Frederic

This is what we might see between Murqab and Lisaili coming weekend 😂

Great article with details. The Diesel springs look like a good solution. If they are not to your likings, you can always revert to the OEM scrap springs as you were happy with the OEM ones before and i can imagine you are so used to it that any change in your current setup feels a bit 'off", and could force you to change your offroad-driving style to compensate for that.

This is how my trailing arm bushing looked like, and the clunking sound on speed bumps was really bad. On top of that the car was driving very "wonky" and unstable: While the arm is removed, best to do the other bushings also. @shadow79 did both trailing arms with aftermarket bushings, and the difference is night and day.

When you’ve spent your entire budget on your car, but really wanted to have those 24 inch rims

Come and live in an Emaar community like Arabian Ranches or Mira. It is far worse.... But Sports City is the only place i ever been where they can't even seem to align the manholes to the pavement. They are installed like 5 inches higher. A real sportscar would break its crankcase immediately. Oh and it took them only 10 years to have some water in that canal.....

I have the same sound on my wifey's 2008 Pajero. I always assumed it sounded like the rear diff teeths locking into each-other, but come to think of it, it is probably the rear bushes on the arms. In this climate they tend to dry and crack.

YabbaDabbadooooo !! Due to circumstances I have been missing out on this area several times although it’s the one closest near home. I’m definitely in !

Exactly, even many taxi drivers are like that. It frustrates me like crazy. 🤬

Yes, on mountain offroading your brakes will have to work a lot more than in the desert. I think 35000 kms with the same brakepads is fine. Again this depends on so many factors. I drive 55 kms to work and all on E611. Hardly need to use my brakes if i drive a bit "smart".

Some tips on how to extend the lifetime of your brakes and fuel: Plan your brakes: Anticipate the traffic or turn ahead of you to avoid hard braking. Always keep an eye on brake light of 3-4 vehicles ahead of you and leave the acceleration as soon they brake. This will give you enough time to slowly approach the braking vehicle and slow down your car with little or no brake. This conserve lot of fuel and also saves the brake pads and brake rotors/disc. Always keep a long enough following distance to the vehicle directly in front of you to avoid having to adapt your own speed to the traffic flow all the time. Maintain a following distance of at least four to five seconds to avoid continually having to brake and accelerate.

The Taiwan bushes should be perfectly fine and won't affect performance. These things are not rocket science. With lathe pressing they mean that they will take off the complete arm and use a hydraulic bench press to insert the bushes into the holes of the arm. This is recommended instead of hammering them in which would again damage the bushes and limit their lifetime. @shadow79 did my Pajero recently and the difference with the new bushes is amazing. Your brakes don't wear much from off-roading as we avoid using them in the desert as you'd get bogged in too easily. They wear from using them often, and that depends much on your driving style. Many people can't seem to read the traffic and keep driving hard until the last minute and then smash on the brakes. Not saying that you are one of those drivers but just stating that the biggest influence of brake wear is wheel alignment and driving behavior. How many miles did you do in those 18 months ? 1700 dirhams looks ok for these works.

Just start with the assumption that indeed no dealer can be trusted. You can take the cars for a test drive on the car market itself (within the premises) but you won't be able to take it on long stretches. But should be enough to assess the brakes, suspension, engine sounds, or others. You can also ask them to hook up the car to an OBD scanner to check for existing faults, and you can probably search via the VIN number if the car has been in an accident. I guess it all depends on the budget and the expectations. I bought my little Pajero on Ras Al Khor automarket and didnt want to pay too much because i knew that i'd have to throw another 5-10k at it to make it look and perform the way i wanted it. It's a buyers market now and they want to get rid of their cars so that gives you some leverage over the asking price. Just calculate as per the worst case scenario of costs you'd probably encounter on that car and make sure you are prepared and well informed in advance, so you can quickly see through all the bla bla bla from the dealer.

Have you tried the Ras Al Khor car market ? Be cautious and take a friend along to double check everything. I am not so fond of the Emirates auction thingy and i prefer to buy directly from an owner too. But if the prices is really low it might be worth considering. But don't get fooled by the low starting prices. Most auctions go pretty high and i've heard quite some horror stories about missing paperwork, extra costs (read the small letters)...

For the people that have some spare time, this link below is like the bible of recovery: http://www.pirate4x4.com/tech/billavista/Recovery/ The indicated mire resistances are even rather higher here than the previous article:

Thanks buddy. The tow capacity of a vehicle is a theoretical calculation of the load that a vehicle should be capable to tow, like a boat or a trailer. This is taking into consideration that the car should be able to be strong enough to take that load onto hills, so engine and transmission power comes into play. As you won't find a pulling capacity of a car on the OEM specs, i think it's safe to use the towing capacity as a good starting point. After all, the trailer hitch is also mounted to the engine frame, just as the towing or recovery points. It would definitely have helped to spread the total load over 2 side tow points to evenly distribute the total load. But again these are indications and ballpark numbers. My proposal would be in case of certain recoveries, to use the calculator as a kind of rating from easy to severe. In the classification of serious or severe, it becomes advisable to: 1) Spread the load between 2 tow points. 2) Use the towpoint safety straps. 3) Do a buildup of several small pulls. 4) Look for alternative solutions.

As we sometimes involve in off-road recoveries, i wanted to have a look at what the loads are when doing tows or recoveries in the desert with our vehicles. After all, we are all committed in working safely, and if i can speak for the Off-road club we constantly look at improving things as we should learn and keep learning. The biggest source of information on this topic can be found on the forums of companies and people who are working in the recovery and towing of heavy vehicles on the highways such as trailers, trucks, boats, and others. But the same calculation can be used for towing / recovering in the desert and is a good guideline to quickly calculate the TOTAL LOAD that will be involved before starting the recovery. The most important thing to calculate is the resistance of the vehicle to be towed. It is a well known rule that to pull a vehicle on asphalt, you only need to apply 5% of the total weight to move that vehicle. So for example if you'd push a Pajero SWB of 1600 kg on the road, it would take you 80kg to get it rolling. As you can probably imagine, the surface resistance is totally different on sand, and even worse when the wheels are buried in, and much worse if the car needs to be towed uphill. This is called the gradient resistance. What is resistance? Resistance is the amount of force required to move an object, given its condition and environment. It's written as a percentage of the weight that is being moved, which may be less than or more than the object's weight, depending upon conditions. That's because different surface environments, the condition of the load and the casualty, and terrain can increase or decrease resistance. Is the casualty stuck in mud? Do you have to move the casualty up hill? Both of these situations will increase the resistance to your efforts, and thus increase the amount of force you'll have to apply. So below the article i found that explains resistance: PS Disclaimer this article is taken from the certified training courses of Wreckmaster.com. I cannot take personal responsibility for the accuracy. There are 4 types of resistance encountered in our industry. ROLLING RESISTANCE MIRE RESISTANCE GRADIENT RESISTANCE DAMAGE RESISTANCE What is rolling resistance? Rolling resistance is the force it takes to move a rolling object, such as a wheel. (Remember when you were a kid and you coasted your bike down a hill? Eventually you'd slow down—and that's because of the forces that contribute to rolling resistance.) Forces that affect rolling resistance include deformation of the wheels, the surface the object is rolling on, wheel diameter, speed, and the load on the wheel. In the towing industry, we refer to a vehicle as either "rolling hard" or "rolling soft." A vehicle is considered "rolling hard" if it's sitting on a hard, flat, level surface such as concrete and has all of its tires inflated, wheels rolling freely, and its transmission in neutral. It requires 5% of the casualty's total weight to move something that's rolling hard. A vehicle is "rolling soft" if it's on a soft surface such as grass or gravel. It takes more force to move an object that's rolling soft—15% of the total weight of the casualty. TOTAL WEIGHT x 0.05 = "ROLLING HARD" RESISTANCE TOTAL WEIGHT x 0.15 = "ROLLING SOFT" RESISTANCE What is mire resistance? Mire resistance is created when a wheel or load is sunk into the dirt, gravel, mud, sand or other soft surface. The deeper it's sunk, the more force you'll need to move it. If it's sunk up to the lower part of the wheel ("tire mire"), you'll add an amount of force that's equal to 75% of the casualty's weight. If it's sunk up to the bottom of the wheel rims ("wheel mire"), add 100% of the casualty's weight. If it's sunk up to its body ("body mire"), add 150% of the casualty's weight. TOTAL WEIGHT x 0.75 = "TIRE MIRE" RESISTANCE TOTAL WEIGHT x 1.0 = "WHEEL MIRE" RESISTANCE TOTAL WEIGHT x 1.5 = "BODY MIRE" RESISTANCE What is gradient resistance? Gradient resistance is the force created by gravity when moving a load up or down a grade. It must be added or subtracted from the total surface resistance. Add it when you're moving the object uphill, and subtract it when you're moving the object downhill. TOTAL WEIGHT x 0.25 = RESISTANCE AT GRADIENT OF 15° TOTAL WEIGHT x 0.50 = RESISTANCE AT GRADIENT OF 30° TOTAL WEIGHT x 0.75 = RESISTANCE AT GRADIENT OF 45° What is damage resistance? Damage resistance is the force that resists the movement when the rolling object is damaged, for example, the wheels won't turn freely or the object has missing wheels. Damage resistance is always calculated at the same rate, regardless of surface conditions. It is two-thirds of the total weight of the object you're moving. TOTAL WEIGHT x 0.666 = DAMAGE RESISTANCE Using all the calculations above, we can calculate the total resistance required to move the casualty. HOW TO CALCULATE TOTAL RESISTANCE 1. Figure out the static weight of the load. The static weight includes all equipment, luggage, fuel, and anything else the vehicle may be carrying. You may need to adjust your static weight to compensate for weight transfer if there is more than one surface, for example the casualty is mired in mud and then will be on grass. The weight transfer number is added to the static weight, and it's calculated using the same gradient resistance numbers as we showed above (e.g. multiply static weight by 0.25 for a gradient of 15°). This adjusted number is the one you should use to calculate the surface and gradient resistance in step 2 and 3 below. 2. Calculate the surface resistance. The surface resistance is either rolling or damage or mire resistance, whichever is the largest number. 3. Add or subtract the gradient resistance. Add it if you're moving the casualty uphill. Subtract it if you're moving the casualty downhill. THREE SIMPLE EXAMPLES A 20,000-pound vehicle with four fully functioning wheels is to be towed up a 45° slope on a paved road. The total resistance would be (0.05 x 20,000) [surface resistance] + (0.75 x 20,000) [gradient resistance] for a total of 16,000 pounds of resistance. The same vehicle moved over a level grass surface would create much less resistance: (0.15 x 20,000) [surface resistance] + 0 [gradient resistance] for a total of 3,000 pounds. If the same vehicle became mired up to its body, the resistance would increase to 1.5 times its weight (1.5 x 20,000) [surface resistance] or 30,000 pounds of resistance. As above calculation is a bit tedious to do when you're standing in the middle of the desert sweating profusely and discussing with other members, i can highly advise you to install the APP called Wreckmaster, which has this calculator module built in. To have the app fully functioning the cost is around 90 dirhams. Than you can use the calculator with all functions. Once you start the app, you only need to fill in the vehicle static weight (includes fuel and equipment), and the angle of the slope. fill in 15° for uphill and -15° for downhill. Then choose the type of resistance (from hard surface to mire body depth, this means a vehicle which is completely buried up the chassis). 1* Hard grass, gravel, concrete.... 2* Soft grass, gravel 3* Damage 4* Mire tire depth ( a car little bit bogged down in the sand). 5* Mire wheel depth (a car where the wheels are buried in the sand). 6* Mire body depth (a care that has its body/chassis stuck on sand). In our Off-road scenarios, options 4,5,6 will be applicable. Let's try an example: A 1700 kg car is stuck and has to be towed on an uphill slope of 20°. The wheels are buried in (scenario 5). The result is that you will have a total resistance of 2409 kg. In that case, a car like Nissan Xterra that has a theoretical towing capacity design of 5000lbs or 2267 kg, is not designed to tow this vehicle upwards. Of course these values are merely an indication which have a safety margin, but it explains the total forces required to pull that vehicle upwards. The difference between towing and pulling/tugging is important, because the strain on the equipment is much higher because the total load presents itself in one peak, not in a gradual increase like you would have when towing or winching. I hope this article provides some clarification on the subject, the app might help us to quickly determine the total loads and severity of the situation.

This should explain: https://www.picknbuy24.com/column_263.html

Shogun is indeed the UK name. Montero is not smaller than the Pajero though, they are identical. The smaller sibling was the Pajero IO. The new montero sport is a different car of course

https://www.desertcart.ae/products/47075192 these are the magnetic pads I bought. I only have one thick black cable running along the side of the windshield that goes to the engine bay. Doesn’t bother me during the drive. I hook up the lights by using a regular three pin household power plug.

Hahaha that’s just the reason I crank up my volume. I always get anxious over every little squeak. I want my commute to be stress free. Being a big music fan, my only time and place to listen properly is my car.

http://shop.adventuredrivendesign.com/index.php?route=product/product&path=73&product_id=114 There is a growth of followers and enthousiasts on the Montero in North America due to its availability, low price, and capabilities as overland truck. I’m following lots of hem through my Instagram. It might be worth enquiring via these platforms. The Montero should be the same as Pajero, as the name was the only thing that didn’t got accepted in Spanish speaking countries 😂