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After a brief break, lets plan a desert drive starting from Al Shuwaib which is at the intersection of Dubai - Sharjah - Abu Dhabi. Its been almost a year since we last ventured into this area and would provide some new interesting challenges. This place has some big bowls and pockets. Plan is to start from this area and end the drive at Iftar bowl by sunset where we can set up a nice spot for an evening snack. When: 21 Sept 2018 Meeting time: 2:45 PM Starting time: 3:00 PM (SHARP) Where: ADNOC fuel station just before Madam roundabout. GPS Coordinate: https://goo.gl/maps/W4Kc5BFfQG92 Level of drive: Fewbies - Intermediate Type of drive: Adrenaline kicking fun drive with few breaks and food time on top of some awesome dunes Plan: Drive through some huge bowls towards Area 53 What to bring along: Food, water, liquids, smiles, stories, enthusiasm and willingness to learn

Be careful firing the parts cannon, it can get expensive quick and the faulty part is usually found shooting your last bullet. Better to get a proper diagnosis. Faulty radiator cap, you can turn the engine off when it’s hot and put your ear to it. You will hear hissing or maybe see staining around the outlet. When the engine is cold look inside the radiator. It’s easy to see if it’s blocked up. Faulty thermostat can be found by putting your hand on the radiator. From cold start, if the radiator warms evenly, the thermostat is stuck open. When the engine reaches temperature and the bottom of the radiator is hot but the top is cold, the thermostat is stuck shut. Water pump is a bit more tricky to diagnose but sometimes they leak. Look for coolant staining around the bottom of the timing cover. A bad water pump can make the engine overheat at idle but when you rev the engine, it circulates the coolant and the temperature drops. A bad cylinder head gasket can cause coolant and oil to mix. You will have coolant in oil or oil in coolant. Or the coolant can simply leak into the cylinder and go out the exhaust. Don’t worry, I’m sure you don’t have this. Not always true. Some cars have externally mounted water pumps driven from an exterior belt. I learned the hard way. Just after I started driving my alternator belt broke and the warning light came on so I decided to just drive home and put a new belt on in the morning. Little did I know that belt was also driving the water pump. I was lucky and got away with just a cylinder head gasket. God bless the old days of cast iron heads.

Amazing off-road terrain from Shuwaib to Iftar Bowl in Sharjah that offers an amazing mix of medium - tall dunes along with the surprise of small technical dunes and sticky pockets with soft sand. Plenty of opportunities to play and have good dune bashing or dune driving along these set of lovely red sand dunes. Advisable for seasoned lead driver along with intermediate drivers only. This area is not suitable for newbies/fewbies off-roaders. Minimum cars: 3 capable proper 4x4 cars with recovery points. Sharing the track of exact drive and terrain we followed. Starting: Shuwaib Waypoint: 24.823900º N 55.768604º E Finished: Iftar Bowl (Rifadah) Waypoint: 24.916928º N 55.740696º E Complete route track in GPX and KMZ file attached below - Enjoy. Shuwaib Iftar bowl.gpx Shuwaib Iftar bowl.kmz

Always a pleasure to have you on board Emmanuel

I say what I see without fear. I am a white guy married to an Asian girl. I am in no way racist. I have no regrets in what I said. There are mechanics, painters, electricians from certain countries etc out there who do shitty work without recompense. The rest of these people get blamed for incompetent work. Even me. I’m Irish. All Irish people work on cars when drun... oh..... wait......

If you've worked on Nissan's you'll realise most V engines have that sucker buried inside.

That’s down to the dealer and their PDI process. Go out to DIP and see all the new Audi’s waiting to be delivered to the showroom. They’re pretty dusty and scratched up too. It’s all down to the dealer. If you buy a new Audi from Al Nabooda, they will polish it to within an inch of its life before handover, whereas if you go to Al Futtaim and buy an new Toyota, they will drive it out of the car park, wash it and throw you the keys.

Also worth changing the radiator cap first (low-cost fix), as I think treks mentioned before because if the cap is no longer holding certain pressure to open and close then this borderline heating is probable cause. Then go with the thermostat change / checking Then go with radiator check / cleaning / change And last should be water pump change as it's inside the engine and most expensive repair.

sometime soon it will be spellings and words instead of numbers...☺️

or you could remove the cover of the radiator and inspect inside to see if the lines are choked or blocked as it a old radiator...water pump circulation can be observed after the THERMOSTAT has opened and you will see a swirl action at the cap... P.S please don't try this yourself let a professional handle such things as really hot water is involved i really don't want you to burn yourself and end up in a hospital...

Yes, I upgraded to better quality Standox German paint and hard wearing lacquer by paying a couple of hundred extra. So far Im happy after almost 2 years now, but the guy who painted become a non-friendly guy as per Rahim bhai experience last year. So yes, checking the previous work, paint booth setup, and type of paints they use always get you better results. Going to OP, German car uses different ways of painting the new vehicle like dipping the whole car in the paint couple of times than spraying that gives them a solid feel - that's what I heard. More technical savvy guys can add more reasoning to your question.

😉

Don't think any survived LOL

In a crowded and expensive city like Abu Dhabi this was the only way for the authorities to prevent shared accommodation which was widely prevelant. I stayed there from 2007 - 2010, and used to walk to office. You could park the cars on top of the footpath, or on the center of the road and get away with it. But with Mawaqif they ensured that people, because of parking issues, had to move away from the city, which also resulted in more cars on the road. So not sure on how this paid parking improves the system without proper public transportation being put in place. But hey, the authorities know what's best

no worries if next time you want to paint i can show you a shop based here in ajman who does premium work...

Does taking office colleagues in your car defined as car pooling? How do the authorities differentiate ?