Sand wheeling advice

[Clump]

I'm very familiar with driving on the north OBX beach and have driven many different vehicles on it. The conditions there change dramatically. There will be places where the sand is hard as a regular road and others where it's deep and loose. Like everyone else said - airing down is really important. I go to about 20 PSI.

I've had my Bronco up there a few times now and purposely stopped in deep, loose sand and it just drove out with no problem. I mostly used sand mode and unlocked the rear diff. Mine's a manual. 4H seemed to work fine too. I played around in 4L, but it's really not necessary.

Pic is at the VA state line.

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[BroncocnorB]

My two cents, especially w/regard to whether airing down on east coast beaches is necessary. Airing down increases contact patch area in sand - IMO completely different than why you’d air down for rock crawling. My old Bronco II had zero problems navigating very deep sand at 15 psi and 195 x-section’s tires. It comes down to vehicle weight and tire cross section, the math being vehicle weight/square inches of contact patch area. And all east coast beaches are different - you can drive a Ferrari on Daytona Beach. But don’t underestimate the horrors of the very soft and deep sand in LI, outer banks, and yes NJ. So the bigger your tires are in relation to vehicle weight, the less critical it becomes to air down. Bring a shovel. Ask any fisherman.

 

[SeaVee]

18 lbs and 4H ( but I’ll stay in 2H if it’s low tide for the 10 mile run up the beach to the house) sand mode is overrated. Manual paddle shift in 4H is better. If you go up there, get off the beach and get back to the backroads, it’s a unique place for sure

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