desertdude

I always found the ZJ with in the inline 4.0 pretty anemic and a mismatch for it. The the 4cyl for the Prado. I remember Gaurav had a ZJ with the magnum V8 in it. That thing was pretty fast and powerful. But as far as I can remember even he didn't like it too much and got rid of it pretty fast.

Not pissed or anything of the sort, just practical advice, you yourself admitted, nervous driver = not confident = afraid of driving on UAE roads hence looking to compensate or put more trust in gizmos rather than one's own ability. Guess what, everybody over here drives on the same roads and a lot have been for decades without any gizmos and we are all just fine. Its the same concept of facing your fears by jumping in the deep end of the pool. Once you get over your "nervousness" you don't need those gizmos any more and a whole new bigger range of vehicles open up. Like everything practice makes you perfect, hence the suggestion, rent the shittiest car you can for a month, and get it out of your system. So instead of wasting 150-200k on a mediocre car than can barely off road and somewhat decent on road, you can get two specialty vehicles in that much one for off road and one strictly for mall crawling.

If you read, the poster is not interested in any of that he just wants the most autopilot functions he can on a car in his budget.

So basically your not confident about your driving so you want to rely on gizmos instead. This way you will never learn to drive properly and spend an entire life depending on gizmos. I know driver's who can't park in the open parking spot because they are so use to back up cameras and parking sensors Here is some real sincere advice. Rent the shittiest car you can for a month. Maybe a Nissan Micra or a Mitsu Mirage And drive on the roads you think are the are the "most dangerous" and drive on then daily for a couple of hours without fail. Come down to Sharjah once or twice a week and drive around in Rolla Your problem is nothing but overcoming your fear of the road. If you are never going to learn how to overcome it. You will always be that shitty driver who is holding up traffic, flashed at, honked at all the time. That one irritating guy who chokes up the entire shopping mall parking lot because he can't seem to park his car in a huge parking space and just keeps going forward and backwards until someone gets aick. Yanks out the driver and parks his car for him. Don't be that guy. Put all you car buying hopes aside and get over your fear of driving first. Unless you want to be THAT guy

P.P.S : When it comes to off road even the shitiest Land Rover which I believe was the 4 cylinder Freelander will leave any Volvo behind in the dust. Because Land Rover is the only Manufacturer that started off with a pure bred 4x4 and till today is the only one producing only 4x4s and AWD SUVs it has no sedan or 2wd drive in the line up and never has All their vehicles even from their cheapest to the most expensive are built around a certain minimum level of off road capability.

This big boxy silver thing is the LR3 Maybe you were confusing it with this Anyways seems like your mind is made up and you just came here to get confirmation of your choice. So go for it, you only live once but like everyone here, don't get upset when they say We told you so!

Well If you are looking for confirmation that yes XC90 is a great ride and checks all your boxes well that obviously isn't going to happen. Personally I don't know why you are so adamant about these driver assist features that they are turning into deal breaker. And what are you on about LR not being off road capable? Are we talking about the same car here. The LR3 is a different car than the discovery. The "new" discovery I agree is useless. Not the the LR3 or even 4. These are the boxy double roof beasts which come with adjustable height suspension as standard and a V8. And they are comfortable as fek on road beat any Japanese luxury SUV in that dept and extremely capable off road right out the box.

2inch spacers should be fine IMO as European cars are more geared towards "sporty" driving which usually means stiffer suspension more than soft comfort.

Also a small 2 liter 4 cyl motor is never going to have that kind of low down torque that you need while offroading forget the top end HP numbers that's just marketing lingo Imagine it's a twin turbo squuezing out so much power from a camry size engine which is usually 100hp. So how much on the edge it will always be on. Plus I've seen nothing but trouble with people who have turbocharged engines who off-road with them. The turbo vanes always getting chewed up. Oil leaks. Intercooler leaks etc etc. Somehow turbos and offroading in the desert don't mix

Volvo's are great cars I had two buddies who owned them including a XC90 and I drove the Volvo a lot. Great cars. But wouldn't recommend them for your only DD and weekend warrior. With that budget you can get both a LR3 and XC90 of a slightly older vintage. It's a buyer's market out there chock-full of stock LR3s are great offroaders and not as plasticiky as the LR4 and there is a great network of new and used parts as well as specialists garages Same can't be said for volvos. I remember when my bud lost his coolant expansion bottle on his Volvo it was no where to be found new or used. Had to order it and wait a few days and needless to say car was out of action for that much time. Since I'm involved in the community there are many who have LR3s hitting 300k kms and they use them regularly off-road in the sand and they still look and drive just fine. There was even a chap who was hitting 400k miles yes miles not kms. Also remember both these cars are not your regular old 90s Corolla that you can just keep driving them with 20dhs oil changes and be fine.

Nah I wouldn't suggest spacers unless you have one end sagging and just want to level your ride.

Unless your car is actually overheating and not just hot within operating range. Switching off the engine will just let it heat soak. Because it's just sitting there absorbing all the under hood heat the heat is not being disapated anywhere. When it's actually overheating, meaning the cooling system is not working and heat is just building up and the engine is already very hot. Running it any more will just cause more heat build up leading to major damage then it's better to shut it and let it cool down. When I had a jeep. My eyes were more glued to the temp gauge rather than what's ahead. Being a jeep owner and overheating go hand in hand

For a change there is mention of bans and I have nothing to do with it.

I think it's mentioned in one of the posts that he did. Having just reread the top post on this page. It states it still has a coolant leak somewhere. My guess is if there is a still leak. The system is still not pressurized properly, causing an coolant overheat condition. First job would be fix the leak IMO then replace the radiator

It's not the heat of the engine that is giving you this issue. It's the dryness of the sand. As the weather gets hotter that sand dries out losing most of it's moisture content, making it more soft, powdery and fluid. Even in summer. On a humid foggy morning you'll be able to drive better but as the day progresses, water evaporates it'll start to get more difficult. A heat soaked motor will lose some top end power but not that much that it effects it performance so notably. But that's true if any dune bashing drive in any weather

I'll have to ask. But dunno if they will rig it up just for one person for 1 hour though

I you still want to. I can pull old strings and get it done. Let me know. It's not cheap though

If you haven't replaced the radiator and have it just cleaned. That's not going to work. Having it cleaned or rodded personally has always been a big waste of time for me.. Like I said if you have changed the water pump. Thermostat and rad cap but you only said cleaned the radiator. Before throwing money at a head gasket ( without even confirming it ) I suggest change the radiator with a new one.

What's with the single bed attached to the front they claim is a bumper. You can put your mattress on it and get a good lie down So much for off road vehicles having short overhangs

Errrr..... This is NOT a TJ

By the time you reach them you will look back only to realize you have left a trail of shredded rear bumpers in your wake! And now your rear flank is exposed!!!

I'm been "playing" with this for years now on the off-road game Spintires.

Are you worried Pajernity will become Xterranity soon! And so the game of thrones begins!!!! The House of Pajero is starting to hear the sounds of the advancing army of the house of Xterra. P.S : I haven't watched a single episode of GOT so it's all guess work!

Only difference is he charges people a decent amount for his services

That's SODs law but then have faith in the man upstairs. Before I bought my current L322 Range Rover. I had known two since they were bought. Single owners and knew both of them. Clean as whistles, always parked in shade and no expense spared to maintain them with all original LR parts . When I was able to buy one these are the first two cars I approached. One guy said he will never sell it and he has passed it on to his daughter to now and she will not drive anything else and the other guy had a somewhat similar response. So then I started to look outside. And found what was at the time the cheapest L322 Range River in the UAE ( aka hoovie style ) And exactly two weeks after I bought mine the first guy who was never going to sell it for it touch said he wanted to sell it now!!!!! I was like WTF anyways not wanting to let a good car and deal escape I made a friend buy it who was after seeing mine wanted one too. Then two weeks after that the second guy got in touch and said he wanted to sell it now and I was like double WTF!!!! So once again not wanting to let a good deal and good car go my friends brother in law bought it who also wanted to buy one now after seeing my friends. So now there are three same year L322 Range Rovers among us. But to be honest I have spent way way way less on mine then those two have on their two in the three years we have owned them .they have had some major issues with theirs Although compared to them even today mine looks more rattier inside and out. So as the saying goes. Careful what you wish for or you just might get it. Fortunately in this case my wishes didn't come true