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Absolute Newbie Drives would start post September once the day time drives restart. In summers we do night drives where it's not advisable for a person who has absolutely no experience of previous sand driving to join.

As someone who is new around here, how often do you do absolute newbie drives?

Sorry, not excited, but cautiously optimistic!

You can sacrifice for the stunning look🎊

Let few absolute newbie express there interest here and we will arrange one of the Friday early morning drive from 3 AM - 8 AM. After September until May, absolute newbie drives are always there every alternate week. Good question @Avinash Vora, looking forward to see you and other new faces on drive.

I had bought parts from there 2 months ago recently no idea...

Hmm strange didn't notice, used to pass there daily up until very recently

Is this service center permanently closed? As per Google maps thats the status. Does anyone have any update?

This is a perfect example of how to recover side stuck in sand dunes with utmost safety and precision. Everyone is clear from the stuck vicinity and recording or taking the pictures away from the rope radius so that if tow point or shackles fail it won't hit anyone and injure/kill them. In a hard tug situation, one should use dampers or additional rope assist to absorb the shock if any tow point fails. Positioned the car right behind the way of the stuck car And not diagonally that can result in a flip with a sudden jerk Clear communication and repeat message before giving the tug Both the driver should be ready than an unexpected tug that may break bones Stretch the rope fully and always give a gentle tug "first" on side stuck Gentle tug "first" will always tell you how hard you can go next time than giving the hard tug first. This precision comes with experience and maturity than just giving the full throttle tug Repeat the message again for the second tug to prepare the driver Perfect safety message for the stuck driver, to update the recovery status so he can be ready for second tug Repeated second tug by changing the path slightly to get better traction Many offroaders will dig themselves on the second tug due to not changing the path. This slight change in path helps to get the firm sand to have better traction. Well done @Emmanuel for recovering @Julien V in the best and safest possible way.

First of you decide where to pull from, which ever point is lower and even better if the heavier side is the lower side. And one does bot use snatxh straps/viking rope. But rather a stiff belt abs very gently drag not directly perpendicular to the stuck vehicle. And course the digging part. My cars have rolled twice in exactly the same scenario because of over enthusiastic tugging, because the person pulling lost patience with the he slow pulls. If the dune is not so high and steep and car not too dug in a 1-2ft 90 degree gentle drag is more than enough to set the car free and then let gravity do its work and the car come down on its own. Dome this recovery more times then I can remember and it always works. Trying to get horizontal and all in a tame side stuck as I can see in the thumbnail is overkill.

Turkish is a tricky one for an English speaker because the some of the alphabet is different and the bits that are the same are pronounced differently. I can speak some phrases but I can’t read or write it properly. Same with Arabic, Hindi, Urdu, etc I just pick up things from listening to people but if you gave me a book in any of those languages I couldn’t read it. English, German and bullshit are the only things I’m fluent it.

I love learning useful phrases in new languages, but Google translate is useless in this instance..

I stopped getting excited or rather all senior here stopped getting excited for a reason, as whenever we say we are excited, that thing stall and hit on our face, lol. So, no matter we are very excited but we never use this word until drive finishes.

When you’re learning a new language it’s best to learn the useful phrases first 😊

If there is enough interest like 5+ absolute newbie, we can still do super early morning drive atleast once a month. Idea is to let newbie first see where they are driving and how to drive in sand. Every newbie get plenty of stucks and refusals and if they can see why they got stuck, they can learn faster or it will demotivate and confuse them.

The service centre itself closed some time back. I cross it every time remembering the time I used to service my Mitsubishi Eclipse.

If I was rich as fek then I would always go a new car. Regardless of how well kept it is, it's just never like a new car. Oh and sell it at 50k kms amd get another new one. But since that is never going to happen.!!! P.S : I LOVE depreciation makes me able to buy cars which were close to half a million DHS new now for literally peanuts. But it is an effort more than $$$$ to keep them going well.

Buy a new car just roll out the dealer and try to sell it even without putting on the plates and see what you get for it...buy a Tercel 99 for 2 to 3.5 depending on condition and after using it for 3 or 4 years try to sell it and see for yourself how much you loose when selling...

I am having hard day in office also knowing my gearbox is fucked up is not helping. But @Barry this comment from you I am keeping remembering it and cant stop laughing

After arriving in Saudi Arabia and looking for a fun car to drive that i could also take to the desert, I went shopping around and came across a 2008 FJ Cruiser in voodoo blue with the roof rack, stereo upgrade, cold air intake, and hardly a scratch. Mileage was a bit high at around 200,000 kms but it was the best looking FJ in the area after weeks of searching. Fast forward a few weeks when I go into a small patch of desert near to the compound where I’m living and get stuck immediately, although i deflated and ASSUMED this was a permanent 4x4. Well, this US model was a 2WD.... hence the low selling price 😔😔 Kept it another year and then left Saudi, but that was a hard lesson learned not to be falling in love too quickly and hasty. But the car itself was fantastic as pretty fast.

My worst mistake was 2 door Toyota Camry, i was new to this country and made a mistake of buying 2 door Camry imported from US .spent a lot of money to keep it in working condition but finally decided to sell , sold at same price in which i bought Its was huge and fun to drive

Currently Toyota and Honda also coming with CVT. There is no proper gearbox from Japan`s anymore.

For me it was two entry model cars that I had purchased. The first was a Chevrolet Optra bought brand new from the showroom. The car expired just after 3 years of usage. Everything on the car was falling apart and finally scrapped the vehicle just after the loan got over. The next and the biggest mistake was trusting a Nissan. I bought two brand new Sentra from the showroom and both of the CVT gearboxes failed like clockwise precision which I recently had to rebuild. Lesson learnt is that when it comes to entry level cars it's better to go with a trustable brand like Toyota or Honda as the cars made at this segment are with cheap material. And yes of course, stay away from CVT.

1) Loosing the car value (depreciation) 2) Unexpected repair or maintenance 3) Falling in hand of fake mechanic 4) Making an accident (yours or other mistake) 5) All of the above 6) Any other option, please explain

Could be a sticky caliper I had a customer come in with a 12 explorer he had changed the rear pads like 2 months ago and again I was saying him that you need the rear pads upon good examination the right ones were full new but because of sticking the left ones had finished so instead of fixing the issue he went and brought another pair of pads but changed only the ones which were affected...not my circus not my monkeys...

VID-20190625-WA0009.mp4

At least he doesn’t know how to use a spanner in the wrong place !

I think I’ve been in that guys garage before

Well he's more talented than a lot of grease monkeys Ive seen!!!

AC work. I prefer changing the engine or gearbox over doing any work on AC. It is expensive and it is hard to solve.

Amazing to see such a diversity in the club. I guess we all have one thing in common: We made the UAE our home away from home, and as an expat we need to get out, explore, travel, and meet friends, colleagues, buddies, that makes us feel as our home is here. I feel very blessed to have met so much amazing people yet, and look forward every day in meeting more !

Repair costs and that stuff is standard when you have a car but the issues i have here is if the garage is rely doing what they say they are! I have helped a friend with a car and i knew that the break pads needed changing that was fixed it looked like but 1 month later when he goes to the same garage same mechanic they tell him the pads need changing cause they are worn?????