The build and servicing

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When we bought the car it had a half decent service history but hadn't been serviced for 12,000 miles. So we'll service it ourselves, replace everything you would do on a major service and then some. We'll make some other changes to make it more suitable for the varied terrains we'll be crossing.

As well as all the service items we need some roof rails, a roof cage, fuel carriers, satnav, sat phone, radios, recovery traction tracks and a bunch of other stuff.

We've reduced the size of the alloys from 21" to 18", got a super deal on ebay from a guy on the Isle of Wight. We've put Toyo Open Country AT Plus 265/65r18 on all corners. Give they are narrower than the stock tyres we've for 32mm spacers on the back and 28mm on the front. 

£1,500 for a brand new set of side rails would eat into our budget so we found a second hand set on ebay for £100. They were a bit tatty so they got sent off for sand blasting and powder coating.

We've had trouble with the Cayenne not starting on first turn of the key. It's a recognised problem with Cayennes so whip of the air intake and injector rail and with a bit of "persuasion" the starter motor comes out. Replaced it with a new one as it wasn't much more expensive that a recon one.

A typically overlooked service item are the hydraulic reservoirs for the power steering and PDCC. The reservoirs have filters in them and the whole thing should be changed every 60,000. Given the discolouration of the plastic of our reservoirs we're guessing they've never been done.

It would be foolish to try and drive 10,000 to China without changing the serpentine belt. Imagine getting into France and the belt goes, would be  way too embarrassing. 

Seems sensible to change the water pump while we have the top half of the engine in pieces and the belt off.

A messy job at the best of times so we sent the car off to a garage to have oil, brake fluid, gearbox oil and hydraulic fluids changed. 

We've changed the cabin filter (which looked like it had never been changed) and we upgraded from the standard air filters to some K&N ones.

We've bought the new discs and pads but will change what we have after the shake down as there's plenty of bite left in them.

There will be some days where fuel stations are few and far between so we've gone for a couple of 30 litre cans to give us the extra range.