Zed

On 6/1/2021 at 6:03 PM, Jerry Han said:

Hi, i just did my 1st sand dune bashing last week. Rear bumper came out halfway. I was already warned by Frederic before it happens haha. I am looking for recommendations for garage in abu dhabi to install a rear skid plate. Pls PM me or WA me at 547441806

hi @Jerry Han i think recommending garages are now discouraged in forums, so I will WhatsApp you as I live in Abu Dhabi and know some offroad garages. I had some Pajero friends who'd done it too...

Thank you for the Duo Leads @Vanessa8580 & @Srikumar, you both might start a trend now: with 1 focused on driving and the other on communications & Gaia-checking 😄 Thank you also to @Luca Palanca Falsini who was like an ambulance, always rescuing the princess in her royal crest venture 👍🏻 Score today, Luca 2 vs Shovel 0 😂 Also the Sweeper who has to have the most patience watching 10 cars go before he could step on the gas Mr @Ruan van den Heever 😊 Great drive everyone, Sri was right we had to bring our A-game... this felt like Ultimate Fewbies: lots of tall-climbing and more fast-paced 👍🏻  Great way to test my mods and check for Return-on-Investment 😂

22 minutes ago, Warren Flay said:

Special mention for @Zed whose monster hydrocarbon smashing luxury barge smashed the path flat for me whilst spewing oxides of nitrogen right and left. Was fun to watch.

Radio-talk:

Z: "Look up can you see my 3 meters Red Flag hoisted from the roof rack?"

W: "Negative"

Z: "Look down can you see a track left by a pair of 285s and a sand stamp 'V8 was here'" ?

W: "Affirmative, convoy now moving" 😂

1 hour ago, Jerry Han said:

Hi, I am new to UAE and offroad driving.  Does car warranties here in general cover damages as a result of sand dune bashing?

Welcome @Jerry Han, first if it's caused by accident, the Insurance will cover it, especially if car is still under mortgage the first 3 years have to be Agency Repair, so in any case it will be repaired by the Agency.

Second if it happens after the accident & repairs, the general answer is "It Depends" as usually they will first raise it for approval. Some magic happens in the backend and then you'll find out 😄 But lemme tell you my story: my Nissan Patrol 2019 is still under warranty for 3 years, when the windows could only come down but never go back up (regulator or motor issue), first they asked "Didn't you have offroad accident before?" To which I replied, "Yes but the car is still under warranty" 😊 And then later I got new regulators for all my 4 windows 😁

Was browsing Ace last time and saw AOR's 2T Jack selling for AED 150 with a nice casing 

7 minutes ago, Srikumar said:

You can still join as there is space available. 

yeah bro @Lakshmi Narasimhan , we may need your winch again  *oh nooooooooo 😆

Thank you for not cancelling @Tamas Hoffmann and thank you @Srikumar for stepping in 👍🏻 Looking forward tomorrow morning for the drive 😊

On 5/26/2021 at 12:22 PM, Hisham Masaad said:

 

Dear @Hisham Masaad very nice of you to offer the community 👍🏻 If we're on the same drive, can I check the thickness of it? If it's thicker than my current Ikea chopping boards, I might gift the old chopping boards to the wife and take your offer 😅

On 5/30/2021 at 7:06 PM, Warren Flay said:

WooHOO! The Sweihan fan club meets again!

Well after seeing you're more agile than before in driving your newly-modded Pajero bro @Warren Flay, I "mistakenly" deleted my Cat too, and we'll see on Friday if it "relieves" my car and is more efficient in getting rid of these gases from the engine too 😅

On 4/20/2021 at 9:00 AM, Wade Pat2 said:

If you read this far you may think I am crazy to spens this money on such an old car.

Ain't crazy bro, try buying the cheapest LC200 you can find versus cheapest LC100 + mods, a very different & satisfying feeling to get LC100 on the cheap and able to customize it to your liking 😄

Thanks @Frederic for the opportunity, after the trip my wife asked me for the photos, and after post-processing I showed her the below shots... then she asked why can't I get the moon bigger, and I replied "1. Need to buy 600mm lens,  2. This 12MP is just good for video, for still photos I need the 40MP+ one"  then she replied "Your photos are good enough, no need to upgrade" 😂😂😂

3 minutes ago, Lakshmi Narasimhan said:

First drive in Abudhabi and Sweihan, looking forward to meet you all friends from AUH and have a fun drive together!!!

I will have to wake up mid night to come from Sharjah!!!

From Sharjah! You my friend got my respect ✊🏻😊. So I guess the Marshal must be amazing that he's worthy to follow, or Sweihan is calling to the dune-lovers, or both! 😁

Rest well marshal @Tbone, to be at 4am in Abu Dhabi looks like you gotta leave Dubai after midnight 😂 Looking forward for reunion with some Abu Dhabi regulars tomorrow 😊

15 hours ago, Anoop Raj said:

Please let me know from where to buy good quality 360 cam and arm suction cup?

hi @Anoop Raj , for 360cam go for the well-knowns (Insta360, GoPro Max) and as to where, check out physical shops like GrandStores, Carrefour, etc. they might still have Eid sale! Then compare with onlines like Noon & Amazon. If you want quality & cheap, you can buy mine as I want to upgrade to the 1" sensor one but Wife Policy says I gotta get rid of the old one first 😂 (see first pic below)

for the Arm Suction Cup, watch this video minute 2:12 >>  Triple Arm Suction Cup for Insta360 to get the idea on how to mount it, then use query "Triple Arm Suction Cup" on Amazon, Noon, etc. 

As for me, for stronger support than suction cup, I will use the same trick as my flag pole, go to the welding shop and ask to put another flag bracket on my roof rack, this time with the 1/4" screw to fit the Insta360 Stick (see second pic below).

Insta 360 One X (production year 2019)

Planning to add 1/4" screw to roof rack to hold Insta360 Selfie Stick

9 hours ago, Ehab said:

Enjoy the video

These are nice videos @Ehab! Next mod for me is to install Insta360 and Triple-Arm suction cup 😅

2 minutes ago, Chaitanya D said:

@Zed, I would say getting stuck is way safer than flying.

ah true, i meant to say flying "a bit", not like Fast & Furious style of course 😂

But yes, once you find the balance, you won't fly crossing the dunes even a tiny bit 😁

10 hours ago, Farouq Owdeh said:

@Zed long time man 😆

yeah bro @Farouq Owdeh, Ramadan was a restful month, then came these Ramadan & Eid offers garages are making, so I decided it was a good time to send my car for some upgrades and service checks 😂😂 But now enough resting and thinking, time to get back into the sand 😁 Looking forward to meet you and others after so longggg 🤙

1 hour ago, Sunil Mathew said:

Thanks for all the shovelling and shoving by @Zed and others, who i could neither meet personally post drive nor know  by name, apologies for not tagging you guys!! I am definitely indebted , and shall make it a point to payback to the community, once and if i get opportunities.

No worries @Sunil Mathew, it's a team-sports so we're glad to help whenever we can & have the tools. I offered to tug back with rope, but the Dr. prescribes that you should learn self-recovery 😅, so hope you learned something yesterday ☺️  I know we're in the same rank, but here I'm just sharing my tips I learned over the months to avoid that cresty-sticky situation:

1. When I was driving the Y62 Patrol, for some reason sometimes there's hesitation at the feet when going over dune. Maybe it's the scaryness of flying, or maybe afraid to wreck the car. To overcome this, just visualize you're driving an old car (don't be afraid to wreck it), and flying's a bit better than getting stuck. This will push your feet to the pedal and not let go during that crucial moment.
          
2. Be one with your car. This sounds like a Yoda trick, but after hours of driving the same car, you can "feel" what your car is going through: from the right-foot, to the right-leg, to the brain, "feel" and process these inputs. It helps to put the driver-window down when practicing: when the car is losing power, there's that specific sound the engine's making and you can feel the "loss of power" through your foot, then in split-seconds decide whether to put more gas pedal or if pedal's already maxxed out, accept the fact that you didn't have enough momentum and stop to reverse and try again. Forcing the car when it's already crying "i don't have enough power" usually is when I get stuck 😁

43 minutes ago, Frederic said:

@Zed one spot has become available. Please acknowledge if you can attend. Thanks !

Thanks for informing Ranjan, appreciated. 

Acknowledged @Frederic, sorry just finished night drive with Dr Chaitanya 😊

Wohoo finally I get to registered first after so many events 😂

3 hours ago, Anoop Raj said:

Please provide the frequency number for radio

Doctor's on Fire 😅 Dear @Anoop Raj please save below Photo of Carnity Frequency Table in your iCloud/GDrive and it's Channel 1 today 😊

Confirmed got my car back from garage @Chaitanya D, i'm gonna make up for missing yesterday's drive ☺️ @Wade Pat2my LC-twin, see you tomorrow bro! 🤙

4 hours ago, Frederic said:

Small request to the members who have not joined a Photography session with us yet. Can you please let us know which model of camera and lenses you have, and if you have some experience in using the camera in manual mode ? This will help us in preparing for the event.

Hi @Frederic I have Sony A7S II mirrorless, its main use is for Videography but the max ISO of 409,600 is good enough for night photography. Right now I use adjustable lens 24-105mm for daily photo, regretted selling my Carl Zeiss f/1.4 and Leica SummiLux as I missed those wide aperture lens that can see more light and useful for night photography 😂

I only shoot Manual, here's a photo I took of the Atlantis in manual https://www.instagram.com/p/BmiumFAgQuH/?utm_medium=copy_link There's some more of manual shots on my IG page too...

Below is my current setup:

1 hour ago, Frederic said:

Drive Report

...but no doubt all of us will be back in AD soon to taste those dunes again and do some exploration. Stick around guys as we Dubai peeps are totally in love with the Abu Dhabi terrain. 

See you soon !

 

Looking forward to meet you Dubai peeps next week again 😁

19 minutes ago, Chaitanya D said:

Thank you @Frederic for taking over when my car rear diff made some metal noise immediately after start. sad i missed the fun in sweihan and exited early. 

whoa, hope everything ok there @Chaitanya D, and it's just needing Differential Oil change. If the noise gets louder when you accelerate, then it may be the differential bearing... hopefully it's the former tho 🤞🏻

5 minutes ago, Karthikeyan Govindarajan said:

 

@Zed You just missed it. Thats all I can say. Amazing adventurous trip by @Chaitanya D

I know bro @Karthikeyan Govindarajan, that is why I always sign-up if Dr @Chaitanya D is coming to Abu Dhabi... lesson learned for me is: when the Doctor is coming, hold & don't send your car to garage 😂😂😂