Rahimdad

@tamils_siva you are great fun to drive with, I hope you will be able to make it.

Wow guys, all great points. I have noticed the little round mirror within the mirror and yes with the newer technology there are cars equipped with sensors on the sides to warn of other vehicles or object next to you.

6 hours ago, Stef.an said:

I think this thing is scary if you're not careful enough on the things that you're doing. It's really hard to find a great showroom or dealer that can supply you great cars

Hey @Stef.an you forgot the right price. Normally car showrooms offering you quality vehicles will charge you a premium price.

@DiamondDallas it is a shame that you will not be able to make it, next time for sure.

All this time the cars have been invented and we still find blind spots on the wing mirrors, why have car companies not been able to crease this problem out. So many accidents and close misses every day on the roads because the wing mirror does not show the cars parallel to you.

Have you personally faced such issues and what would you do to eradicate this problem?

Hi @Peregrine Thank you for your contribution. You might be new but you know what you are talking about.

Thank you for joining @baselsm83 Suhoor wouldn't be fun without you.

I never had an X-Box and don't have any trusted repair shops. I have a PS4 which gave up and would not come on. Luckily it was under warranty, I took it to Jumbo and 4 days later they gave me a new console. However, I know a few shops in Sharjah who repair all kinds of consoles, except for the PS4 as they have a history of failing after 1 year and all you need to do is hand it back to the dealer and pay them USD 150 to get a refurbished one.

Thanks for enrolling @skumar83. Your name has been added to the main list, kindly RSVP on the Calendar as well.

Very sorry to hear this @waqaszohair. Toyota was built to last and I never heard any of them, specially the Prado suffer with any problems at all. If you don't mind bringing the car to Sharjah I know a couple of good auto balancing guys who are in the business for over 40 years and can pin point any problems with the steering and alignment. They are not cheap, but than they are not ripping people off like Al Futtaim and their work is good enough to get praise from everyone.

In the meantime looking for the expert comments of our more technical people, however I believe they can only let you know what is wrong when they see it.

Here in the UAE second had car showrooms would give you dirt for your vehicle citing different small little issues and after a little spit polish you will see these cars back up for sale within a month for at least 12 - 15K above what they have purchased.

That aside one of the scams here was on a very popular car sales website, where the seller advertises his car for less than half the market value. There is a UK mobile number given and you can whatsapp them, to which the seller will ask your email address. Later in the day you will receive an email saying that he had to leave UAE in a hurry as his visa was cancelled, he has travelled back to UK, but car is still in Dubai. He does not have any friends or relatives to show the car and if you send him the money for his ticket to Dubai, as he is not sure to come all the way to Dubai and you refuse to buy it, so this would assure that his trip is not a waste and he will deduct the value of the ticket from the car value. Several people who fall for the cheap car trick lost the price of a London-Dubai-London ticket in this scam.

@waqaszohair your idea is fantastic and we are the explorer. It is going to be quite a long trip but can be managed in a day, or we could have a long holiday coming up and use 2 days to do it. Checking for border control is also a good observation. Let Gaurav Bhai return, maybe you can join for the upcoming drive and we could sit together and plan this out. We could set a date and time to it so that we could have small rekki trips to the areas we doubt regarding the check post and so on and so forth to crease out our plans and revise the route if necessary.

Dear All,

What an amazing year it has been. Full of drives, full of fun, full of meeting new people, exploring new possibilities, teaching us respect for one another, the different terrains we drive in and most importantly our vehicles which is so important. I would like to thank each an every one for the wonderful times and participation in one way or the other which has driven us this far. With the summers setting in and temperatures peaking the high 40s during the most sunny part of the day and with Ramadan opening up its doors next week it would be impossible to drive during the day. One more thing that we learned during our drive this Friday is the fact that the desert cools down in the night and the soothing cool nights is the way to go forward.

So you all got it right and a round of applause for all our enthusiasts who have encouraged us to never stop.

Being a Muslim and keeping in mind the prayer timing and the timings for the Suhoor and Iftar I have specially designed this week's trip with consent from our hero @Gaurav bhai to post the same. The plan will be to start late in the night after the Tarawih is over, which is close to 10:30 pm. This calls for a meeting at 11 pm and finish the trip by 3 or 3:30 am. This has many advantages, for one we can continue our culture of having food together, we will share Suhoor on top of the dunes to start our fasting day, we will reach home before the sun comes out and relax in the comfort of our house during the scorching day light hours and be able to offer our Tarawih in peace and finally we would utilize the coolest part of the night to glide through the desert. I would like to change and spice things up so the new entry point of Khatam which would offer a different approach towards Faya where we can play and settle down with a chat and some food and drinks for Suhoor.

When: 26 May 2017
Meeting time: 11 PM, convoy will move sharp at 11:15 PM
Where: Adnoc Petrol Station Maleha Road

GPS Coordinate: https://goo.gl/maps/mzb26kxzte72

Level of drive: Absolute Newbie - Newbie - Fewbie - Expert - Advance - All are welcome
Type of Car: Any proper 4x4 with front and back tow hooks and 10 inches of ground clearance
Plan: Night drive from Khatam to Faya, Suhoor on top of Faya.
What to bring along: Evening snacks, food for Suhoor, plenty of water - whatever you like with little extra to share, water, liquids, smiles, stories, enthusiasm and willingness to learn.

Approximate finish time: 3:30 am

List your name and mobile number in this drive thread and RSVP the below calendar:

@syedmeesamali you are most welcome brother. This is a car community and it means that we are there for each other and protect each other from being ripped. As per my experience a different set of skills and equipment is required for each problem faced, so each one of the problems can have a different garage or expert to solve your issues. My advise to you would be to search for posts with your problem, if you do not find one then post as detailed a report about your problem as you can here. Sometimes you can do some simple stuff at home and won't even need to go to a garage, while at other times we can suggest the garage that will best suit your need at the time. Keep coming back to your community and add value to it, and take advantage of the ample knowledge already available to you through this forum. Some day you might be able to suggest us something which we missed out on and you have experienced. Wishing you nothing but the very best bro.

Wow @waqaszohair this is really a great initiative and very well though off. Sounds like an amazing idea and one which should be explored further. @Gaurav Bhai is away for a foreign trip on business and should be back before our next drive. We should meet up over a cup of tea or coffee and plan this out as I am sold on this idea. As per my experience trips of this nature should be carefully planned and need some time. With Ramadan starting next week and in the summer heat it does not seem to be something that most people would like to do in close to 50 degree heat for most part of the day. I would absolutely leave the floor open to more suggestions from everyone to add value to this trip.Once again well thought of Waqas bhai and thank you for the research work put in to make a route. Once Gaurav Bhai is back and we finalize this trip, I would like you to take the honor to post the trip details in the Trips section and I will definitely be in to support this one.

Good share @Barry. This is a lesson some people learn the hard way, but you have given it free of cost and this advise can save many a pockets from being emptied completely.

OMG!!! If I thought my day was going to be a long one with my indoor cricket tournament which started at 7 am on Friday and finished in time for me to join this training session. Boy, I was wrong. This was a day planned by a higher source to never end.

What started of as a desert training trip ended up being train the trainer module 403.

@Gaurav bhai, your patience really has no bounds and your cool exterior as a group leader makes you the most amazing leader. You are the Ice man. @Basil you rock the show being in second lead and trying to take the initiative to help someone. @shadow79 you just bring such a brilliant flavor to the drive, thanks for not letting me down and handling the radio very well to communicate important information as this is the correct use of the radio, the meat and chicken selection was amazing as were your friends and I am so happy I could meet them and they not only share the food but the spirit too. They were an awesome addition to our Carnity family. @Asif Hussain, you truly are catching up and I love to see your learning curve and how well you have performed, plus your little beast on the side slopes almost flattened them and took us to the other side. It touched the top of the dune. Plus it carried all the parts of the Rav4 which it kept shedding from time to time.

At the start @Shadow79 crested and commented that only 2 people get remembered, the first stuck and the last stuck.He was absolutely spot on. His was the first and @Basel was the last. All Basel wanted to do was help @Shadow79 to recover from a pocket, fortunately @Shadow79 he pushed his Rav4 to a point where it just climbed out of the pocket without any trouble. Unfortunately for @Basel he got himself into the pocket which some what reminded me of my situation last year in Ramadan when I missed my Suhoor and had to fast without it. In my situation also it was the local boys who self recovered me, and this time it was no different. @Gaurav bhai and me got together on several occasions to discuss how to handle the situation, we were learning from the different steps we took towards the recovery. We had started with 2 ropes as the area was soft and incline everywhere, and the Patrol was quietly sitting out watching us try. The 2 rope trick failed as the momentum was not building and was not having any effect on the Patrol. Soon we shifted to the single rope, but than trying to climb upwards in a soft patch of sand was also not enough to get our beast out of the natures pocket. But we were getting close to the remedy as @Gaurav bhai wisely suggested to try and recover it from the back. Hesitantly I tried to make my way down as the Patrol like a magnet tried sucking my Pathy towards it, and with the soft patch I just tried getting myself out. Eventually @Gaurav bhai also tried to use everything in his Pajero and had to get out of there to avoid having 2 cars too close to each other. As we had broken 3 ropes already we were planning to head towards Faya with the hope that we would find someone with a winch, but than the 3 most amazing people appeared and as Gaurav Bhai stopped them asking if they had a winch. They did not have the winch, what they did have was the same idea as Gaurav Bhai but with something a little more specific in mind. As one guy shortened a broken rope 4 folds to make it short and strong, the other took Gaurav bhai trusted Pajero and with very steady pace started making a track on the soft incline patch. Watching them at work was like watching a piece of art being created in front of your eyes. Soon the 2 were connected and short but slightly powerful tugs got the beast out of the situation it had been suffering for the past couple of hours or more. There was cheer from all around and a smile appeared on Basel's face which lit up the dark desert. After the beast was out it suffered from a pop-out which had to be taken care of before it could be driven out of the pocket. As Gaurav Bhai said only respect from all of us to the true dwellers of the sands and their instinct, knowledge and experience. So as I always say, I have been out there for more that 10 years, but I am still learning, and lesson learned for me from this trip, always rely on the tolls you have rather than wish for something you don't have. So rather than sitting there wishing I had a winch, I should have thought about how to manage with what we had. If this was not tiring enough Saleem and gang bought out the grills, meat and chicken which was nicely marinated, shaken, stirred and ready to be digested by us. What a brilliant spread and we had plenty left as we were all filled to the brim. All in all an adventure not to forget, not because of the situation that we were in, but the team spirit which was so evident, Basel was not supposed to join us for the BBQ but he did, Gaurav Bhai and Asif Bhai had their families with Asif Bhai coming all the way from Abu Dhabi, and they could have left and nobody would have minded, but they stayed on. All of us stayed on and made it a wonderful memory, which we can relate to our grand children some day.

@syedmeesamali It is very sad to learn about your dilemma, you mentioned H/T which is highway terrain and not all terrain (AT-S). There are several great tires for off-roading out there and it depends on what you feel will work best for you. I am not sure about the Yokohama Geolander H/T, but @Gaurav is using the Yokohama Geolander AT-S which are doing awesome off-road and are quiet and smooth on-road as well with no noticeable noise whatsoever. I have also written a review on my experience with the Nitto Duragrapplers, they like the Yokohama are made in Japan and last at least 3-4 years with both on-road and off-road usage.

Hope this helps.

Thank you @shadow79, @Barry, @Gaurav and @treks for some amazing insights

I was reading somewhere that the cost of making these vehicles is not so high with all the attention to details, but these vehicles are built with the help of designers, so its like the difference of having 3 suits at US$ 150, or Armani suit for US$ 2000/-, label that matters. BMW are the ones that make their designers kind of celebrities, like Fisker designed the BMW Z8.

Wow @Barry very detailed, yet from a very mechanical point of view, I don't think the BMW 318 or M3 or Merc 190E or 220E fit that bill of luxury which I was referring too, I did mention a car costing half a million or more of a showroom floor. However I am getting some idea from your post but would like more details on how a luxury vehicle costing half a million or more is better than a Top of the range costing a fifth of that price tag.

@shadow79 pushing buttons is luxury to you, performance aside, what makes a luxury car worth the value you pay as compared to a much cheaper vehicle which has most of the lavish features from a luxury vehicle.

@Gaurav Bhai you must be tired of running ahead of yourself. Every video turns out to be better than the last. Memories so well preserved through these videos. I can never get tired of watching these.

The other day I was just watching the videos of all the drives we have done and it turns out the length of an actual feature film. Countless hours spent on keeping these awesome times together. Thank you Gaurav Bhai for all your efforts.

Thanks @categorik

Amazing machine you are driving there. One of the most comfortable vehicles with all the luxurious tit-bits one can think of. However it is also one of the heaviest vehicles I had ever driven which on-road is fun as the car is so stable at any given speed. One of the reasons I found it to be over 3 tonnes is that it has 2 chassis, it is a uni body sitting on a proper H-chassis which almost doubles the weight of the vehicle. One thing for sure, you will have to try really hard to get a jump out of an LR3. Now my excitement is doubled. Welcome again Ali.

I have this burning question within me. I have owned several Top of the range vehicles which come with Leather Seats, heated seats, sun roof, premium audio system, programmable keys for each driver, key-less entry, remote start, rear entertainment system, climate control. What I have never owned is a luxury vehicle to the likes of BMW, Mercedes, Porche, Maserati or the likes. I would like to know what is the difference between driving a car worth over half a million Dirhams vs a Top of the Range vehicle costing one fifth the price. I would also like to know if it is worth it and why?

1 hour ago, categorik said:

Hi guys,

I will do my best to be there!!! Very interesting learning session to me.

Ali: 0526449071

Most welcome @categorik It good to have you on board. Looking forward to seeing you this Friday. Please do not forget to RSVP on the Calendar. I am curious to know which vehicle you drive.

Nowadays with most high end cars having EBD (Electronic Braking Distribution) the braking on these vehicles are every even and hardly needs the disks to be skimmed.