driving in sand

[georg]

I have a new 200 Lounge V8 diesel European specifications with some 5000 km on the odometer. I live in Mauritania/Nouakchott where roads are an even mix of good asphalt, bad asphalt and non asphalted roads. Rarely drive more than 100km/h and most of the time drive in town slow traffic or on sand dunes or soft/deep sand at the beach. The car usually drives well in sand with normal 4x4 and on the beach I usually put H4 sand mode . However, the car often digs itself in the sand , especially at the beach when I have to restart from idle in soft sand and in these cases I always get going with crawl control which works very well with some patience.

My question is whether it would be alright to put the tire pressure down to perhaps 1.5 and keep it always like that except of course if I have to travel longer ways on tarmac. The tires are the normal European specs with 20'.

I would appreciate getting advise and experience from other members,

 

[Gary Stockton]

Yup deep sand easy down to 1.2. Get yourself a compressor so you can get your tyres back to road-going pressures when needed.

With care you can go right down to 0.8 on the beach for really bad sand but obviously can't use those pressures on any road surface. Just be careful you don't de-bead a tyre when that low, which is fairly easy to do.

 

[uHu]

Also, it will be better with 18 inch wheels, because of more rubber between the rims and the road/surface/sand. I believe 18" is the smallest rim size you can have on the 200. And, narrower tyres with a larger diameter will float better than wider tyres with a smaller diameter, when you air down; if you have a choice of different sizes.
What i've seen on desert cruisers, is that they use sand tyres with a very fine pattern, and not at all A/T tyres.

 

[Garfieldus]

I live in Mauritania/Nouakchott

One of the highlights of my recent trip to The Gambia was driving through Nouakchott during rush hour

We also named Nouakchott "Cruiser City" due to the unbelievable number of LandCruisers there.

 

[clivehorridge]

There's a nice discussion article on this seemingly endless debate. The outcome is generally that a narrower tyre is better than a wider one on sand, the greater benefits coming from a bigger rolling diameter. Sand tyres these days are almost smooth, with a longitudinal hoop tread pattern, like old fashioned cross ply tyres used to be.

But there are still die hards that say a mud type trad pattern is better. Whatever wins the debate, none of them are good on asphalt, so there will always be a compromise if combining the two circumstances.

 

[Gary Stockton]

As many opinions as there are people on this one. What I do recallgrom days of driving the Cape West Coast beaches when that was still allowed, then playing in Atlantis Dunes and then the Man in was that mud tyres running at 1.2 bar would out perform ATs because the side lugs acted like paddles in the sand.

Skinnier was better. But not by a long way.

And experience and judging the conditions and knowing the right line blew everything else away

 

[clivehorridge]

As many opinions as there are people on this one. What I do recallgrom days of driving the Cape West Coast beaches when that was still allowed, then playing in Atlantis Dunes and then the Man in was that mud tyres running at 1.2 bar would out perform ATs because the side lugs acted like paddles in the sand.

Skinnier was better. But not by a long way.

And experience and judging the conditions and knowing the right line blew everything else away

With you on all of the above Gary.

What I saw in the Middle East was various combinations, the quads for example used to combine the tyres for obvious reasons...



whereas cruisers and jeeps used to tour the dunes with these front and rear

 

[Gary Stockton]

Those on the trucks that go cateering round the slip faces of the dunes?? Not for me, that - I'm too 'bang broek' (scaredy cat) for that stuff lol

 

[Julian T]

I recall the best tyres for sand had rounded shoulders like the RV 180 (no longer made by I think General) they were LT tyres and were rather balloon type tyres,
the BF goodrich AT type of tyre with it's square shoulder would dig rather than float when aired down.
For beach work (sand) we used the RV 180 32 10 5R16LT and extended road work was a 750R16 light truck commercial tyre for the best fuel economy.

I expect that by running AT's on tarmac under inflated would soon result in them no longer being square shouldered but I would not advise it lol

 

[Beno]

uHu
I have a 200 2012 Gxl Toyota Landcruiser and Live In Australia and they came out standard with 17 inch Wheels. Both the VX and the Sahara 200 Landcruiser came out with 18 inch Wheels.

I was reading a thread on another 4wd Forum and a chap did a comparison when letting tyres down to see wheel his tyres did.
His findings where that the tyres didn't bag out to the sides that much but they tyre footprint extended out alot more lengthways which was interesting to know.

I imagine it would also come down somewhat to the different designs and Constructions of tyres as well.

 

[Chas]

What airing down does. Width doesn't change much, if at all, but length of contact does.

 

[georg]

sand

Yup deep sand easy down to 1.2. Get yourself a compressor so you can get your tyres back to road-going pressures when needed.

With care you can go right down to 0.8 on the beach for really bad sand but obviously can't use those pressures on any road surface. Just be careful you don't de-bead a tyre when that low, which is fairly easy to do.

Thanks Gary. Actually I used a smallish chinese portable compressor at first but it died afteronly a few times I used it. Im wondering if I can keep tire pressure on my 20'at at 1.2-1.5 all the time instead of buying a better compressor and having to deflate/inflate everytime I go into soft snad , which is quite often.

Looks like another alternative is to buy another set of tires for daily use and keep the 20'at for longer trips to Morocco or Senegal?

my dream would be to fit Hummer like inflation/deflation of tyres from the cabin... any advice on that ?

and thanks to all other members for interesting insights, Georg

 

[uHu]

....my dream would be to fit Hummer like inflation/deflation of tyres from the cabin... any advice on that ?

You could do what they do on the cruisers in Iceland: (sorry. Not a cruiser...)

here:

 

[georg]

You could do what they do on the cruisers in Iceland: (sorry. Not a cruiser...)
View attachment 18544
here:
View attachment 18545

Yeah, but I would rather not have those wires hanging outside the car.... Maybe a rasonable solution is a good air compressor combined with a device that can inflate and deflate all 4 tires at the same time. Im searching on google. Also, anything slightly complicated can become a nightmare in Mauritania...

 

[Gary Stockton]

Staun deflators come in packs of 4 so you just screw one to each valve when you want air down. When they reach their pre-set pressure they stop and you can take them all off again. Takes about 5 minutes in total so not the end of the world.

If you get a decent compressor you can make up a hose set so you can pump all 4 tyres at once which is quite useful to get them all to the same pressure. A pain unless you use it regularly which it sounds like you will ...

 

[MarkW]

The cheaper ebay Staun copies work well, just remember not to leave them on the side of a High Atlas pass like I did last year as I'm now down to 2 left.

 

[georg]

thanks Gary any recommendation for a decent compressor?

 

[Gary Stockton]

Not sure what you can get there. There are a few:

Fini
Thomas
ViAir
T-Max
Even the heavy-duty Ring is ok

I'm sure there are a lot of others that folk will chip in with

 

[Chas]

Probably the best compressor is the ARB twin pump one but certainly not cheap about £400 IIRC

 

[Zim Chris]

We use an Air III but but I think my mates ARB twin is better.