Lowest tire pressure you are willing to run offroad (without bead locks)

[7sKnuckledragger]

Why? Honest question. Never aired a vehicle down. Just ran fsr's on grasslands near Pierre, SD at 42...no trouble. What did I miss?

Lower the pressure and increase the surface area of the tire, more tire in contact with terra firma equals more traction. Lower pressure means the tile will mold to the terrain better as well, and reduce some trail damage to the tire as it can move better. Also on rough roads you will get a softer feel to the ride as well.

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[mike8675309]

Why? Honest question. Never aired a vehicle down. Just ran fsr's on grasslands near Pierre, SD at 42...no trouble. What did I miss?

Generally trying not get data because this information hasn't really been posted here in a single place. It's a good amount of data for folks that might be new to offroading. Personally, I'll be hitting a trail this weekend that likely will have a lot of mud due to rain predicted, so it helps to have a sense of what others have had success with.
Can't really trust all the Jeep info because most Wranglers are quite a bit lighter than the Bronco.

 

[swami37]

Why? Honest question. Never aired a vehicle down. Just ran fsr's on grasslands near Pierre, SD at 42...no trouble. What did I miss?

Same here. I don’t get it.

 

[BlueWaffle]

Airing down can make a world of difference in certain situations.. from simple comfort to added traction.


Its "the thing to do" because it works.. simple as that.

As far as bottom line pressure goes... it probably depends on how thick the sidewall is. I'm no off road guru.. but I know my fair share.. id imagine that a lighter sidewall would come unseated MUCH easier than a heavy duty sidewall at the same pressure in the same situation.

 

[Bmadda]

In my experience, I have run low teens on all my un-beadlocked plain steel wheels w/out ever de-beading a tire...however, I have had problems with mud/silt getting wedged into the bead area and causing slow leaks. Bad enough that I have had to break them down and clean the rim to get them to reseal. May be less of a problem on aluminum wheels...or could be worse...IDK I just know I wanted beadlocks right away for my 6g to avoid that whole deal! I would say 15 psi+ should be no problem, but can say from experience that 12 psi is danger zone for slow leaks. Even right at 15 I have had problems (w/steelies). The luxury of beadlocks is I can now go straight to single digits w/confidence!

 

[mike8675309]

Same here. I don’t get it.

Traversing rocky, wet, muddy terrain would be one benefit.
Traversing across fresh or old snow reduces the chance of breaking through.
This is a non-issue for people on hard-packed, maintained trails

The Iron Range Off-Highway Vehicle State Recreation area captured by some jeeps and old bronco in 2016 is one place you would want to air down.

 

[swooshdave]

Ran the trails at Sand Flats in Moab at 20lbs and it was fine. Did scratch one rim as the tires got a proper work out. I’m not sure another 5-10lbs would have made a difference other that the rims taking more abuse.

 

[mike8675309]

Ran the trails at Sand Flats in Moab at 20lbs and it was fine. Did scratch one rim as the tires got a proper work out. I’m not sure another 5-10lbs would have made a difference other that the rims taking more abuse.

Yeah, if I would be running high speed I would want at least 25psi personally with the Goodyears. They have a thick but very flexible sidewall that would likely heat up quite a bit if going faster at low pressures.

 

[7sKnuckledragger]

Ran the trails at Sand Flats in Moab at 20lbs and it was fine. Did scratch one rim as the tires got a proper work out. I’m not sure another 5-10lbs would have made a difference other that the rims taking more abuse.

If you're wheeling your rims will get gouged, scratched and abused. Biggest giveaway whether or not a rig is a mall crawler is the condition of the wheels.
but don't bang up Sheetmetal that's expensive.
-Cheers

 

[Tdecell]

315/70R17C BF Goodrich KO2's on stock Badlands wheels, 14-15 on rocks, 18-20 on dirt roads, no problems yet

 

[Sparkherd]

I've run my F-250 as low as about 18 PSI because I hadn't checked the pressure in about 4 years.

 

[gwp]

What's the lowest pressure you'll run for a given tire wheel combination?
What's too low, and what is the story of how you found out?

For the 34.5" Goodyear Territory, it seems the conventional wisdom is no lower than 20psi on a heavy vehicle like the Bronco. Goodyear itself has told people no lower than 29psi.

15-17 regularly in a stock Sas 2 door.

 

[Snacktime]

 

[DaveH]

Same here. I don’t get it.

I'm new to airing down. With my Bronco, I haven't yet done anything where traction was a problem and airing down would have made a difference. Recently, I was in southern Utah where we had to take the same lengthy gravel road multiple days in a row to get to the real trails.

Day 1 - Didn't air down. Didn't drive much above 25 mph because it got too rough.
Day 2 - Aired down to 25 psi. Able to drive 40-50 mph on the same road in more comfort. The limiting factor was the speed that was safe to drive on the road.

Bottom line, airing down was MUCH more comfortable, and since I could drive faster, I saved time as well even when considering the extra time to air up and down. Of course, whether you save time depends on how far you have to go. I now consider airing down an essential part of all but the shortest offroad trips.

 

[Combustion_King]

Looking at these numbers ill probably re set my air down stuff to 18-20 or so, I was doing 22psi before.

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