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Do you know your roles and responsibilities while off-roading? Offroad driving is one of the most famous adventure activities in the UAE. But due to the nature of this adventurous motorsport sometimes things do get unpleasant and everyone involved needs to know their roles and responsibilities clearly. Desert worthiness vehicle: While off-roading, every vehicle get pushed to its limit and for this reason, every off-roader needs to maintain, check and fix existing vehicle problems before every drive. Follow your owner's manual schedule maintenance for extreme driving (harsh environment) intervals and not standard road driving intervals. Preventive maintenance will save you much hassle and time in the long run. We are not mechanics - As much as Carnity trip lead and support offer the first level of vehicle assistance when things go wrong, but they are not mechanic and no one should rely on that emergency support to avoid any maintenance. We are not an Insurance provider - In case of an accident, please follow the UAE road accidents procedures and check with your car insurance company about off-road coverage and recovery plan (if any). We are not a desert recovery company - If your vehicle breaks down during the drive, Carnity trip lead and support will try as much as they can to help, but their vehicles aren't tow trucks to recover a dead vehicle or partially working vehicle out of the deep desert. There are professional desert recovery companies like AAA to assist you and take full responsibility for not causing any further damage while recovering a non-moving vehicle from the desert. We will never leave you alone - In case you ever need to leave your vehicle inside the desert to arrange insurance or recovery, then Carnity trip lead and support will drive you down to the nearest tarmac exit. Mechanical Damage / Failure: Every offroader is responsible for his/her own car failure/damage. Especially in the offroad use some minor long-pending issues might amplifies due to the off-road stress and it should not be blamed on anyone other than the owner of the car. If you have any remote doubt that something might fail in the upcoming off-road drive, then please get that fixed first and then join for next week's drive, rather than taking chances and/or increasing the existing damage. It's always a good practice to join a newbie drive first after some crucial repairs or maintenance to test your vehicle again and then join the Fewbie drive and then Intermediate (as per your off-road rank eligibility). Breakdown log reporting: Every trip lead is reporting the vehicle breakdown after the drive. Occasional breakdowns or accidents are totally acceptable, but repeat breakdown of the same vehicle will not be appreciated. Please look into repeat vehicle breakdown seriously before it becomes a concern for everyone. Two cars involved in an offroad accident: Please decide on the spot, whose fault it is, and report to the neighboring police station for appropriate green and red paper for repairs. Most insurance companies don't cover offroad damage so please make sure if you drive expensive 4x4 with comprehensive insurance, please check your offroad cover properly. Take a lot of pictures and videos of the accident site as Police always ask for this and also save the coordinates of the location as sometimes police like to revisit that area to verify the accident. Single car damage in offroad: In case your car flips or rollover or have any impact damage, take a lot of pictures and videos of the incident as Police always ask for this and also save the coordinates of the location. Tow point failure damage: Every offroader is responsible for their own car tow point strength, integrity, and load taking capacity. If your car tow point fails during "ANY" sort of recovery and damages the other offroader car, then you will be liable for all the damages including the car, driver, and passenger bodily injuries. To avoid such a situation always recover gently and gradually increase the intensity of the tug. If you still suspect that a lot harder tug is needed use the support strap, dampers, or sandbag to secure both ends of the tow rope. Damage while recovering: As much as every trip lead and support are trained to prevent the damage while recovering any vehicle, but the ultimate responsibility of any damage while recovering lies with the owner of the stuck car. Scenario 1: In some cases when your car nosedive in the sand pocket, the front bumper damage is already done, but it becomes visible when your car gets fully recovered out of the pocket. Scenario 2: While recovering a stuck car by a tug, if the stuck car doesn’t stop early enough after the recovery and hit the recovering car, then the stuck car owner is at fault and liable for all damages involved. Lubes / Spare Sharing: Many offroaders do carry a lot of spare fluids, oil, coolant, and other spare parts for emergency situations. If your car breaks down and someone offers you their spares or lubes, have the courtesy to pay or replace that in the next drive. Offroad Gear: Every offroader is 100% responsible for his/her own off-road gear, tools, and equipment and should know how to use them safely and how to take care of them in terms of regular maintenance (if any). If you lend your tow rope to someone, it's your responsibility to make sure that it doesn't have a knot. If you lend your jack, either stay around to see if it's placed on flat ground to not bend or brief them properly. If you lend your toolbox or tools, you need to make sure it's used as intended and they don't break. If you winch someone, you should know your winch capacity to do the recovery safely. If you lend your compressor, make sure it's not overheating or wait for it to cool down. Shovel, flag, radio, etc. is also your own responsibility & share it at your own risk. Off-road Promotions: As per Carnity Off-road Structure every off-roader has been assigned an off-road rank based on your driving skills, vehicle capability, and overall attitude towards off-roading. These promotions, ranks, and structures are in place to make sure that everyone is completely safe including you and your vehicle during all off-road drives. Due to safety reasons, there is zero-tolerance while promoting offroaders in Carnity off-road club. Once anyone applies for the off-road promotion, the request goes to all trip lead with who you have driven to access your off-road progress. Mostly all promotion requests are accepted immediately. For some, we request them to do a couple of more drives with the feedback in which you need to improve. Please accept and respect this club policy to help us maintain a safer off-road experience for everyone. Emergency details for all off-roaders: Please fill up all Emergency details here and also take a print out to keep the same in your glove box. It is mandatory for all off-roaders driving with Carnity Off-road Club.

Need some expert advice for new set of tires for my Pajero - Shall i change all 4 ? - Which brand (should be pocket friendly and durable) Currently using Yokohama which has exhausted in 2 years of City drive I Drive mostly in city and dirt roads Also some good advice us batteries brand Currently using Solite 70 amp

For the tires you get multiple options. If you are on a budget go for the Koreans like Nexen and Kumho. You would get it at a price of about 300-350 per piece. I have used Nexen upto almost 90k kms and then got them changed. Changing of 2 or 4 tyres depends on the conditions. Ideally advisable to change all 4 at the same time (plus you can rotate the tyres every 10000 km) but it's your call. Regarding battery, stay away from ac Delco. Heard good reviews on Amaron and am currently in my first year of this battery.

For tires I am a great fan of Yokohama Geolandars now for both on and off road use, but if it's mostly for highway use I would recommend Nitto Duragrapplers and Kumho Solus KL21 both user reviews available on Carnity. For battery once I have gone for Amaron I never changed to any other brand, costs slightly higher but last over 4 years for me every time.

Very nice 👍 theory. Truly ready reckoner for all level off-roaders!! 👏🏼

Awesome post, @Gaurav. For further informations about deflating tools, @Frederic opened an interesting discussion a few months ago :

There used to be a guy who posted on here offering a service like that, I forget his name, maybe that’s him? Last garage I worked in I used to hire out lifts. Wasn’t a mega success but there were a few regulars who used to come and do their own thing. Maybe I should start it again. I’ve got 11 lifts and 2 motorcycle lifts so if anyone fancies doing their own work with a mechanic on standby, hit me up.

TRIP REPORT @Srikumar, @Javier M and myself met on time directly at deflation point. Unfortunately @Gaurav had to cancel at the last minute because of a mechanical issue on his Pajero. @Frederic, @G.huz and @sertac, who wanted to join as well couldn’t make it. Along with @Rahimdad and @Asif Hussain, all of you guys missed us. One of the very nice aspects of summer night drives in those famous areas is the virgin sands. At many points of our drive we could hear the sand cracking on descents... Yesterday we had decided to explore the southern part of Sweihan, actually closer to Al-Ain. We have been able to keep a good pace in spite of a few refusals and stucks - the minimum due to this kind of tricky terrain. And thanks to Sri and Javier, this drive has been very fun from the beginning till the end. We finally stopped at about 3:30 AM only because we started to feel a bit tired and hungry, so we ate and took a good nap at 300m above the sea, with cool breeze, moonlight and shining stars. We also could see Jebel Hafeet lights climbing to the sky, far away above the horizon. At 5, I woke up Sri and Javier. Not without difficulty since they were both in a deep sleep. I had to use lound music, lights, start my engine... After a few side slopings just to be sure everyone was awake, we covered the short distance left to the track and we inflated while the sun was rising. I am very happy that we have discovered 2 or 3 amazing play areas. We must go there again with all those who missed this drive... or explore Sweihan-Naqrah-Al-Ain area further, which is full of hidden jewels, for sure !