Frederic

If your budget is 15-20k and you want to start enjoying the desert, i would recommend keeping it stock or a minimum on mods and using the extra budget on maintenance to get the car in a good technical condition. Most of the cars in this price range have been neglected and will need fresh fluids, spark plugs, bushings, etc. unless you are lucky to find one where the previous owner did all the proper maintenance. There are not many options in 7-seater for that budget. The R51 Pathfinder is a good option, but a 3.8 Pajero is a good option too. I find the Mitsubishi to be the more reliable option.

and a couple of years later i am driving a Patrol myself 😁 But hey it's not a Pa-Pa-Pa Patrol

Congrats @khlief !

Congrats @Jerry Han !

Well deserved @Ishak !

@Brett Eicher@Lea Degner@nithish468@Matt - monkeywrench@ChrisW@Srikumar@Damian@Juzer Talib@Ahmed Farouk@JohanE@Jerry Han@Asif Hussain Thank you for the nice drive yesterday! The sand was very forgiving and that meant there was not a lot of work at hand. But we had a good flow and covered quite a good distance. You all drove superb ! As always, great support from @Srikumarand @Asif Hussain Thank you guys !

RSVP IS NOW CLOSED @Brett Eicher@Lea Degner@nithish468@Matt - monkeywrench@ChrisW@Srikumar@Damian@Juzer Talib@Ahmed Farouk@JohanE@Jerry Han@lucas amat@Asif Hussain Thank you for signing up for tomorrow's drive, it's great to see new faces and reconnect with some older ones Some important pointers: 1) We would like to start our briefing in the sand by 7.15 latest, so kindly arrive before 7 so you have time to deflate and setup your flag. The weather is getting hotter each week so it's important to be able to start as early as we can. 2) Bring your offroad gears. A flag, radio, shovel, pressure gauge, and compressor will be mandatory. 3) Get adequate protection from the sun (sunblock, hat, long sleeves). We will be using Channel 4 - 446.081Mhz for our walkie-talkies. The plan is to head East direction Sweihan and try to find some clean terrain and some challenges along the way. We will then loop back to the starting point. See you all tomorrow morning !

I’m afraid you won’t get a lot of technical replies when it comes to diesel issues. This is a platform located and tailored to UAE where diesel is almost non-existant. I used to drive diesels in Belgium and remember having issues with clogging up if I didn’t take it for longer drives and higher revs once in a while (was a Renault Scenic). RTV sealant is indeed used in many applications and if applied properly it should hold up fine, in your particular case it would indeed be possible that there is an OEM seal. Perhaps it wasn’t available at the time and hence they used RTV sealant.

Thats not good @Zak_, usually if only one clip is not sealed the filter should still stay in place, but if you indeed noticed sand in the intake pipe after the filter, you might be in trouble. Collect enough photos and documentation and head over to your service centre to lodge a complaint as it might have caused irreversible damage to the engine. Is it a stock air filter box ?