desertdude

I was helping my friend renovate his house and it was a long drawn out month long process. Everything from the roof to the walls in the 7 bedroom Villa. His elder brother as a thank you took all us for a desert Safari since he would freelance as a guide on the weekend. And that was pretty much it. I told myself this is what I want to do as well. To cut a long story short after years of trials and tribulations and help from another friend I managed to get my foot into that world. I didn't give up never for a second thought I will stop persuing this line of work. Got ridiculed by friends and family as to what stupid line of work I'm trying to get into 2 years I worked for free or very basic pay like 50-100dhs per trip and started from the very bottom as helper then moving up to camp driver cum helper than mean driving as well as helping in loading and off loading the pickup. It was very very tough work but I enjoyed it througly which gained me a lot of respect later on as everybody had seen how I had struggled from the very bottom to the top and they knew I know every aspect of this field so one one could fuck me too. Made some great money and had the time of life because I was lucky the company I got attached too ( I say attached because I never officially joined them because that ways I getting paid freelance per trip money which was as high as 1200dhs per day to the lowest of 650 per day as opposed to a fix salary ) they got a lot of interesting projects like vehicle testings and events. I worked on projects from Toyota,Nissan, peugout, jeep, land rover, Mercedes, hummer, GM just to name a few. So most of my work was this rather than regular desert Safari you see and hear about. Did that mostly during summer and in between such projects and other events, which including a huge secret proper concert with huge stage, lights, pyro, screens fireworkd for Shaggy, UB40, lot of Bollywood stuff so on and so forth. But close to the economic downturn such things got less and less and I started to get bored with just the regular Safari day in and day out. Is when I quit. Then became a weekend warrior just like the rest of you. Then thought it would be a good idea to go out with more people so searching online I came across dubai4x4 one of the few off-road clubs at the time. Then emarat 4x4 which I stayed with till life decided otherwise and I stopped going all toghether. Now maybe when things take a change for the better might get myself another desert ride and start going out again. Maybe.

To be honest it's been pretty cool because I live in a gated 3 Villa compound. With only 3 families there. So us men gather in the forecourt in the evenings and chat the evening away. One of them is an old time Safari dude like me so we sit back with some tea and others with their drink and share tales of our exploits. I've actually been socializing more due to this than before! Since we all stuck at home and live in one isolated micro community if you will, so there is no risk of cross contamination or spread

My phone started to blare like an air raid siren and whole screen lit up with his msg. Took me off guard

Only Adam Sandler movie worth watching is Happy Gilmore. Rest is just dross.

A 2wd 4x4 is like a casterated man. You look, act and behave like a man but when it comes down to do it. You just can't get the job done

There is currently a big law suit against Nissan in the US over this. That Nissan knows their CVTs are faulty and yet still willingly selling and have sold cars knowing this very well i.e purposely sold defective goods

I know what you mean, been there done that.

If you been in Dubai for a while now these hardly raise an eyebrow anymore. Because these exotics ain't that exotic here

I had a 2018 Yaris as a rental for 4-5 months great car compared to the current rental I have, a 2019 Nissan Sunny which is an absolute POS in every way possible. Fuel consumption, comfort level, smoothness, looks inside and out, features. Miles ahead. I think the Yaris is a though act to follow in the mini Jap ecobox segment

Hopefully but Pajeros by far has the worst rear bumper design of any 4x4 I know off. It made like a scoop which digs into the sand and then rips it's off. Makes me think the engineers totally slipped doing any serious desert testing Only effective way is to negate the scooping action of the bumper by closing the lip and securing it to rest of the frame

Oh and The Mandolorian is also awesome

I was subscribed to Netflix but found the local library too outdated and limited so unsubscribed. So I'll just name a few. The blacklist, Lost is space, Witcher. Unfortunately after the The big bang theory ended not much good comedy or sitcoms left. The neighborhood is good though and last Man standing. And there was this one with Ashton Kutcher which also ended

I thought with everything virtually closed and a lot of people working from the forum would be buzzing with activity as people find ways to kill time at home but it's even more deserted than usual? ( Other than the long list of promotion threads ) Whats up with that?

I saw a permanent fix for this a few days ago 😁

You do realize most of your posts are replies to threads that are almost a decade old!

These are known as V emblems common on many American cars during the 60s and 70s.

No they are not the same. LSD has clutch plates in it and when one wheel start to spin they catch and transfer power to the other hence momentarily locking both wheels and you'll never find a center LSD diff. Only rear. Similar concept is there for all wheel drives in the center like RAV4 and Honda *RVs but that's called a torsen diff. Working principle is the same as LSD. A.Trac is just Toyotas fancy name for traction control.

Center difflock is for full time 4wds which lock the front and rear diffs together. So if the front diff is spinning the rear is too. Crawl Control is just useless fancy pants bullshit just like hill descent control Maintains a certain low speed 5-10kms over terrain.

Shit! Hadn't thought about that! And no not a pic with the worst ride I've ever owned!!!!!

Time to get my leather pants out from storage, yes I do own a pair back from my rock band days

Yeah traction control will mess with you in sand. And why do you want a snorkel. It just saps power. Even stock filter is good enough for this environment just give it a blast of compressed air after every off road excursion.

Treks is saying the shackel along with the fabricated point.

Oh ok. Anyways yeah he's already got them, so too late now. For me fir off road and on road use balance has been using HD coils with stock shocks.

Is it too early to start dressing like this? Not its not, just because its got round lights doesn't make it so, probably a chevy bel air or some other old American land yatch

Although this sounds a bit authoritarian but I total agree with it. I remember how frustrating it was to literally wait for hours just because someone did not have the decency to show up on time and people didn't start because they didn't want to offend or hurt anyone's feelings! Resulting in a tiny short drive for everyone because of one character. I can guarantee once someone is sent back they will never be late again!