Krishna R

Bead lock wheels add extra weight. Also, Bead locked tyres CAN pop out as well, albeit rarely. However, if it happens, the tyre will have to be discarded most of the time. As @Gaurav mentioned, if you are able to find the sweet spot of psi for your driving , coupled with good A/T tyres (thicker sidewall), you might not need bead locks.

Hello @CasperPL I was in the market for quite sometime to get a 4x4 that was more of an off roader than my Infiniti QX. I had wrangler, FJ and Xterra in mind. They were finalized as these cars have been tried and tested in the desert and they have huge online communities to help with mods, repairs, questions etc. My budget was 25K for the car and 5K to get it desert ready (maintenance, skid plates, bushings etc) After 3 months of researching and test driving, the below was my analysis. Please note It's my personal opinion only and not some expert recommendation based on technical research. Wrangler: Great car for the desert. Market is overloaded with used jeeps within the budget mentioned above. Finding a clean stock one was just impossible. Even the advertised "clean, lady driven" ones had leaks and overheating issues. Reliability isn't their main forte. I have seen almost new jeeps failing in the desert and we couldn't figure out the issue and fix it. Based on my research, many jeep owners complained of leaks, over heating and transmission issues. Took it off my list due to long term peace of mind. FJ: One of the best cars for the desert. It's rare to find any desert drive without an FJ in the convoy. That shows how good and reliable these cars are, for dune bashing. Hard to find GCC FJs in decent condition within 30K aed. In this budget, mostly you will find US spec, 300k+ ODO or heavily abused cars. With difflock, crawl control, a trac and 2 fuel tanks (In most of the models), you have a desert ready car in stock condition. Reliability is gold standard and you wont have any issues if its maintained periodically. Spares are aplenty and labour is cheap as well. Only con is would say is visibility from the drivers seat but that doesn't seem to put off many happy FJ owners. Took it off my list as a clean one was above my budget. Xterra: One of the few budget friendly offroad cars which is reliable with great performance as well. Market is flooded with used Xterras but finding a clean one takes time but not that hard. I test drove 20 xterras before buying mine. Again, try to get one in stock that hasn't been abused before. They are available, we need to look hard. Pros: Performance - the torquey 4.0 V6 is good for 260 HP in stock which is more than enough even for intermediate drives. Reliability - It takes a lot of work to destroy this car mechanically. Even so, spares and labour are cheap. Yes, sometimes spares aren't available in nissan spare parts but we can get genuine spares within a day. If not, sajja is loaded with xterra parts. The offroad model comes with rear difflock and a slightly better suspension. TBH, mine is an offroad model but I have hardly used the difflock twice in 20 drives. Visibility is decent. The car can be abused to a certain extent as compared to American makes. Do note that you will find models with 200K+ on the ODO under 20K aed, but as long as its maintained well, it is safe to buy them and make them roar for another 100K kms. I bought my Xterra from a marshall and it was already modified and was certainly abused, however, the engine still purrs like a cat on highways and roars when climbing dunes. Also, some pre 2009 models were affected by SMOD (Google: Xterra + SMOD) but I haven't heard this issue from Xterra owners in the GCC. As always, whichever car you buy, check for off road abuse and try to get a stock one as much as possible. The offroad season is almost over, so don't go by the price on dubizzle/fb marketplace, you can negotiate and reduce the price by ~30% from the listed price. If you need any additional info on Xterra, please share here!

Thank you @Sunil Mathew😊

Thank you @Hisham Masaad

Man. I dare you to do the hat trick drive. Take both the LC and the jeep and keep one on standby. In case one overheats, just jump on the other and continue the drive

Thank you @Davie Chase Thank you @Mahmoud TahaBro

Thank you @Joji varghese I can join you in intermediate drives now Thank you @GauravSoniBhai. Looking forward! Thank you @Looper Thank you @Gary F Its actually the morning drive in sweihan.

Bro. start with srikumar and end with gaurav soni. I had the same plan

Thank you @DP1011Bhai Thank you @Jaro Tuzinsky Yes, This weekend in Sweihan!

@Patrick van der Loo Congrats Patrick. lets tear up the desert together!

This sat in Sweihan buddy! ellam ungalidam kuditha yaanaipal manna!

Thank you @Gaurav My hands were itching for this. Thanks to all the marshalls and support team members for teaching me to offroad safely and to have made me reach this level. The Xterra is unleashed now! Can't wait

Final Update on my leaf springs, So, after I changed one of the leaf springs after the incident, I felt the car had more lift on one side and decided to service and re-camber both the springs. The shop guys basically dismantled it and took each leaf apart, cleaned them, made adjustments to camber and put them back together. The special bonus is they aren't squeaking anymore 😃 Also, the suspension guys told me that the rubber padding is of no use and does more harm than good. I waited to post this after 5 drives and so far so good. @Asif Hussain @Srikumar

@Looperunable to join tomorrow. see you next weekend. Thankfully I did not let anyone lose their chance from the wait-list.

Way to go @Felix Obst Enjoy the new level. looking forward to driving with you soon. As you said, the last drive felt like an intermediate drive!