Took the Pajero out toward Al Qudra last Friday night just to get away from the city noise and honestly the sand was way choppier than I remembered from last winter, probably because of all the heat lately drying everything out into a washboard nightmare. Didn’t do anything crazy, no dune bashing or flying off crests, just cruising the flatter tracks for a couple hours but now I’ve got this dull thud coming from the front passenger side whenever I go over even a small speed bump in the Marina parking garage. It’s not a squeak, it’s more of a heavy knock like something’s loose and it’s driving me up the wall trying to diagnose it without taking it to a garage that’ll just tell me I need a whole new everything. I’m starting to think I might finally be dealing with genuine off road driving suspension wear issues because the car has 140k on the clock and I’m guilty of not really babying the bushings after those gritty drives. I was poking around online trying to see if it’s just a sway bar link or something more expensive like the lower control arm and stumbled on an article on thedubaiweb that basically said these exact symptoms are super common here with the sand and heat combo. Anyone else had this specific type of noise where it’s fine on the highway but sounds broken the second you hit uneven pavement? Really hoping it’s just the link because I was not budgeting for shocks this month.
