Let’s talk tire pressures. Probably one of the most understated performance improvements you will experience in your 4×4 or tow vehicle. You don’t want to be the 4wd at the front of a convoy holding everybody up crawling through the sand. Or absolutely flogging your 4wds engine trying to get through.
Why should you let down your tires and what exactly does it do?
When you deflate your tires, you are increasing the surface area of the tire that makes contact with the terrain. The foot-print of your tyres will increase in length and width. For example, deflating your tires from 40psi to around 13psi will effectively double your tires surface area.
This increases your ability to cruise comfortably through the sand, get extra traction on that tough 4×4 track, improve your ride for corrugations or give you that extra control when towing.
It is undoubtedly the best value for money (free) performance increase you will experience when off road, or on road.
Like everything there are always variables that will change what pressure you require, like weight, tire size, tire type etc. We’ll cover off a good starting point for most scenarios below.
What is the best tire pressure for beach driving?
If you leave your tires inflated at highway pressure when driving on sand you are putting all the weight of your rig on the smaller surface area presented by inflated tires. If you deflate your tires, you will be distributing that weight across a much larger surface area allowing your rig to stay up on top of the sand without sinking in.
As a starting point 20psi is a great all-round pressure for starting your beach driving adventure for a single vehicle. If you find the sand is a lot softer like what you find at K’gari (Fraser Island) then you might want to start at 18-16 and go down from there if required. I’ve gone down as low as 12psi to get me through some very soft spots. You don’t want to start too low, it is always a risk rolling a tire out of its bead doing so, so my advice is to start a little hire and play around with it from there.
Don’t be afraid to experiment, the difference between 18psi and 12 psi might seem trivial but it will make a huge difference in sand!
Some national parks will advise you of a minimum pressure to start with before the beach entrance, always follow the advice.
What about if I’m towing a camper trailer or trailer?
Again, there are too many variables to list. But as a general rule of thumb for a trailer that is not too heavily loaded, I would start with the same pressure as the tow vehicle. owing a heavy load such as a caravan, you may need to increase the tire pressure to compensate for the additional weight. This can help ensure that the tires don’t overheat and wear prematurely, which can be dangerous. Generally, start 3-5 psi above the tow vehicle.
In the sand, the previous applies, try for 20psi in the tow vehicle and 20-25psi in the Caravan or Trailer.
This will be a lot of trial and error to work out what is best for your setup. As always contact the tire or Caravan manufacturer, they will have a template or standard tire pressures that are applied to all Caravans and tow vehicles.
What tire pressure should I use in the Mud, or on something like the Telegraph track?
Again, alot of variables are at play here. We recently did the Tele track, one of the most challenging 4×4 experiences that Australia has to offer.
We took our trust D’max that was loaded to just shy of its GVM (2,950kg). On the corrugated roads leading up to the start of the Tele track we had the tires set to 25psi to ease the pain of the corrugated roads and make for a more comfortable trip.
When we got started on the Tele track we deflated our tires to 18psi and that was suitable for nearly every water crossing, mud patch or rock climb that we encountered. The only deviation from this was the formidable Nolans Brook. To counter the extremely sandy bottom of the crossing we let our tires down to 10psi.
So our recomendation is to start at 18psi and see how you go from there. We were using Bridgestone K02 tires with a fairly robust sidewall.
Conclusion
As I said previously there is no ‘silver bullet’ to tackle tire pressures.
Assess your setup, load, tire profiles and sidewall height and start at a safe tire pressure range and go down/up from there once you see how the performance goes, you will be surprised the difference a few psi can make!
Let us know your thoughts on tire pressures.
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