Looper

A massive thanks to @Kailas to persist with the drive in spite of his troubles with the car. Even though the traction control was not working you did not let it show in the drive at all. Except for a lone time I had to tow you out you just had only one other refusal that you self recovered. I was behind at the him at the 2nd position. This was my first drive with new shoes. The BFG Goodrige 285/70R17s KO2s I installed just a few days ago. Following the footsteps of our Lead I haven't yet got any lift on the car yet, but will have it very soon. I had a mild issue of tyre rubbing but hopefully my next drive will be with a lift and won't face these issues. A weird thing was, I had not one but 2 pop-outs on my rear passenger side tyre. I am used to driving the manner I drove and never had any issues before. Took the car to the place where I bought the tyres and they cleaned and wheel balanced the tyres free of cost. Apart from that I had 3 refusals of which 2 I could self recover and for one I needed a bit of digging. I had to take 3 loops today because I slipped out of the track I was supposed to take. Yes, as I had declared on the drive, I changed my username to @Looper. @Thomas Varghese was behind me. He had an interesting first hour or so. Had to dig him out a couple of times and self recovered himself a couple of more. Had his fun time taking pictures obviously. Rest of us carry water in our front seats, he carries a suitcase full of camera gear. Thanks for those pictures, intermediate drives give hardly any time to take pictures. @Arman was driving at 4, and had a flawless drive until he crested his car behind me. That place was quite sharp and we had back to back crested cars. I hope you are feeling well now. @Niki round up the drive as the Sweep for this drive. As I mentioned during the drive, the convoy was so small that he was at a sweep position at #5, but if it ware a normal strength drive one might get to see center-forward about #6 or #7 position. We have driven three more times before, but never had as much interaction, and it was nice to catch up a bit today. The area we drove today was mostly new for me, and had not been to these areas. The last bit was the most promising and playful and perhaps we should have been driving from the beginning, but alas we could not, and could only see it while exiting safely. We drove for 60km which is higher than usual around this area. The drive time was 2:45 hours of total 4:33 hours, which was about the usual ratio have seen driving here. You can see the Gaia GPS recording from my device here.

Looks like 3 covid tests got wasted. This time I had no issues getting the results on the app, but luck would have its other plans. I had a problem with my car as well in the same drive that @Kailas had his troubles. The "Service 4WD" message got switched on. It drove normally but did not want to risk any issues for everyone else in the drive because of my faulty car and had to leave the convoy.

Just an update to this old old thread, looks like Ford started to deliver in US

Some problem has cropped up with the four wheel drive so I have to take my car to service centre. Unfortunately I have to leave the drive I hope you guys have fun.

🤞Looks like it is going to be exciting or not at all.

Congratulations @Lakshmi Narasimhan, well done 👌

Can you please put me in the waiting list? This will be the 2nd drive for the week

If it weren’t for all the hassle of tests etc, many from the north of E11 would be regularly be driving in the South.

I hate hot weather I can’t bear it at all. Continuing with @varunmehndiratta’s post; summer drives made me invested in quite a few stuff. Since I wanted to experience driving in the nights, I installed lights. But night drives drain you a lot. They take up so much energy and concentration, it’s ridiculous. Many might enjoy, but I personally like to limit my night drives to to early morning darkness or late evening darkness. Since I had fast deflator valves, deflation was not a issue like he had but inflation was. It was exhausting to hold on to the inflators for each tire. After inquiring a bit bought a 4 tire inflator, which made the job easier. Leaving the preparation issues sorted out, yes mornings are better time to drive than afternoon during Summer, for Sand in the afternoon is super soft and less experienced drivers see themselves having greater chance of facing refusals. Believe me, unless self recovered, digging sand or fixing pop outs in the afternoon is extremely unpleasant. Reason why I haven’t had many afternoon drives. In the winter seasons all that I did was mostly afternoon drives. In winter, another reason to afternoon drives is not to be bothered with fog situations. I wasn’t in town mid Feb till end March. In April tried everything a bit.

Congratulations @Chris Wing, well done 👍

Congratulations @Ishraque, glad to be driving with you on your first fewbie drive. You drove quite well today.

One thing for sure @ @Carnity we don’t see any vested interest of any kind whatsoever. The degree to which we remain neutral amazes me.

We drove for around 4 hours covering 57.46 km of which moving time was approximately 3 hours with a moving average of 83%. I did not stop the tracking app in time so the times are approximates. Gaia Maps recording for your review.

What a great drive we had today. Warmed up a bit in the early morning without any hiccups and as the day progressed @Kailas increased the level and everyone just went with it. We saw an excellent tutorial on ridge riding and crisscrossing with step by step increase in the difficulty making sure everyone was comfortably made it to the other side. I had an opportunity to brush up many of the necessary off-road skills including recoveries. Thanks to you @Kailas for this wonderful drive. @Darren Brooke, you were great in the sweep, you kept a keen eye on the convoy, and mostly it was you guiding others when they faced refusals. For the beast of a car that you drive, you are a superior driver, yes. Good to see you @Gaurav Soni, it was some time since I drove with you. It was wonderful of you to give relevant advices to other members. Your experience in overwhelming numbers of drives shows obviously. I learn a lot from you. @Anoop Nair Your ridge-riding was impeccable. I had driven with you on a couple of newbie drives in Tawi Nazwa, 2nd Dec Cafe area you have definitely have come a long way since then and were able to self recover both your refusals with guidance from @Darren Brooke. A piece of advice from is to go reverse as far as you can on a level to moderately inclined plane when you face refusals. I find reverseing is easier than trying to move forward. @Luc Khaldoun, this is our 2nd drive together and definitely you shown you are a lot more comfortable with your car. @Rawad & @Ishraque this was our first drive together and I had the privilege of towing you both today. You both had driven quite well today. @Adhir Saxena this was our 2nd drive. You seemed to be in an excited state at the back. I had my kid and his friends come along to give company. Back of my jeep is quite cramped, and makes someone new and not used to claustrophobic and sick due to the tinted glasses as well as a small bench. But unlike previous occasions we managed the issues quite well and they had good fun on this drive.

100% fact. Almost every Jeep gets upgrades. It’s just matter of time. And times comes for all.

We should have some rock crawling drives this winter.