Rahimdad

@amitaj +1 I am not sure about 4x4 motors but Robbies is one of the best, at one time we could just drive in and borrow tools do a little work here and a little work there, have a tea or a coffee and drive off without any charges. Those things which were difficult for us they would tackle for us at a reasonable cost and I would recommend them also. If you are going to Robbies Motor sports look for Albert. He is a gem of a guy and gives special discounts to anyone who asks him the wellbeing of Brownie, his Miniature Pinscher All the best..

I know someone at Technical Service Center in Al Awir, same company as you find in Barsha, if interested give me a call and I will hook you up with the guy. I am impressed with their facility and you may inspect them before you hand your precious to them.

Well Ai9 here is the link for youtube where they compare the Honda Odessey, with AMG and Porshe Cayanne.

@amitaj I don't think most of us will be around to catch him after 50 years and tell him his story was far fetched.

Hi Amitaj, I was just sharing an experience which related to the question you asked, however if you feel any of this is unreal than why ask on an open forum where you don't know anyone. Wouldn't it be better to ask among the circle of known people who have been through this experience. Truth is we are all trusting the car manufacturers and their recommendations, but how good are we really at being mechanics, 90% of us just buy a car and drop it off at dealership or service centers and we don't even bother to ask what needs to be done or what is being done. To most of us service means oil change, filter change, plugs change, air filter change at certain intervals, however a car is so much more than that. Car manufacturers and other service centers are backed up and supported by certain companies including oil companies and they will in turn support those companies. The experience I have shared is what I have seen with my own eyes and not something which was just copied and pasted from a website which I googled up. I am part of an off-road fraternity and I had a very good friend within that community who also owned a LR Disco 1, 1998 model. He used to have very long drives as he had to travel to Abu Dhabi twice a day from The Gardens. If you have read the whole write up you would understand his high mileage now. He did exactly what you asked for 5 years back and I was just posting his experience to help you decide. In conclusion I would like to say that I have shared an experience which is related to the question you had and its totally up to you to believe it or not. Whatever your decision, I wish you all the best for future.

Great choice Yont, Congrats. I love the Gun Metal Grey, not only the sound but the way it looks on the Nissan and Infiniti. Excellent colour choice.

With this example I can say that there is a fine line between cute and ugly.

Thank God it was not the Note 7. hehehehe

Wow, back to the future, most movies back in the late 80's and early 90's left a mark on the scientist to make fiction come true. Wishing UAE the very best to make this possible, some of us might not be around to see this become reality. Thank for sharing William. PS: Off-roading will not be any fun in these vehicles.

I saw something similar a couple of years back on Top Gear when they were comparing all the available vans and how quick they can be. Can't remember the other 2 models used, but this one looks very similar to the one I saw on Top Gear.

I quote my fi My motor is very smooth but this could be also attributed extensive highway driving aswell, but I think the additional detergent qualities of diesel oil might have helped aswell. I think my motor has atleast kept its power level if not gained some over the last 100 to 120,000kms which I have clocked over since I switched over. Now the disco is sitting at a grand total of 301,000kms. After the intial switch over I popped a few extra leaks. This was one of the symptoms to expect in a older motor and sludge and gunks acts like putty and patches up holes. But the the added cleaning qualities of diesel oil will break them up and dissolve them. So I took that as a positive sign as that it was doing something in there. For the pro and cons. Not all engines are flat tappet design and I don't think anything post early to mid 2000's is anymore. But this flat tappet design was carried over into cars already using that design until next gen changes. Like Range Rover took it up till 2003, discovery upto 2004, Cherokee up to 2001, Jeep wrangler till the demise of the TJ wrangler into 2006 until the introduction of the JK with the V6. BTW I have no first hand info the newer jeep V6's used inthe liberty/cherokee/grand/wrangler that this motor is not a flat tappet design but I am assuming it isn't. Better look that up if your in doubt. And the biggest added advantage for me who was up until recently changing oil every 15 days was it was very cheap. 45 bucks a gallon. The oil every change cost around 60 dhs. Although Shell rotella diesel was strongly recomened every here and even cheaper at 43 ish bucks for 5 liters. But I choose not to use that because of the lack of appropriate S ratings on the box. S followed by another alpha bet like D,F,G etc etc stands for Spark i.e spark driven motors i.e petrol and there will also be a similar C rating with the C standing for combustion i.e diesel motors. And the shell available here only has a C ratings and no S ZDDP was removed from engine oils as stricter emission controls came into play as if any manages to get past the pistons rings into the exhaust ( i.e : cars burning oil ) could damage the catalytic converters so was removed from Engine oil. The most common question that is asked, viscosity. The viscosity is exactly the same as regular engine oil a 40w diesel engine oil is exactly the same viscosity as 40w petrol engine oil. Like 1kg of sand and 1kg of metal are both 1kg, right The SAE API standards are same across the board. As per milage I do get much better milage on the thing when compared with people with similar cars. And I believe my very relaxed driving style and general good shape of my motor are more contributing factor than anything else. Power I've out run 04 discoveries with less than 50k on the clock and can give more sedans a run for their money If I choose to gun it. The other day a JK was struggling to keep up on a traffic light drag run Anyway no solid statistics on anything just feel of the butt assumptions. Personally I do believe it keeps the motor is very good shape and certainly does improve engine life. Think of it as cheap synthetic oil which the best comparison. What kills oil ? Heat is what breaks down its molecule chains and it loses viscosity and loses it friction protection qualities. Diesel engines run much hotter than petrol, almost twice the internal temp of petrol. Diesel oils are made to withstand than. Also Diesel engines run much more dirtier than petrol meaning produces much more soot and deposits, and diesel oil is formulated much more absorbent and detergent additives and qualities. What does synthetic oil do. Is more resistant to heat and more cleaning and absorbent qualities. Diesel oil when running in a petrol engine does exactly that. Some newer high end luxury cars are now being recommended by manufacturer to use synthetic diesel oil. And all for all. Engines with flat tappet design need ZDDP no doubt about it whether you choose to use a ZDDP additive or diesel with added benefits. As slowly your wear out your tappets and loose power over time. Almost all high mileage motors running regular oil have wear signs of worn tappets and cam lobes. I use ADNOC HDSP Diesel Oil, only because it is the most convinient and AD petro products are of much better quality than other localy made products Just a pointer when you are checking the ratings any alphabet after the S. The higher the alphabet the better the quality. Example SB would be better than SA. I think ADNOC HDSP is SF or SJ. I'm not current on these ratings but I think SJ is the highest out there. You could if you wish use Diesel oil upto 10k kms and be fine but as I said before oil is cheap engines are not. And fresh oil is always better than half life used oil. Hence I also never recommend using any oil, wheter synthectic, diesel, or regular for more than 5k, 3k if you go for desert trips alot and specially in the summer. I was talking to a engineer in shell once and he himself told me their regular petrol use oils are formulated to be used very safely up to 7k but recommened changes after 5k as you really don't want to squeeze out every drop of life from it. Trying to save on a few bucks on cheap oil you will end up doing more expensive harm to your engine.

I had a friend who had the same LR Discovery 1, 1998 model that I had. He had read about using Diesel Oil in Patrol engines and decided to give it a try, the Diesel Oil is thicker than Oil for Patrol Engines. i was in touch with him for 2 years and he was all praise about it and in 2 years nothing seemed to be effected in a negative way, he found the ride to be smoother and at the time of oil change it came out very clean. he changed the Oil every 7000 Kms. I had thought of doing it on my LR Discovery and I knew a mechanic who used to deal with LRs only, he was game too to let me try this out, but recommended as the Diesel Oil is thicker to start using it in the Summers. However as my car got sold before it had a chance to experience another summer that idea was scrapped. He did use a particular Diesel Oil on his rig, let me check if I can find his number and check with him if he is still using it and what is the type he is using.

Wow, this is special Barry, I love such interiors with double trim, used to love my Jeep Commander 5.7 Hemi for the same reason.

+1

Hmmm... It is very patriotic.

When I last checked they had the top of the range 2.5 Altima which came with the leather seats, sun roof and the works, are they not offering leather seats any more on their 2.5 or have they run out of stock due to end of year. They should have new stock for the year 2017 within a week or two. Just ask them the right questions. Not only is the 2.5 cheaper than the 3.5, but also the fuel economy on the 2.5 is amazing. On Dubai roads you won't be able to use much of that 3.5 power, besides I think the 3.5 will be out of your price range as I believe it is a 109K if I am not mistaken. I test drove the 2.5 and instantly fall in love, I have not test driven the 3.5 so I have no idea, you might want to take both of a spin and than decide if you want to part with the extra cash.

When I last checked they had the top of the range 2.5 Altima which came with the leather seats, sun roof and the works, are they not offering leather seats any more on their 2.5 or have they run out of stock due to end of year. They should have new stock for the year 2017 within a week or two. Just ask them the right questions. Not only is the 2.5 cheaper than the 3.5, but also the fuel economy on the 2.5 is amazing. On Dubai roads you won't be able to use much of that 3.5 power, besides I think the 3.5 will be out of your price range as I believe it is a 109K if I am not mistaken. I test drove the 2.5 and instantly fall in love, I have not test driven the 3.5 so I have no idea, you might want to take both of a spin and than decide if you want to part with the extra cash.

@AI9 Good to know at least someone agrees.

OMG. Yellow again. Looks like a Corvette f**ked a Silverado.

Aman Insurance in Gulf Tower behind Canadian Hospital on Oud Mehta Road.

Imaan, that is a very good observation and your friends are partially right in them assumption. Although I have not seen any trucks in roll-overs, but from my observations I will try to answer your query. It makes absolute sense that a vehicle with 3 pillars will better support the roof from caving in than a vehicle with 2 pillars. However I have seen Toyota Land Cruiser from the tour company which had roll cage and unfortunately the roof caved in and the A and B pillars completely bent. The reason for this is the GAO body that Toyota used to show off about having crumple zones. They considered the body crumpling on impact so that the driver would not get the same jerk from the accident which he would in case of a firmer body. What they dd not consider was what would happen in case of a roll-over. Result, the roof caved in completely and the A and B pillar were completely bent. In another case one of the FJ Cruisers with us just made a slight error and tipped over with a couple of very light rolls, the result was not so bad, but the roof caved in a bit and some damage to the A-Pillar and one month after running behind the insurance company the FJ Cruiser was written of as it needed and new roof, new wind shield and a new A-Pillar. Just too expensive to repair. I saw 6 of the worst roll overs in off-roading in Dubai with little or no harm to the passengers or the car, 3 of these were with the Jeep Wrangler, 1 of which was a flip from the front bumper getting stuck in the sand from the jump and the car flipped over on its front. The roll cage on the Wrangler is amazing and minimum injuries to the driver and just a few dents and in case of the Hard Top, a replacement for the Hard-Top as it is made of fiberglass. In 2 other cases both bad roll overs with 7 to 8 rolls all the way down the dunes, these were the Land Rover Defender which needed on one side mirror to be replaced after we put the vehicle back on its tires from its belly. The second was a Land Rover Discovery 1 which needed the roof to be banged back up in its place and the wind shield to be replaced with a little pain job, no damage to any of the pillars. Although the Land Rover is made from Aluminium, but the roof is a solid piece of metal that just does not get effected so much. In conclusion, it is not only one factor that determines the outcome of a roll-over. The type of body used by the car company, protection like a roll cage, which surface it rolls over on, whether its rocks or soft sand and many other factors determine the outcome. But taking the same kind of truck and similar surface the result on the 2 door would be worse than on a 4 door as observed by your learned friends. Hope this satisfies your curiosity.

Welcome Manu, I am a seasoned off-roader, once you get your driving license and are looking for a ride, get in touch with me and I will help you get a ride which will help you on-road and off-road as well. I can also guide you getting used to driving in the soft stuff and discovering amazing sights which are not possible if you follow the paved paths.

Amazing find, thank you for sharing. Wish this kid all the best for his future, maybe we would be able to drive affordable buggy's by just sending him a Hyundai Accent from the scraps.

Well so much talk about the ugliest cars, Actually its not so bad, but different rims and I am ticking of some black highlights would mae the same QX70 look awesome. Thanks for sharing.

I have been lucky with Aman Insurance, they have their own agreement with a few of these recovery companies and twice when my battery went dead they sent a guy in a Yaris with powerful battery pack to get me back on my way. On one occasion there was something wrong besides the battery and he still got it started and told me the issue which i have now conveniently forgotten and that gave me enough time to drive to the closest garage and get the repair job done. Which means the recovery driver was also mechanically inclined and knew what could be wrong. My hats off to them.