Part one completed, just had our first night away from the Costa. Yesterday we drove from Colmenar in the south where we were up to Aranda De Duero. Nice smooth drive, no tolls up to here. However just north of us is Burgos and from there, more or less the whole way to Le Havre is toll motorway. Sections can be avoided, but in Spain that means using single carriageway roads. In France there are alternatives with a lot lower speed limits that go through towns and villages.

Just South of Madrid is the R4 toll motorway, but this can be avoided by staying on the A4 and crossing the Centre of Madrid on the M30 Motorway. Basically keep going in a straight line and it turns in to the A1 which takes you north to Burgos. Just have your wits about you as you cross Madrid, lots of exits and cars cut across from all sides to take them.

I use the toll network to save time, I'd much rather be driving legally at 120kmh in Spain and 130kmh in France, rather than risk speeding on the smaller roads with 100kmh limits or less in places. (france and spain). Over the course of the day the extra speed can remove an hour or more from your drive.

Part two of the return now complete. Sitting at the hotel in Saintes, France. Nice pleasant drive again as it's a Sunday. Made good time, and got here at just after 4.30pm local time. Tomorrow its run up from here to Le Havre to get the ferry to Portsmouth, then from Portsmouth to my home in Dorset.

What a difference to the old N10 the new pay motorway through the pine forest makes. Apart from a couple of short sections its 130kmh the whole way instead of the 90kmh of the old road.

Reattached the two grills I have back onto the car this morning, and checked the oil level and its looking good.

Filled up with Petrol just before crossing into France as here its 20 cents a litre more than Spain. I'll need one more tank tomorrow, but that should be it for sometime because it will get me home and beyond.

This is a bit late, but we got back to the UK late yesterday, 11pm to be precise. The car passed 188,000 miles on the M27 as we passed Southampton.

I'll add some more pictures when I have transferred them,

BUT, there is a big but.

My A8 is not well anymore, basically somewhere between Le-Mans and Rouen it has all gone pear shaped. The issue was spotted after leaving the autoroute and driving at town speed. The car has developed a droning sound which varies according to road speed, coming from the back (we think) of the car. She still drives fine, does not pull left or right, tyres at the back look fine. Driving for 10 hours at 130kmh has obviously broken something, but not sure what.

transmission ?

Well the noise is road speed related and particularly noticeable above 30mph on a good road surface.

I did try shifting to N whilst in motion, but the noise remained constant despite engine revs dropping to idle.

I have also felt the wheels after stopping from a prolonged drive at speed and they are all a uniform temperature

I have not really had a chance to localise the sound to a specific wheel or area. I only hope its not something like the rear diff. There is no sign of oil or other fluids after being parked overnight.

The car did take a quiet a lot of battering on the underside whilst in Spain which is why I am concerned.

Might just be debris caught underneath and rubbing on a shaft.

I had a really odd speed-related droning noise on my Focus; turned out to be debris caught on the shield around one of the rear discs.

Or a wheel bearing.. does it get worse or better when you corner?

The sound remains constant regardless of corners or straight road, if I maintain the same speed then the sound remains the same even when cornering.

Had the car looked at this afternoon, all is well on the underside.

After standing next to the car suspended with the wheels in the air whilst doing 50mph, the garage have identified what the noise is......

Drivers side rear wheel bearing, there is no play in it at all but it whines like a trooper once you get to around 40mph upwards. All the other three corners are silent in comparison.

I had noisy bearing at the rear on A6 and no play so I could not tell if it is right or left. Did not want to change both so I just kept driving until play appeared. I did more than 6 months like that and 10k miles