Table of Contents
1. Introduction to the Article
Today, we will discuss five essential tips and tricks for driving on sand, whether it’s a pleasant stretch of dunes or your local beach, such as the one we’re currently at or about to visit. These tips are all geared towards beginners, so if that’s you, you’re watching the right article, and hopefully this article will inspire you to get out there, tackle those sand tracks, and have a bit of an adventure.
2. Mars Camper Teaser
I wouldn’t go that far, but I agree. This article assumes that you already have all the essential gear needed for four-wheel driving. So I will put together a separate article running through all the essentials you should always take on pretty much every four-wheel driving trip, as well as a couple of nice-to-haves as well.
3. Tip 1: The Importance of Lowering Tire Pressure
This is likely the most important tip: lower your tire pressure. Drop them a lot. The difference it makes is truly remarkable. I and Baner have spent many a trip cruising along the beach peacefully and comfortably, only to see people either bogged or just digging up the beach because their tires are still full. The issue is that this will heat your engine and dig out the tracks for others. And honestly, dropping your tire pressure is such an easy way to give you a pretty stress-free experience driving on the sand.
4. Deflation Methods
To do so, I’m using some deflators that I’ve set to the exact PSI I want to drop my tires down to. However, you don’t need anything as elaborate as this; even a pen lid or a stick that you can push into the center of the valve stem to release air from your tires will suffice. During my initial years of acclimating to four-wheel driving, I utilized this method. Just make sure you’ve got some form of gauge to check your tire pressures once you finish deflating them—and of course, you’ve got a compressor to pump them back up again afterward.
5. Why Lower Tire Pressure Works
So if you’re wondering why we bother dropping the tire pressure down before we go on a beach—the point of it is basically to increase the amount of surface area that we can get the tire touching the ground. So when you deflate your tires, you’re basically getting a longer section of your tire tread touching the ground at once, which is going to give us way more grip and allow us to float over some otherwise very boggy sand.
6. The Snowshoe Analogy
Yeah, exactly. So a way that I like to think about this—it might seem a bit weird—but imagine those old-school snowshoes you see in movies. It just helps you distribute your whole body weight across a much larger surface area, and as Bian said, just remain on that surface.
7. Recommended PSI Levels
Yep. And if you’re wondering what PSI we go down to—normally our deflators are set to 15 PSI, so that is usually what we’re traveling at and what we’re currently at. But if the beach is muddy or bumpy, we can lower it to 10 or 12 PSI without issues. I think we’ve been down to 8 before trying to get out of a boggy situation down your way down south. So there are no issues at all dropping tire pressures down that low. And I know a lot of people do get a bit apprehensive about dropping pressures down that low. The main reason for that is you can risk rolling your tire off the rim when you are that low. However, that’s only going to happen if you’re turning vigorously—doing donuts on the beach or driving around corners on firmer surfaces, whether that’s rock or even bitumen, once you finish your day at the beach. So don’t be too concerned. Dropping your tire pressures down low just makes things so much easier. Right now, this is a pretty boggy beach, and we are cruising along like it’s a bitumen road.
8. Tip 2: Maintain Higher Engine Revs
Tip number two is to keep your revs a little bit higher on the beach than you would on typical bitumen roads. A useful rule of thumb I find is to keep your car revving at around the point where you normally change gears on the streets—of course, that’s if you have a manual transmission as I do. Now, that’s going to depend a little bit on your driving style.
9. Understanding Torque and Gear Selection
Probably not that much; back off a little bit. The reason for this is that you want to stay in the torquiest part of your car’s power curve. Without getting too technical, if you look at a dyno chart, you can work out the exact RPM when your car has the most power. One way to understand this is by considering what happens if you’re driving down the back streets at 50 km/h, shift your car into fifth or sixth gear, and then accelerate quickly—what do you think will happen? The impact will be minimal, correct? You’re not going to be increasing your speed very much at all, and that’s because your revs are going to be quite low in that gear range.
10. Finding the Right Feel
Exactly. Whereas you do the same in third gear when your revs are much higher and you’re off.
11. Adjusting to Your Vehicle and Terrain
Yeah, and the only thing I’ll add to this is, obviously, like what we’ve just said is kind of a blanket statement—do adjust to what car you’re in, what terrain you’re driving on, and how you are driving. And it is like a feel thing. So when I first started, it took me a little bit to learn to not like—I just wanted to change gears because the revs were sitting at that little bit higher range, and you feel like you’re like, “Oh, do I need to slow down or do I need to change gear?” But it just takes a little bit of a switch in your way of thinking. You get used to it, and from then on it’s just feeling it. If I feel the car starting to bog down, I’ll start to bring the revs up a little bit because you can kind of feel what power you’ve got at the pedal. But I find it a lot easier in a manual because I can hold it in a gear—I haven’t tried it in an auto.
12. Tip 3: Trust the Ruts
So essentially this tip is to try not to fight the car too much when you’re driving on rutted-out sandy beaches. If you’re new to four-wheel driving, consider this: your car will navigate itself, and your role is to simply offer suggestions and some guidance. But ultimately the car will find its way along the beach.
13. The Passenger Mindset
I like to think of myself as just a passenger who doesn’t know as much as the DMAX does. The DMAX knows best and will tell me where we ultimately end up going. And as D said, I am just here to tell her what I would like to do. Sometimes it will listen; sometimes it won’t.
14. Staying in the Compacted Tracks
Yeah, so long as those ruts are going in the direction you want to go, it’s the best decision just to stick to them—because that’s going to be the most compacted sand. Those ruts are formed from a lot of traffic driving down the same direction you’re going, and it’s also not going to work your engine too hard by trying to fight and go into the more boggy sand. So honestly, it’s just a win all around.
15. Overcoming the Mental Barrier
This challenge is primarily a mental barrier rather than a physically difficult task. It’s more about just accepting that it’s going to feel weird. And that’s been challenging for me. I have had to learn to trust the process, which is similar to saying, “The car will keep going.” Ultimately, you can always decide where it’s going—I can rip the steering wheel left or right, put some gas on it, and we can go there—but it’s all about understanding that you won’t be able to steer it directly where you think you want to go because the wheels are just going to follow the ruts. And it can be really dangerous if you don’t follow that.
16. A Cautionary Tale
Absolutely. So a bit of a horror story here that’s not meant to scare you; it’s just meant to show you what can happen if you try and fight those ruts to the extreme. So back about 8 years ago on this exact stretch of beach between White Hills and Preston Beach down south in WA here, there was a four-wheel drive cruise. And on that cruise was a novice four-wheel driver doing all the right things—joining a cruise to try and learn—but there was one particular section of beach that was quite rutted out, and it was quite cambered down towards the water, with quite a steep sand embankment up on the coast side of that sand track. And as they’re driving along, the person feels like their car’s going toward the water. So they’re doing the natural thing—they don’t want the car in the water—so they’re turning away from that. But what’s happening? Nothing’s happening. The car’s in deep ruts; it’s still driving in the same direction it was before. So they keep turning that steering wheel, keep turning that steering wheel, till eventually they’re driving along forwards while their wheels are facing straight towards that steep sand embankment. Then, for whatever reason—there might have been a slight bump in the sand or maybe something their tires gripped on—it sent them at cruising speed straight up that sand embankment and rolled their car on the beach. That doesn’t happen all the time, but it’s an example of what can happen if things go badly.
17. A Real-Time Demonstration
As I drive and listen to Daniel, I just looked down and noticed that my steering wheel is currently pointed to the left while the car is going straight. So I’m doing a milder version of what he was just talking about. And that is precisely what I’m having to learn not to do. But it’s all about, like—right now I want to send the wheels left, but keeping them straight is honestly the best thing I can do.
18. Summary of Tip 3
So we’re not saying to let go of your steering wheel entirely; we’re just saying try not to fight the car too much when you’re driving through those rutted-out situations.
19. Tip 4: Reverse Before Moving Off
Okay, so tip number four is: if you stop on the beach for whatever reason — maybe you’re waiting for someone to attempt a difficult obstacle up ahead, maybe you’re bogged, who knows — whatever reason you stop on the beach, a good thing just to get into the practice of is just reversing a little bit before you take off again.
20. Tip 5: Park on an Incline
And tip number five is a way to pull your car up on the beach so you’re not going to get stuck again when you go to leave. We’ve just pulled up on the beach here, and the tip here is to try and pull your car up so that you’re on an angle. You want your nose pointing a little downhill if possible—or the back of your car. Either way works really well—just so when you go to leave, gravity is going to assist you in pulling off onto the beach.
21. Bonus Tip: Avoid Digging Deeper
One little bonus tip I wanted to add is, if you feel your wheels spinning or starting to spin, don’t just plant your foot on the accelerator. Let it off. Back off on that accelerator because otherwise all you’re going to do is effectively dig yourself a massive hole, and you’re going to spend hours digging your car out. When you feel the car starting to slow down despite your foot still in the same place, it’s always better to let yourself come to a stop, take your foot off the pedal, get out, let your tires down, wedge some recovery tracks in, and do something so that it doesn’t happen again. You’ll be stuck for maybe 5 minutes instead of 5 hours, like we’ve been a couple of times in the past. It’s all from experience.
