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Your single and MOST important recovery tool that can help you get unstuck 75% of the time is the good full-size shovel. Not the foldable one, not the small spoon size for decoration, but the one laborer uses with a metal scoop and wooden or metal handle for proper displacement of sand. If you are lone surfer then I will highly recommend carrying two shovels, one with normal length and another one with longer length in case you need to reach deeper under the vehicle. Trust me in my 12 years of off-roading experience, I have seen people carrying the world in their car but except a proper shovel that alone can save the day so many times. See the last year desert training video in the gallery where we taught people getting unstuck from a crest with the help of shovel only. Second most important addon for self-recovery is the winch, that can pull you out from any sticky spot, provided you are ready to bury your spare wheel and hook the winch. Maxtrax recovery sand mats or a similar one you will only use when stuck in the super soft sand and if you are an experienced off-roader and know how to crawl out with engine LO power and constantly turning steering with the quick interval of accelerations up to 2k RPM, you will never need those tracks. I bought them too and hardly used once or twice out of fun and it's still eating dust. Last but not least advise for a lone surfer is to drive wisely and not be too adventurous, as mother nature always strike when you are least prepared.

What I have taken from this is that local dealers refuse to fix cars specced from other countries. I would say that this is because they feel bad that they didn’t get the initial sale and are saying a big FU to the customer. Service information is readily accessible by emailing the manufacturer, even google, most service and parts manuals are available online. My country imports a lot of JDM cars. The dealers refuse to touch it out of pure bitchiness but the parts and information are available and people do fix cars with no apparent parts or service information. A good mechanic doesn’t care which country a car came from. He will understand how the systems work, find the diagrams and get the parts as necessary. As I can attest to. I had a rhd Japanese Mercedes in once. Gargash said I don’t know. I google the part numbers and called them, yes sir we have it in stock. @desertdude is right. There are some bargains to be had with careful research. Not everyone is obsessed with selling a car after they have used it. Some people like to buy cheap, sell cheap. Take this for example. Buy a GCC mustang for 50k, sell it a year later for 40k. On the other hand, buy a US mustang for 30k, sell it a year later for 20k. You aren’t losing any more but your initial outlay is less so more free cash for beer!

Barry when you buy one and drive for a year or two and sell it successfully then you will go through the real learning process. I can go on with this topic until my fingers bleed, but I'll keep it short: Weather specs are only one worry and yes it does require alteration and modification and after that, you can safely enjoy non-gcc specs car in UAE. This process if you are not highly educated and mechanically well off then workshop here will rip you off and you will finish all saving you made by buying the non-gcc specs in one go. Secondly, as desertdude mentioned, all imports are either flood damage or accident written off, again you should have a real keen eye to identify a clean car among the bunch of lemons. And trust me used car dealer here are so smart in covering things up that even the seasoned eyes can get fooled. I got saved twice purely by good luck, when all my experience and knowledge said its cleaned and even the testing guys generated a clean title report. Lucky while getting the insurance come to know that it has been written off by Al Tayer and that's why no guarantee on 4 years model who supposed to have 5 years guarantee. Workmanship here to hide things can get to real hideous level sometimes in the automotive industry. So take no chance in such pass the bug game, or else you might get stuck with that bug for LONG LONG time. I know more than 10 friends who are still driving import purely because they can't sell it. Last but not least is the terrible resale value, as they depreciate faster than GCC cars and after getting it cheap, you will really regret selling at even cheaper resale value, as the market is always flooded with these imports and people are always desperate to knock them off and used car dealers are very competitively priced to drive these car prices lower every month due to endless supply from abroad. Long story short, I highly advise everyone that pay 10-15% extra and buy GCC cars, so you will enjoy the ownership and you will be able to sell it off at a fair price after you are done.