Gaurav

Your best bet is to scout dragon mart with lot of time and patience. You might get lucky, as many chinese product shares the similar batteries and charging adapters. So search in toys or electric section.

Check your sms for 1400 dhs fine for driving at 180 km on the road of 80 (two lane). This could have been save for your newer rig.

If your car is out of warranty you can maintain outside at any class A or B garage at fraction of cost and with half the lead time. Just make sure to follow owners manual for all fluids specs and you will be safe with any decent garage. If your car still in warranty, then you got to service with dealer unless otherwise they specify some class A workshop with who you can maintain and still retain your warranty.

Fevistick........seriously we have that level of monkeys mechanic around.......!

I second with Off-road zone as seen many people driving their vehicle in desert without any complaint.

@jason200 might help you with JGC review

Good to see you again buddy. You can come up at meeting point and we have plenty of seats in all the cars. Sorry for late reply.

Here is the video guys:

As much as I understand and respect your enthusiasm, but this area is strictly not meant for RAV4 due to tricky tall dunes with endless soft patches during the summer months. Learning from last 3 experience we cannot delay any more drives by 4-5 hours due to several incidents in each drive be it situational / accidental / human error. Once in a while delay due to unexpected incidents are acceptable, but not consecutively on every drive with one person and car. Please look out for an easy drives, in which you join and exit without any incidents in at least 3 drives and then you can look out for an intermediate level drive. Hope you understand this because we need to be fair to everyone who is sparing their precious weekend time for these desert drives. "This area requires precise control as one moment you climb up with full throttle and second moment you crawl at low rev before hitting the gas again for sideways climb."

I agree but what surprise me for the first time in my 20 years of car driving history that jump starter with newer, stronger and fully charged battery didn't worked just because it's a wrong spec.

26 May - Khatam to Faya: Struggling in soft sand sideways for more than an hour and then couldn't climb the fossil rock. Deflate - inflate - deflate multiple times and fixed pop-out. Delayed the very first suhoor and left 10 minutes for eating at Faya side step. 1 June - Bidayer - Pink rock: Stuck in small pocket of soft sand, couldn't recover by yourself and when I gave a tug radiator housing broke. And after fixing the radiator, exiting from that soft sand humongous dunes was a challenge for me and Basel to scout an easy route with leaking radiator. 9 June - Iftar bowl: Small jump and nose dive down, pushed the radiator back and again everyone spend 4 hours extra until you fix the leaking radiator. I absolutely understand that desert accident can happen with anyone to everyone without any indication, but venturing with wrong choice of car in such terrain is highly not advisable. RAV4 is a unibody and tow hooks are super glued on frame. You were very fortunate to make out with your car in all three occasions due to everyone patience, support and availability of right tools and emergency repair kit. Secondly it is AWD and not proper 4x4 that has either intelligence or power to push through the soft sand (common in summer time). Your skills is highly regarded to drive through so much, but not in all occasions you can afford to have 100 meter run-up to gain momentum. Thirdly, the ground clearance is less than 5 inches makes your approach angle extremely risky to either break the nose (like in last drive) or to make you stuck without leaving enough room to crawl out of the soft sand (like in second drive situation). P.S. Hope this much light is enough or do you want me to switch on the LED light bar.....?

Well if car was sitting idle for 3 years, then all this you are going through is quite justified for few hundred kms if not 1k+. My strongest recommendation is to change this engine oil asap and also next oil change and oil filter do it within less than 1000 kms so that engine internal component get the required protection from shaving or corroded micro particles. Also worth looking in changing all lubes slowly and make a track of all as a new start - coolant, brake oil, power steering fluid, gear oil, differential oil etc.

It was so good to see pics from so many of you before I could upload mine. Just uploaded my share in gallery: https://carnity.com/gallery/category/22-great-grand-iftar-drive-9-june-2017/ Looking forward to see some pics from Ahmed and Basel too, in case they have clicked any.