitely going to get the ALLSTAYS app. Theres also this website FURKOT but it seems to be a bit buggy. And theres rvtripwizard.com, but i dunno if i wanna dish out the $$$ for it. Theres also gasbuddy.com for figuring out where to fill up along the way. I need to spend some more time messing around with these

Colorado Springs to Portland Oregon (1350 miles) in 22 1/2 hours (and 2 days later, back again).
I have flash drive with lots of music and a bunch of BBC documentaries of interest to listen to. The documentaries are better than music when you start getting tired (they make you think).

We stopped a lot (we had a dog along that knew what his task was when ever we stopped) just to get out of the Sprinter for a short while.

in the 90's I used to drive from Central Oregon to Fairplay (near Breckenridge) Colorado and back about every 3 months or so. 18 hrs of behind the wheel time. I did it nonstop a few times, but developed pattern of 12 and 6 so the second day was kind of leisurely.

This thread is interesting to me right now, because I'm in negotiations to buy a van in St Louis. I'll fly out and drive it back to California, making it a vacation drive on the way. The most dreaded part is crossing the Great Void between St Louis and Denver, a 12 hr stint with the exact same scenery. The van I'm getting has base radio (GOOD, because I'll replace it with double DIN Android touchscreen radio!), but has an 1/8" audio input jack. I'll load up my tablet with a few audiobooks and a few dozen albums and plug it in. The van also doesn't have cruise control, but I'll suffer through the indignity until I get home and install it ($275 aftermarket).

Just get a brick, no more cruise control worries

Thats one thing im hoping i can get installed when in in colorado! Looking forward to punching myself in the butt trying to wake it up every 3 hours. Im really skinny so i have none of my own cushioning. Sometimes ill throw an inflatible seat or camping pad or whatever on the seat and it at least creates something different to grow uncomfortable with