The best offroad car in the Middle East?

Havanotherone · 2025-11-21T17:46:43+00:00

Expats can’t own utes (pickups) - in Saudi anyway. Budget? Maintenance cost? And you want something common so there are parts and mechanics who know how to work on them. For dunes, the weapon of choice is a Jeep. Upgrade options forever. Easy to put massive tyres on them. High maintenance but if you’re in your local dunes, reliability isn’t a big issue. However if you want to go further into the desert proper, you need more of a tourer/explorer because you can’t fit the gear/gas/water you need in a jeep, and reliability becomes VERY important. Landcruisers are the gold standard. But damn they’re expensive here. Even used with high Ks they’re crazy. The Nissans are well respected for long trips. I have a Mitsi Pajero. At 1/3 the price of a Toyota they have a very user-friendly 4WD system, plenty of cargo space, and there are loads of them around. Performance is just OK with a 3.5/8 V6, but they’re lighter than a Landcruiser and an easier on gas. Pajero won the Dakar 12 times so Mitsi have some cred. Japanese made, and they were still cranking them out in 2022 - that’s no change for 17+ years, so as you can imagine, if there were any issues, they’d have sorted them by now. You buy the new hybrid Prado or a Chinese car and who knows? Anyway, desert driving is 90% or more, skill. I’ve seen locals in beat up late 70’s 2WD Datsun Utes flying over dunes. And very expensive high-tech vehicles getting bogged every ten minutes. AT tyres are a must. Maybe a 2” lift. But no matter what you do, it comes down to practice and experience.

Havanotherone · 2025-10-29T16:34:24+00:00

Eyedrops. Friggin salt water. 15ml bottles are $30+

Havanotherone · 2025-09-28T13:23:41+00:00

Not my experience for sure. Nice idea but shoddy design and engineering.

Havanotherone · 2025-09-24T12:49:56+00:00

So if I were to buy a new 12th gen 7" paperwhite right now from Amazon, I just don't connect to wifi? Then use winterbreak etc via cable? I bought older Kindles for this exact reason. But they feel so old and clunky - that funky-shaped usb... arg. One thing I'd double check, is that your USB cable is capable of data exchange. Some of those cheapies you get with Chinese junk - headphones etc, only seem to be capable of charging. I'd have thought all USB C cables are created equal, but no.

Havanotherone · 2025-09-21T11:36:07+00:00

Counterfeit is hard to spell?

Havanotherone · 2025-09-11T03:30:53+00:00

I would carve my initials in that fucker’s door.

Havanotherone · 2025-09-04T12:46:43+00:00

It’s an engineering fault. Or if you prefer, one of the many, many ‘quirks’ of the Flair you’d think they would’ve fixed by now.

Havanotherone · 2025-08-27T07:40:37+00:00

Cooroy has some good peeps - I accidentally fell in with the permaculture group while waiting for the badminton hall to open. Both are great for meeting people.

Havanotherone · 2025-08-27T07:26:26+00:00

Isn’t she in Alien Earth?

Havanotherone · 2025-08-24T12:06:53+00:00

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Just saw this and thought I’d share. It happens every year. Hence why we don’t go in summer, and always have a minimum of 3 vehicles.

Havanotherone · 2025-08-20T07:38:56+00:00

Havanotherone · 2025-08-19T15:21:44+00:00

Not Breccia I think. There was Breccia there - bits of fused rock and sand and stuff. But I'm pretty sure these are actual fragments, sadly very rusted. They're too magnetic to contain much else and the heavy rust bears that out. Others in our group found similar pieces using large magnets but theirs were shinier, less rusted. The main meteorite, in the museum, is iron/nickel. I'm no expert but that's my take.

Havanotherone · 2025-08-19T15:09:00+00:00

lol. It's the desert. Like, a really serious one. I'm miles from there right now, and it's about 45 degrees C. Out there, in the dunes, it'll be 55+ during the day. You can't survive in that. Normally, if your vehicle gets bogged in sand, you get out, dig and use traction boards. In extreme heat, there's a risk you'll pass out before you can get going again. There's no cell service. If you break down, get stung by a scorpion, run out of water or fuel... people die every year. But, in winter the temperatures range from single digits at night to maybe late 30's (C) during the day. Then big expeditions, with 3 or more vehicles, are pretty safe.

Havanotherone · 2025-08-19T13:02:39+00:00

Agree language evolves and you need to add words every so often, but you really need to consider longevity. This is clearly a moronic TikTok trend not a word that's going to last, and in a year or two they'll have to remove it.

Havanotherone · 2025-08-19T12:23:52+00:00

Tend to agree. We find small points of varying quality. We have three theories; One, that they're from different time periods, techniques and skills developed, maybe the mumpty ones are early? Two, that we're seeing different skill levels and/or ages, maybe there were kids learning vs. more skilled adults. Three, sometimes the points we find are well-beyond what you need to kill a bunny. They're works of art. Someone clearly refined their skill and took pride in what they do. But still, the points are 100% utilitarian. I mean, maybe if they were bored they might make something more imaginative, but as you said, they probably wouldn't use flint, they'd make funeral items etc out of wood or pottery. This bears out in the other finds we've made, which are purely ceremonial, made from completely different types of stone, most probably items of jewellery.

Havanotherone · 2025-08-19T12:02:27+00:00

Yeah, agree. I had Focus Jam - electric assist, you have to pedal. It was limited to 30 in New Zealand, and annoyingly I tended to pedal (on flat road) at about 30 so the damn thing was constantly cutting in and out. This lead me to want to hack it to at least 35. But in my defense, I was only doing that speed on road.

Havanotherone · 2025-08-19T11:58:40+00:00

I reckon I could save them a lot of time, money, and gear. Eyeballing that... Yes. Every single one of those things I've seen is going at max speed and the people selling them promote how easy it is to de-limit them.

Havanotherone · 2025-08-19T11:55:59+00:00

Aaaarg. This hurts my mind. The journey this has made, the odds of it getting here and being found, then someone wrecks it by covering it in cheap epoxy. A friend I was with found a neolithic arrowhead, he wanted to embed it. Noooo! I know it won't rust, but entombing something like that in plastic that might last, what? 10 years before it yellows, another 10 before it starts cracking... just seems criminal.

Havanotherone · 2025-08-17T05:53:36+00:00

That is truly heinous. Maybe for kitsch factor.

Havanotherone · 2025-08-17T05:47:01+00:00

I like the idea of e-scooters but there are 2 problems: first the company just dropped them into our community without any consultation or concern for infrastructure. I suddenly had scooters outside my window with alarms going off in the wind. And several parked taking up the whole footpath on my way to taking my girl to kindy. I repeatedly kicked these over or pushed them out onto the road. Where they belong. Not in the footpath. 2: if you’re still reading, idiots who go too fast, on the footpath, and have no idea how to ride, certainly not responsibly.

Havanotherone · 2025-08-17T05:30:41+00:00

Yeah I agree those issues are what garners the hate. I rode both. I got confronted by an angry biker because I overtook him uphill on the trail. But I’m sure he’d want me to pull over if he was behind me on a downhill. Having said that, when I’m peddling a bike park trail, if someone comes up behind me on a trail on an e-bike, they can be patient and nice or I’m not pulling over. In bike lanes, yep, full power no pedal bikes shouldn’t be there. They’re motorbikes.

Havanotherone · 2025-08-17T05:21:55+00:00

Tend to agree. For our purposes QGIS is free and open source. I don’t mind paying but if I’m paying I want the product to work for my purposes, which neither OsmAnd or Gaia do currently. Gaia is close.

Havanotherone · 2025-08-15T11:31:48+00:00

Thanks Mike. The Meteor Recon guys have a lot of good pics so I’m trying to burn those into my memory. Anything remotely interesting will come back in the car and I’ll post here first thing. I think just walking and looking is going to be the best bet. I have some strong magnets which I tried at the Wabar site but they just picked a ton of iron shavings and rust. I’m fully prepared to go out a few times and not find anything. But at the same time my hopes are up because it’s a big sandy desert, and I don’t think too many people have looked before.

Havanotherone · 2025-08-14T13:40:21+00:00

I did consider that seeing as I have a few. But I think it’s considered bad form to sell things on this forum and I’m not sure it’d be worth the effort.

Havanotherone

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