Tire Pressure

[PinzEOD]

I came across this little article today. It gives a pretty good explanation of why lower tire pressures work.

http://www.4x4now.com/sfjun96.htm

Sorry if it's been posted before.

[crawler#976]

...way back in 1984 a bunch of us hauled the then trendy 3 wheelers to Puerto Penasco for Easter weekend. Those of us with bikes headed down the beach, the guys with trucks were to meet us near the old shrimp farms. They drove down to the beach with no problem, but got stuck as soon as they headed back up to the road. Three trucks stuck...

I told'm to air down, but they didn't think it would work - typical AZ guys that didn't know how to deal with beach sand. I'd recently gotten out of the US Coast Guard, so I was at least a little familiar with soft sand. Ended up heading back to town to get help on the scooters, came back with a beat Jeep Wagoneer on bald street tire at about 5 psi. The cords were showing on 3 of 4...

He hooked up to each truck and drug'm back up to the road with no problem and said "Senors, next time let some air out of your tires"...


...then collected his 30 bucks each.



:rofl:

[xxxpedition]

one of the beaches in australia i was too lacy letting the air out for just a short piece of sand. there was a dune i knew i could tackel but failed. with lower pressure it was a breeze.

i would actually recommend that!!!
try a dune with full inflated tires and then notice the huge change once you deflate... pretty amazing.

[WhiteThaiGer]

That article by Harry is a classic.

one of the beaches in australia i was too lacy letting the air out for just a short piece of sand. there was a dune i knew i could tackel but failed. with lower pressure it was a breeze.

i would actually recommend that!!!
try a dune with full inflated tires and then notice the huge change once you deflate... pretty amazing.


I agree, it's a very powerful experiment. It's exactly what we did on a trip led by Harry. Incidentally, that was the trip when I meet a number of the starting members of the forum for the first time and saw OziExplorer in action for the first time. Two weeks later I also had Ozi running in my truck:supercool:

[eurorom]

I agree, when i went to Puerto Penasco for the first time I took the trail by the railroad, and it takes you the the beach on some areas, well the sand was deep and it help when i went down to 15psi!

Day and night difference.:blush:

[xxxpedition]

very fitting avatar eurorom... :-)))

anyway, a guy i worked with is a rookie and gotstuck somewhere in nevada. a long walk and $800 later he had his truck recovered by a tow truck. i asked if he aired down. answer: 'no'
i bet it would have helped him out. he said it was just a matter of inches.

[WhiteThaiGer]

....
anyway, a guy i worked with is a rookie and gotstuck somewhere in nevada. a long walk and $800 later he had his truck recovered by a tow truck. i asked if he aired down. answer: 'no'
i bet it would have helped him out. he said it was just a matter of inches.

I saw a report once from Australia where a couple from Europe got stuck in a remote area. She tried to walk out and died, he was rescued after a few weeks (plenty of water where they were stuck). Sad part: The rescue crew just aired down and drove the truck out...

[xxxpedition]

yep, the couple was from austria. i thought that the problem was that they put in in 4wd but didn't lock the hubs...
but that's 10 years ago or so, so who knows.

[MrS]

I came across this little article today. ......

Thats cool. :ok-kewl: Brings back some fond memories, I sure miss Harry’s newsletters.

Thanks for posting that.

[JackSilb]

I gave an example to Uwe, Al, and Bob while back in El Golfo. Got stuck going up a sand hill after saying that a class for sand driving was for wimps.
Got out, got air out, drove out.

-JACK

[David A. Wright]

I used to never air down. Used to think it was more bother than it is worth.

About three years ago I tried to climb a sandy hill near my house, which was steep and had plenty of staggered whoop-de-doos. Roger Mitchell's SUV guide has a chapter on the trail I was climbing and said that the particular hill may require letting air out to climb it.

I tried twice to climb it without success, even with the rear diff locked up. I dropped my tire pressure 10psi. Drove to the top of the hill like I was on dry pavement.

Made a believer out of me. Now I always drop my tire pressure to 18-20psi whenever venturing off road.