After owning my AV for all of one week, I set out this past Friday to visit my alma mater, Clarkson Univ, in Potsdam NY for a meeting and to watch some college hockey 
Potsdam is about 30 miles from the Canadian border, so the trip involves going through NH into VT, then over the top of Lake Champlain into NY (turn left into NY, right into Quebec ), then along secondary roads across the top of NY state.
The trip up was not too bad, clear for half the trip, then rain/sleet for the rest of the trip. The AV performed great - plenty of power in the mountains (it -is- new so I was not setting any land speed records!) and nice and comfortable. I made the 300 and somewhat mile trip using only 2/3 of a tank (about 16mpg!) I was really impressed with the mileage - for a new engine, it was 2 mpg better than the best mileage I could get in the Tundra (my previous truck).
The weather going home Sunday was crummy - 3 inches of snow overnight, sleet and freezing rain coming down. Up in that part of the world though, the plowing crews are pretty good so the roads were OK. I left the AV in auto 4wd and chugged up the snow-covered college hill roads with no problem (some poor student following me in his car was not so lucky - he couldn't make the hill and turned around!) I took a slightly different way back because some of the secondary roads were pretty icy... I took the Lake Champlain ferry across instead - being near the lake was warmer and it was just rain there. The rest of the trip home was pretty much just rain, so I went back to regular 2wd and "normal" speeds. The amazing thing to me is I got the same 16mpg on the trip home, even with auto 4 engaged for at least 1/3 of the trip.
All in all about 700 miles on the AV this weekend and a good, safe trip. I love this truck!
Potsdam is about 30 miles from the Canadian border, so the trip involves going through NH into VT, then over the top of Lake Champlain into NY (turn left into NY, right into Quebec ), then along secondary roads across the top of NY state.The trip up was not too bad, clear for half the trip, then rain/sleet for the rest of the trip. The AV performed great - plenty of power in the mountains (it -is- new so I was not setting any land speed records!) and nice and comfortable. I made the 300 and somewhat mile trip using only 2/3 of a tank (about 16mpg!) I was really impressed with the mileage - for a new engine, it was 2 mpg better than the best mileage I could get in the Tundra (my previous truck).
The weather going home Sunday was crummy - 3 inches of snow overnight, sleet and freezing rain coming down. Up in that part of the world though, the plowing crews are pretty good so the roads were OK. I left the AV in auto 4wd and chugged up the snow-covered college hill roads with no problem (some poor student following me in his car was not so lucky - he couldn't make the hill and turned around!) I took a slightly different way back because some of the secondary roads were pretty icy... I took the Lake Champlain ferry across instead - being near the lake was warmer and it was just rain there. The rest of the trip home was pretty much just rain, so I went back to regular 2wd and "normal" speeds. The amazing thing to me is I got the same 16mpg on the trip home, even with auto 4 engaged for at least 1/3 of the trip.
All in all about 700 miles on the AV this weekend and a good, safe trip. I love this truck!
