DISASTER!, Almost OVER before it even Began! | EXTREME Winter Vanlife
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- Опубликовано: 21 фев 2022
- Well, its the start of another travel self built campervan European adventure and this one is going to be a pretty  Arctic extreme winter trip to the Nordic countries. However, a small  disaster of mechanical breakdown before it even starts getting Into Norway, Sweden and Finland for thousands of crazy miles of snow and ice 
However mechanical issues with my Ford Transit in Germany could’ve spelt the end of the trip.
Just after the Channel Tunnel crossing and getting into France and back in europe travelling a loud grounding noise started from one of the rear wheels. Eventually I found my RAC European cover and a trip to a garage discovered the issue. Whilst needing a new wheel bearing somehow Ford dealership in the UK when they replaced all of my discs and brake pads the week before bent the caliper carrier.
After three lost days and a hotel room we were finally back on the road and time to get into the real snow and cold of Sweden. Getting ready for my Arctic adventure.
The BFGoodrich KO2 tyres on the snow and ice roads have been phenomenal, not yet needed studded tires. Aux beam light bar has also come in helpful.
For this trip I have even brought the drone along to get some cinematic shots.
Check out my cold weather & winter van life upgrade videos to see what changes I made to the van for this trip.
#breakdown #wintervanlife #Mispronouncedadventures
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When I first saw the opening fly over I was thinking I clicked on a "Lost in Europe" video instead of "Mispronounced Adventures". Good to see you visiting the farm!
I’m glad you got it! I didn’t mention particularly in this video who it was as I wanted to see who might guess correctly
They had one room left….and it was the suite!! Brilliant.
Yeah it was all that was left on Booking . Com though they did seem to be some sort of conference going on so that explained why
Cracking bit of music for the first bit thought David attenbrough was going to pop up and say.. Up here in the frozen North... And undiscovered.. Beast roams... The Ford transit.. On migration from more tepid climbs of its normal home.. Or to the effect of..
Haha yeah. I’ve enjoyed getting my drone out for this trip
Excellent video Alex! Thanks for sharing the info about the brakes, it may not be the adventure you planned but will probably help many others along the way. Looking forward to the next chapter…
it’s not the planned part of the adventure, part of the adventure nonetheless. Definitely a part of this style of overland travel
Great vlog John 👍
Be safe
John!? Alex! 😁
Just stumbled across your channel and I'm binge watching. I love it here🥰
Enjoy the series!
love the no plan and see where I end up . your now my fave van channel to watch . plus you do make us insanely jellious as well but we don't mind cos its you , stay safe buddy speak to ya soon
Thank you, there’s a lot more fluidity when you don’t have a fixed plan in mind.
Ohh yeah before I forget been living your videoes, especially the one using the heater to heat water using them small radiators . Funny thing I had a thought aboat wondering if dirt bike radiators would have worked. Know I know but I would have had so much more to figure it all out to actually getting it goin. No 3d printer to make things woulda been pretty crude looking an noisy bending tin an such. I was on the right track . been tryin to figure it for a small camp /home heating water . I mentioned possibly using a heater for heating coolent . Coolent heater for the motor you now have. Glad you found a couple of those seen that video. I'm guessing hot on demand for the money might be easier for my needs.
Unbelievable, finding and keeping a good garage is so difficult. We keep a hub nut tool onboard now, along with seals etc after the abs ring went and the garage struggled without the tool. Amazing how you get around. 👍👍
Yeah you couldn’t make it up! Thought I would treat the van to new brakes and discs all round to make my life easier & problem free away for the trip….
Gutted about the 1st leg, hope the 2nd brings better luck, Great to see Ash and Marrie's land from a different perspective, hope its a epic adventure Alex, best wishes mate.
All part of the adventure! It was lovely to meet them and see their land
Hello from Australia ❤🚐😊🙏just subscribed and supporting you with our channel ❤
Thank you for subscribing 😊
Welcome to Sweden! Have a great time in the snow!
I’m loving it!
Thanks for the video. I will continue to watch and learn for our own big tour to Turkey. It goes from Germany via Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Iran to Turkey to our HOME.
That sounds like a truly amazing trip you have planned!
Fabulous scenery!
It only gets better
So frustrating that they wrecked your van and then wouldn’t take responsibility for it. Anyways, I’ve been loving your winter videos. Such an epic trip mate!
Indeed very annoying indeed! Classic main dealer. Rest of the trip was great
Been really enjoying your videos. Only a recent subscriber, enjoyed the convoy videos with J&M and with Archie & Me.
I let the cold adventures build up a little (I like to binge watch!) - good to see (although that's probably next video) you visiting Ash & Marie, been following them for a few years now!
Looking forward to your adventures.
Thank you very much for joining! Very much enjoy my travels with Rob and J&M. Looking forward to seeing them soon in the UK.
Yeah visited Ash and Marie twice so far absolutely brilliant people and amazing life they built for themselves!
I can recommend heading up to Norways North Cape.I went in December it is fabulous.I can recommend Martha's Bistro at Lakselv for breakfast .Lets face it everywhere up there is amazing at this time of year have fun.Please do some of your amazing photography.
Definitely planning on heading way north! Thanks for the advice I’ll check out those places
Keep up the good work Alex love your videos exploring in cold weather is a good challenge hope everything goes well take care mate
Thank you very much and I hope you enjoy the series, I hope everything goes well but I’ll be showing the things which don’t as well!
I enjoyed this set up, but I really felt bad with all the troubles you were experiencing. I hope the rest of the trip will go well. Moving on to the next one!
Thank you! Yes it was a bit of a pain about all the issues to just get out there!
Great video. Sorry to see you having van problems. Hopefully that’s the last of it. I shall be following in your foot steps in about 5 weeks time!
All part of the adventure and enjoy your adventure in the coming weeks!
Great vlog Alex... I'd definitely have words with Ford UK on your return..they've definitely done damage. Enjoy yourself in the cold
Planning to and I’m enjoying the cold
Good old ford service, use them for my ranger wildtrak, they keep trying to charge me for new wheel nuts every service
That’s actually something I forgot to mention when they did the discs and pads they also somehow broke three locking nuts and charged me for four new wheel nuts
Glad u got there safely. I would be very annoyed if Ford had mucked up my van! Think u kept your cool well! Loving the snow and cold series 😁
Me too! No reason to get angry at The garage dealing with it or in general it doesn’t help the solution
Nice video and lovly to see you come back to Sweden again. When you passed Gävle (180km north of Stockholm) you where only 3km from me where I live. Have a nice trip!!❤
I did say I would be back to Sweden!
My front wheel broke in Utsjoki and it was the weekend so all garages were closed. Luckily friends friend is a car mechanic and he promised to fix that. The only problem was that he was living in Tornio. I was able to drive only 60 km/h and it was the longest 590 km ever.
That’s definitely not what you want to happen! Glad you fixed!
The drone footage is awesome
Thank you very much
Those disc and brake caliper allignment issues remind me of trying to stop brake rub on my mountain bikes Lol
Thats some nice snowy views on the road and squeaky snow!
When I was researching the issue Mountain bike related articles was the majority of what I found
So called professionals🙄 that's the trouble it's hard to sue them and they know it🤨
Good luck with the trip North, not Sure if King Oscars Chapel, Norway is pushing it too far? May need studs and a plough?🤣
Yeah I got on great however with the mechanics at the German truck garage. Always looking into different plans for where I can drive to on this trip
Damn I believe we have the same issue regarding the noise when cornering. For me it appeared first after I had one of my wheel bearings replaced. So far I haven't bothered looking into it...
Yeah as far as I can tell whilst the noise does sound horrific it is just those two bits of metal rubbing together occasionally under load and presumably once the brake discs become thinner from west it will no longer happen
Just seen this one changing the caliper slid pins stuck big hammer ⚒️ to take sliders out with heat !!!! This is a common problem on all slide pins front rear run out on discs 10 thou or less , the bolts that hold the disc on rust up and snaps plus the hub seal and bolts can be a problem .
I think in this case, the slide pins will have been completely free and not stuck ( my old van. I did have issues with the pins sticking
) . The vehicle was pretty new and I had done them before myself. Just the fact that Ford tried to get away with saying they didn’t remove or touch them is pretty impossible considering you need to remove them when you’re doing the discs and pads to get the caliper off and on top of that they re-grease them with the wrong grease and put new bolts so ford saying they didn’t touch them or anything to do with them is ridiculous.
Ah man, I really wanted to see the new aux heater in action in the first -20 weather!
The pre-heater has been working great. The engine coolant not so much. Probably going to drain it and replace it with more concentrated stuff to prevent it from getting slushy
I really don't like mysterious technical problems.
At least there were no border officers interested in a van tour.
Don't forget to mention the temperatures you're encountering and if your technical systems handle that well.
No problem at all in the coming videos I plan to make sure I show what it’s like being in cold temperatures like this and how different things work
Main dealers are awful, charge a fortune for shoddy work.
Great to see you back on the road 😎
Quite the learning process for me!
It’s so annoying when people damage your vehicle, I try to do as much work as I can myself that way I can fix it on the road
Definitely is! my old van I used to do pretty much everything, replaced the alternator twice, power steering pump, wheel bearings, disk and pads. But I was sort of time so I thought do you know what I’ll spend the cash and have someone do it for me. obviously a regrettable decision!!
@@MispronouncedAdventures yeah I know what you mean, I think sometimes it’s much quicker to get someone else to do it
Main dealer maintenance departments are known as “stealerships” for a reason. With any new vehicle you are bound to them (or you invalidate your warranty) but as soon as any vehicle is out of warranty avoid them at all costs... IMO anyway.
Yeah I’ve definitely learnt that now! The van is now out of warranty as well so I will be getting work done elsewhere
Here in Germany you can go to any garage you like as long as it´s licensed as a car repair shop and keep your warranty. When you buy an extended warranty it´s often a different story. That´s a product you buy and you´ll have to play by their rules.
That's a pain. They probably beat the snot out of it with a mini sledge then refused to take responsibility for it. Germans always sound like they're arguing, but they're good at auto mechanics.
Yeah the German mechanics, whilst I could not understand pretty much any of what they said to each other were really helpful.
Ford service are so crap, would not trust them with anything. Mind you a lot of the main dealers are the same. No customer care. Looked scary going into that first garage, how close to the roof 😳 Lovely to back up in the wilderness at Ash's place, so wonderful there. Safe travels Alex 👍
Yeah I agree, lesson learned. Also it was very close on the first garage!
Great vids, just a thought any chance the offset was always wrong but new disc and pads made it obvious?
Could of been. But the knackered bear, greasing with the wrong type of the slide pins and but putting the slide pin boots back on right definitely was ford
@@MispronouncedAdventures for sure dealer def did a shocking job. So hard to find a good mechanic you can trust, specially when they won’t admit what you know they did.
Cracking episode! I think this is gonna be a really good series 🥳What audio books are you listening to?
Thank you very much. Audiobook wise currently working on some of the Clive Cussler books.
@@MispronouncedAdventures Not heard of him, I’ll download some samples! I’m currently making my way through the pillars of the earth series (Ken follett). Also, I think palin’s around the world in 80 days is still available on audible plus, which I enjoyed immensely
Could it be the case that the old disk worn off so much that there was no issue because it was as thin as it was?
That is one of the things I am thinking why in the long term it’s going to go away as the old discs were worn. But when we did compare the left and right rear wheels the rear left was definitely way out of alignment compared to the rear right
I have an impression that you really like to be in Nordic Artic Circle area and challenge yourself and your car?
I prefer extremes environments yes. I have spent much of my adult working life in the winter mountains, jungles, deserts and so on.
Love the footage, looks brilliant up there! Out of interest what size are your BFF KO2’s and do they rub at all?
Thank you I use the KO2 in size 225/75R16 115
Popular size to choose to them being pretty similar to a lot of van standard normal tyres sizes and a higher weight rating my friends with relays, boxers also run the same size
Fantastic, thank you for the reply. I’m looking to order some this week for our converted h3l3 transit. Hopefully will head to Norway next year. Your channel has been a big inspiration to us. Safe travels
I’m glad you found the channel helpful. They look great on a transit!
Sorry (but not surprised at all) to see your woes with the brake caliper clearance. After 56 years on this planet, I have learnt to barely trust anyone in this world, especially anyone in the auto industry. Half the people working on your cars/vans are 18 year old kids, on minimum wage, who dont care, who have a hangaover, have no sense of responiblity etc etc. I do most of my own mechanics myself for this reason, and cringe when I have to hand my vehicle over to a garage. I once only had an MOT done on my car and then handed it back to me with a broken key fob, quite incredible. IMO you should name and shame the garage that caused the problem. Then send them a link to it, send a CC to their head office and MD. Tell them you're a blogger and x thousand people are watching. Its the only way to make a step change in their quality.
The most annoying part for me is this is a job I could do and have done before, I replaced alternators, power steering pumps, wheel, bearings, discs and pads and more on my old van. But as I was running short of time, I thought I’d pay someone, what a mistake that was!
If you keep watching the series, you’ll find another reason why you shouldn’t trust someone else, particularly the same garage!
Don't be surprised about Ford doing things wrong, i handover my 16 seater for regeneration on the dpf , they manage to broke the rear light and also damage the side panel, they tried to blame me for it. No chance....
Yes I’m not surprised they’re just a bunch of clowns
Great video. Can I assume that your van is 2 wheel drive and that with the K2 tires you mentioned you had no problems on your trip? I have a duel wheel van should I invest in the K2 tires?
Yeah the van is RWD and the KO2 have been great. During the trip. However I’d only drive up there during the middle of winter when the roads are mostly snow. I wouldn’t want to be there during the start or end of winter when the roads are a lot more ice, that’s when studded tyres would be a lot safer
Shades if VW vans, not this issue but a persistent fault that they totally denied - repeatedly.👹
The issue went on for months.
Geeez what a work-up! Haha just what you needed for the start..
Van is looking a treat! Meant to ask before what do you average mpg? Mines roughly 25 ;/
Thank you very much,
Mpg is around 25mpg. On the long motorway stretches on the last trip with premium diesel I got up to 29
@@MispronouncedAdventures wow nice! Good to know thanks!
hi alex can you tell me where you you got your lightbar from & how much ? many thanks neville.
That’s a Auxbeam 5D led bar ( 52inch ) There is a install video on it on my channel with links to the model
@@MispronouncedAdventures thanks for getting back so fast
No problem
Did you ever drive your van on ‘normal’ tyres? I’d like to get BFG KO2’s but I drive a lot of motorway miles in my van and am worried about noise/poor MPG vs something like an all season tyre. If you’ve got any comments, I’d love to hear them. 👍🏻
Yeah drove my van with its normal tyres for about 7 months.
Hard to say the effect on MPG as I also did a lot of the builds at the same time. So a biggest effect on MPG was weight.
However no audible change and road noise when driving. i’ve done about 20,000 miles on them now and still 8mm tread left on them
@@MispronouncedAdventures brilliant. Thanks for replying. Love the vids. 👍🏻
Yeah sounds like you was 1 talking to a new guy who knows nothing. How you take a break caliper off, without removing the slide pins . I'm scratching my head. hahaha. Un less the pulled the brak calliper bracket off buy pulling the two caliper bracket bolts. I'd say the bracket might be off a bit. an burned that barring buy being miss aligned From a good beating an heat. Putting pressure on the new barring. in witch chewed the bearing real quik. Best of luck you may need a new bearing. a new caliper bracket. due to heat maybe a rotor. and make Shure those two slide pins are free. also just in case they are sticking not letting the caliper release kinda like riding the brake .but to me. I would think. The rotor would heat an show singnes of heat but wouldn't hurt to check it back home. If it hasn't taken out anouther bearing. I kinda did half ass work due to being able two get one slide caliper bolt out, the other stuck and having to resort to unduin caliper bracket to get the caliper up away from the rotor to stuff pads in it but now I'm still scratching thinkin it was a bent caliper bracket that may have taken some heat at one point I hope you got it figured out damn caliper slide bolts can really slow a simple pad replacement down. Hope all is good now.
I think I mainly just got a service rep on the phone who denies everything to then offers compensation for what they clearly did, but didn’t do. The fact that they re-greased ( with the wrong type of Grease ) but without removing both slide pins. Those brake discs / rotors. At that point were less than four days old! However, a year later, all is well by the end of the trip, the noise no longer occurred
Are you rated above 3.5 tonnes? The van (L4H3 Boxer Ambulance) I'm converting has been uprated to 4.2 tonnes. So it's classed as a PHGV (Private Heavy Goods Vehicle) Which is good because I can carry more weight and the road tax is less (£165 a year) but I wonder how the van will be classed on toll roads and will it restrict access to certain town/villages/city centers? Not sure if getting it registered as a camper/motorhome with the DVLA will help or hinder my travels around Europe later this year?
I’m still registered as the van standard 3500kg
I’ve been contemplating about getting my C1 license and updating the van to a 3850kg maybe
@@MispronouncedAdventures I'm OLD so I have my C1 with my original license. The bonus is the cheap road tax on the PHVG £165 on a 3 Litre 2012 van.
So you didn't need a wheel bearing.
The wheel bearing wasn’t the cause of the noise, ( there was some wobble on it compare to that other rear wheel ) but it was clearly on the way out with the seals fail and full of rust. Only a matter of time. I’ve had a wheel bearing fail on my last van, not fun