Pajero Owners Club of South Africa

Hi guys

Did my first trip out to Atlantic Dunes last weekend with some friends. We are all pretty green when it came to driving in the dunes (some of the guys were at AD before, but only as passengers).

Was feeling quite nervous to go (guess I have read too many trip reports about guys struggling in the Namib dunes); but once you've gone up and over the first dune, the nerves start to disappear and it becomes great fun.

The good:

- Great scenery, great time with friends, great spot to have some fun with you 4x4.

The bad:

- One of the guys unfortunately did have an accident. We were there for about an hour, and he went back to drop his wife and son off at the entrance (his son had a party later that morning). It was still early, and there was a bit of glare on the dunes, and what he thought was a flat stretch of sand turned out to be about a 2m drop. The car (Subaru Forester) went nose-first into the ground - grill was torn off, bonnet bent, radiator bent (but not broken). Luckily they were all wearing seatbelts, nobody was hurt and he was able to drive the car out.

- On the Pajero's performance: Let's just say that the 2.8 diesel / 4-speed auto combination is not ideal for the dunes. Biggest problem is the high gearing of the 4-speed box; it makes it really difficult to get the power down and build up momentum. If you don't have a long run-up to built up momentum, then things can get a bit tricky on the taller / steeper dunes.

- Didn't take enough photo's (guess my mind was more on driving than looking for good photo ops).

Cool, glad you had fun

Atlantis Dunes is a fun place!

At certain times of the day, at certain angles, you get "dune blindness". It can get tricky to see what's ahead!

Glad to see nobody was injured.

As for the unhappy face, I've been there before. Just take off the plate, have it straightened and have some angle iron welded to the inside.

Haven't had an unhappy face since the mod.

Nico.

PS What pressure were you running your tyres at? Were you running in low range or high range?

Not an interrogation, just curious.

Thanks for the invite Jaco... we'll remember that

There are enough of us old hands to have helped with a few pointers. One of which is it's not a great idea to drive the dunes on a bright sunny day when the sun is high...

Glad you had fun though...

ghost_traffic wrote:Glad to see nobody was injured.

As for the unhappy face, I've been there before. Just take off the plate, have it straightened and have some angle iron welded to the inside.

Haven't had an unhappy face since the mod.

Nico.

PS What pressure were you running your tyres at? Were you running in low range or high range?

Not an interrogation, just curious.

Thanks for the tip.

Re the tires, started off at 1.2 bar, later let it down to 1 bar. I have Continental World Contacts on; the side walls seem to be quite stiff, even when I had it down at 1 bar some of the guys were saying it looks like I haven't deflated the tires at all.

Started off in Drive / 4Hlc, but left it in Drive / low range for most of the day - just seemed to pull better in that mode.

Jaco.

1 bar is too hard. You should be at 0.8 for AD. Especially when it is hot and dry.

SimonB wrote:Jaco.

1 bar is too hard. You should be at 0.8 for AD. Especially when it is hot and dry.

Hmmm, that would explain why I started to struggle in the afternoon...

Thanks Simon, I'll bear that in mind for the next trip.