UK to Italy in the IS250 (2009 RWD).

[BigMac_3]

Hey yall!

Hope you are having an amazing day 🙂

In about 3 weeks time I will be embarking on a journey from Wales to Rome with my beloved IS250. I have taken this bad boy (?girl) to Belgium, Netherlands, France, Luxembourg and Germany last summer, absolutely terrorising everyone in tunnels from the car's sound (custom back box plus resonators and secondary cats delete). 

Hopefully I will be posting the 22 hour journey on here using pictures and videos.

If anyone has any tips for long distance journeys in the 2nd gen ISs or would just like to share their own experience with driving in the EU please share!

 

[H3XME]

Grab a spare wheel & some tools.

[Mr Vlad]

Eh up Mahmood I wish you well in your looooooong trip. I hope you post some noisy tunnel excursions lol.

I miss my is250 so you be careful in places where d**heads litter the roads with their abominable 'driving'.

[Linas.P]

Not much to say - it is dependable car which can go far as you want. 

It is kind of obvious, but I would get best tyres I could, as it would be quite inconvenient to have blow out when doing 220km/h somewhere in Germany. Don't believe you need to cross any countries that require winter tyres on your way to Italy, but perhaps dropping in snow socks would not hurt if you planning to taka any mountain roads. Further, many countries will expect triangle and high wiz (France for sure). Also - I tend to do fluids before long trips, had few where I was traveling 4000-5000 miles in two weeks, going out with the oil which is already due for replacement would not be ideal for wear. 

[technolyte]

I'm about to embark on a similar trip in Feb but to Barcelona instead.

I've done this exact trip you're doing a few times in around 20 hours with a short stop in an MR2 roadster - you'll definitely want to be using the toll roads in Italy, anything else for longer distance is pretty much unbearable in terms of road surface quality and I am on pretty thick sidewalls.

Do keep in mind that you might approach one of the paid tunnels in the Alps with everything being all green and lush upon entering and then end up on the other side having a thick layer of snow.

You won't be able to prepare for how the other drivers act on the road either, Italians are pretty insufferable in that regard with no lane discipline and speeding/tailgating even on busy roads in the middle of day. If you have to drive into Rome, make sure it's way past rush hour in the dark hours. During daytime you're better off with the public transport or even better, walk if you can.

You might get stopped and asked about winter tyres, the only way to get out of a fine then is to show the police a pair of snow chains.