I’m not going to tell you how to suck eggs.
Mainly, because I don’t know how to suck eggs.
But also, because it’s pretty simple once you know what you’re doing. This is just a basic guide for those that haven’t hit the beach before.
What Makes Beach Driving Different to Other Types of Four Wheel Driving – The Basics
There’s a lot of general off-roading skills that translate well across multiple driving styles. Beach driving is no different, but with a few extra nuances to keep in mind.
Beach driving does have the potential to wreck your car if you don’t know what you’re doing, and it’s also common for new four wheel drivers to give this a go as one of their first outings. This makes sense, as Australia is probably the number one country in the world for being able to drive on remote and beautiful beaches. In WA particularly, you don’t even have to go far out of the city to do it. Because of that, I’ve written this guide to help prevent unnecessary heartache.
But, this is not a cautionary “don’t do this unless you’re experienced” type of article that can easily be found on the internet. Where’s the fun in that? As a general rule, ignore any blog article written by an insurance company. They’ll just talk you out of it, to help try and minimise their risk.
Beach driving is a whole lot of fun and it’s not that hard to do it right, without risking your pride and vehicle. But ultimately, you’re an adult with a drivers licence and hopefully a bit of sense. I’m not responsible for anything you do.
Tyre Pressures
The first thing to know about beach driving, is that it is easier to not get stuck, then it is to get yourself out if you are stuck.
The second thing to know, is that the best prevention for getting bogged is tyre pressures.
The reason that tyre pressures are so crucial is because a softer tyre will conform to the surface more and provide a much greater level of surface area that’s engaging with the sand. If you picture a well inflated tyre on a hard surface, you will see that at the bottom of the circle there’s a very small amount of tyre touching the road. Maybe just a few centimetres between where it’s making contact at the rearward side, and where it’s making contact at the front side. If you picture a tyre that’s gone completely flat, you’ll see that there could be 30-40cm of tyre contacting the ground.
Obviously a flat tyre is not great, so we want to aim for something in the middle.
Most 4WDs will recommend 35-40psi for normal operations. We’ll typically aim for 28psi or lower. What we’re trying to do is strike a balance between pressures low enough to give us more grip, but without running the risk of “rolling off the bead”. The bead of the tyre, is where it makes contact with the rim.
If you drop your pressures too low, you’re taking this risk: the rear wheels are driving the car forward in unison. These two wheels by virtue of driving the same speed, are creating a forward vector of drive/momentum that’s acting roughly from the centre-point between the wheels. Put simply, it pushes your car straight even if you’re trying to turn.
With beach driving, you’ll also be driving along established wheel tracks/ruts, unless you’re the first person driving on that beach for quite some time. As a newbie, you probably wont (and shouldn’t) be on such a remote or tricky beach.
Ultimately, the ruts will also be preventing you from turning. What this all means is that when you turn your front wheels, the car will try and keep driving straight which will put a sideways force against your tyres, trying to push them off where they sit in the rim.
The lower your tyre pressures are, the easier it will be for your tyre to get pushed out of the bead.
Once you’ve rolled the tyre off the rim, it’s not going back on with normal tools. You’ll have to change the wheel. On boggy beach sand this is an absolute mongrel of a job.
If you’re below the high tide line and the tide is coming in, it’s unlikely you’ll be able to change the wheel in time and it’s reasonably likely you’ll write-off you car. More on where to drive and timing the tides below.
So what does this mean for actual pressures?
This depends on your tyres. I use mud-terrain tyres which are “Light Truck” denoted by the LT in the size numbers stamped on the side of the tyres. Light truck simply just means the side-walls are thicker. This gives me more resistance to punctures through the sidewall in rocky conditions. But, it also means my sidewalls are more rigid and don’t bag out as much. This means I need lower pressures to achieve the same traction effect compared to other tyres, but also means they are more resistant to rolling the bead.
Because of this, I run my tyres around 23psi before I hit the beach.
If I’m stuck and trying to get out, I’ll go down to 18psi, but will be very wary about turning.
If I’m real stuck, I’ll let them down to 14psi but won’t spin them aggressively and will only go in a straight line.
I’ve come to these values by visually assessing these particular tyres for how much they’re bagging when I let them down, this is something that just comes with practice. We do have a tyre pressure calculator that I made personally (LINK HERE) but it would be worth doing a quick search about your model of tyres before heading for the beach.
And remember, put your tyres back up before you hit the bitumen.
It’s All About Momentum
Revisiting the idea that it’s a lot easier to prevent getting stuck, than it is to get un-bogged, it’s all about momentum.
There’s a hell of a lot of rolling resistance in sand.
As the car compresses and/or digs a bit into the sand, you’re essentially creating a continuous environment of needing to drive up and out of the impression that you’re in.
All this means is that as soon as you don’t have momentum or your foot on the accelerator, the car is going to lose all of its speed very quickly.
Maintaining momentum is much easier than creating it. It’s an inertia problem that’s quite pronounced.
Driving a Manual on the Beach
If you’re driving a manual, then all this means is that you’re going to need to hold the gear longer and rev it a fair bit more, before you change to a higher gear.
Change gears as fast as you can.
You’re going to lose a surprising amount of speed during that gear change, so you want to be going fast enough in the lower gear, so that by the time you lose speed during the change, you’re still going fast enough for the higher gear to be able to pull it comfortably. Don’t forget how much resistance there is, so it will be harder to hold this gear than it otherwise normally would be.
It’s not always going to be possible to successfully get into the higher gear. Especially if you’ve got a smaller engine that doesn’t have a whole lot of torque.
When to Use Low Range
If you’re bogged and getting yourself unstuck, then low-range will nearly always be the right call.
The problem with low-range, is that you’ll very easily out run the top gear and you’ll be stuck at lower speeds, right at the time when more speed and more momentum would make things easier.
The problem with high-range, is that if it’s boggy enough you might not be able to get through enough gear changes to get to that speed anyway. This is a judgement call that comes with a bit of practice.
The other problem with high-range is that if you have a large and torquey engine that is more forgiving and will pull the higher gears even at lower revs, there’s a whole lot of force multiplication working against your clutch, owing to the gearing. This is a common problem on the V8 79/78/76 Series Landcruisers. They do have strong clutches, but they have sow much low-end torque that they’re capable of overloading the clutches at low revs/high gears in sand and burning them out.
No Tight Turns
As discussed in the tyre pressures section, the rear wheels are trying hard to keep driving the car in a straight line.
The tighter you turn, the more these forces are fighting each other and the more you’ll be plowing the front wheels sideways against the sand, killing a lot of your momentum and speed. Or, increasing the likelihood that you’ll roll the bead if you’re running low pressures.
So the wider you can make the turn, making the arc more gentle, the better.
Recovery Gear You Should Take
Deflators
If you don’t have decent tyre deflators and aren’t ready or able to spend the money on one, don’t worry. You can just use a stick against the valve core to let your tyres down. This will take much longer and if you don’t have a tyre guage, you’ll have to rely on a visual estimation, but it will still get the job done.
It’s not about having all the gear, it’s about getting out there and giving it a red-hot crack.
Shovel
For digging yourself out.
When you get bogged on the beach, it usually involves digging yourself in with spinning wheels.
This means that the car is generally sitting with the diffs in the sand, or perhaps even on the chassis in an IFS (Independent front suspension) vehicle.
Also, the wheels will be quite dug in, meaning that to get out they would need to climb immediately up and out of the holes. That just wont happen and instead, they’ll just spin and compound the problem.
Instead, you’ll need to dig out a section in front of each wheel to make it more of a gentle ramp. And if you’re doing that, you may as well put some recovery boards in front of each wheel.
Which brings us to:
Recovery Boards (MAXTRAX, TREDs etc.)
Not only do a set of recovery boards give you more traction to get out of a tight spot, they’ll also stop you physically digging any deeper by spinning your wheels.
The trick to using recovery boards, is to use them to build momentum.
They’re very short, so you won’t be on them for long and need to get enough speed so that by the time you drive off them, you don’t just get bogged straight away again.
But, you don’t want to simply just put your foot down and give it everything straight away. All this will achieve is wheel spin that melts through the recovery boards.
The trick is to take off slowly and then once you’re moving, progressively build up a bunch of speed. Progressive – as in not simply just getting a little bit of movement and then still putting your foot down – but geometrically building up speed over the whole length of the board. This is a tricky proposition when they’re less than a metre long, so it might take a couple of goes before you get the knack.
Never Snatch With a Towball
Tow balls kill people in snatch recoveries LINK HERE
If you’re going to a beginner friendly beach that’s not too remote, you might not need a snatch strap. But if you have one, it’s a good idea to bring it with you in case there’s someone willing to pull you out but they don’t have one.
Here’s the kicker. If they don’t have a snatch strap, they probably also don’t have a rated recovery hitch. Do not take the risk of snatching off their towball, as it is the person recovered that gets killed. Rough As Guts does not specialise in being cautious and advising against things. We’re usually saying “don’t listen to those sissies, just man up and do it”. Suffice to say, our warnings are rare but I hope you take note. Read the article linked to above, if you don’t believe that the forces involved are sufficient enough to cause catastrophe.
How Not to Write-Off Your 4WD
When someone wrecks their car on the beach, it’s rarely from something such as rolling it or causing physical damage from some sort of impact.
It’s nearly always from getting bogged below the high-tide line, and then the tide coming in and writing-off the vehicle with salt water damage.
The easy solution to this, is to stay above the high-tide line.
This isn’t always the easiest.
The sand above the high-tide line is usually the softest, with the deepest ruts, making it the hardest to drive in.
It’s this alluring pull to drive on the flatter, seemingly harder sand where people come unstuck.
If you get bogged above the high-tide line, then you’re bogged but not in peril.
If you get bogged below that line, then you better be able to get yourself out before the water comes back.
If you do want to drive below the high-tide line, common sense applies. (Yes, I know the corporate world doesn’t believe in saying “common sense” anymore. No, I don’t care).
Just make sure you know when the tide is coming in and that you’ll have plenty of time to get yourself out if you get stuck. the closer you get to the low-tide line, the shorter this time-frame will be. Often, surprisingly short.
If you’re not reasonably familiar with getting a car un-bogged on the beach, then maybe give this a miss until you know what you’re doing.
If there’s nobody around, it’s probably worth avoiding.
If there’s a bunch of people that look like locals driving above the high-tide line and none of them are below it, that’s also a warning sign to look out for.
Getting Unstuck Without Coming Unstuck (How to Get Out Without Making it Worse)
As mentioned in the shovel and recovery board sections, when you get bogged the car digs itself in by spinning the wheels.
Here’s the trick: momentum is your friend, so you don’t want to stop if you can avoid it. But, once you’re bogged, the more you spin your wheels the harder it’s going to be to get out. So, you want to keep your foot on the accelerator for as long as possible to avoid getting bogged in the first place, but as soon as it becomes apparent that you’re stuck, stop immediately. That’s the tricky bit, where good judgement will come with practice.
A Note on Diff Locks
As we discussed in the tyre pressure and no tight turns sections, the rear wheels are trying to drive the car straight and making it hard to turn.
This will be much more pronounced when you have the diff/s locked.
If I’m driving a car with lockers on the beach, I like to save them for if I get stuck.
I know I previously mentioned it’s easier to prevent getting bogged, then it is to fix it, but it is nice to keep one trick up your sleeves. This means that there’s at least a small margin of vehicle capability, relative to the terrain you’re stuck in. If you’ve over committed and chosen a track that was worse than you expected, then diff locks might be just enough to get you out of it so you can go back or go somewhere else.
How to Stop Your 4WD Becoming a Rusty Pile of Crap
Every time you drive on the beach – and I do mean EVERY time – wash the undercarriage and chassis as soon as possible.
Even if you’ve stayed above the high-tide line the whole time, there’s still a lot of salt in the sand and it will cause damage to your car.
If you’ve ever visited the colder regions of North America, you’ve probably seen how rusted the cars are. Even ones that are only a few years old. This is because they salt the roads to melt the ice.
On the off-chance you’ve ever worked on your mates Ford Explorer in his driveway in Chicago and dealt with every single nut and bolt being rusted, then you’ve probably wanted to punch a wall.
Bonus Tip: When It’s Soft and You’re Really Giving it Some Berries – Wind Your Windows Up
When they spin, the front wheels are going to throw sand right through your front window.
That window will probably be down because you’re at the beach, the sun is shining, the weather is perfect and the smell is nice. That’s good, you should be enjoying the breeze.
However, I guarantee that at some point you’ll forget to put the windows up before you hit a soft section and you’ll have a whole lot of sand to clean out later. Congratulations, you’ve just been initiated and you’re now one of us.
