Sherpas don’t climb Mount Everest in business shoes, and the tyre pressures your D-MAX or MU-X uses for the highway are no good on the sand. Sadly, this doesn’t stop many off-road novices from trying to take on the beach with road tyres pumped up to 40PSI.
This can be good for a laugh later, around the barbecue, and even better to make new friends (when you rescue them), but it’s usually not their fault. Indeed, many rookie off-roaders haven’t ever thought about how much air they have in their rubber – nor equipped themselves with a tyre-pressure gauge, which is the most important tool in the 4WD warrior’s kit (and one of the cheapest).
Here’s the gist.
In a nutshell, partly deflating your tyres gives them more surface area on sand, or ‘footprint’. That equals increasing traction, giving your car less work to do, and ultimately reducing that sinking feeling. In time, experience will teach you how much to adjust your rubber for different terrains. But I have been off-roading since before Ben-Hur bogged his first chariot, so my advice is, instead, to learn from my mistakes.
Here’s your definitive figures:
-
20PSI/140kPa. That’s around a 30 per cent reduction, and a good starting point for firm sand.
-
15PSI/100kPa. Really soft sand: eg. wave-scalloped little rolling hills.
-
Emergency pressures: 12PSI/82kPa, 10PSI/70kPa…or maybe even 6PSI/40kPa if the tide is coming in but you’re not getting out.
Two big caveats: it’s easy to cook your tyres with less air. At 20psi, don’t go over 60km/h. At 15PSI or less, stick below 25km/h. And I mean it, because the second consideration is rolling your tyre off the rim, a low-tyre-pressure pitfall, also known as a very bad day (especially when that tide line is getting closer to your door sills).
Enjoy the beach! And enjoy being right about tyre pressures.
