This article will provide a brief recap of the principles of sand driving. It will be helpful for anyone new to sand driving, but even experienced drivers might learn a thing or two.
For any given terrain you drive on, the first thing you’ve got to do is understand the nature of that terrain. Now, sand has two essential characteristics. One, it’s soft. I can push my hand down like that, and you can see it will go into the sand. For example, I couldn’t do that if it was rock or bitumen. The second thing is that it’s loose. I can pick up some sand and do that with it, and it just runs through my fingers.
That leads us to the first principle of sand driving: tire pressure, specifically flotation. The tire will sink in because sand is a loose surface, and you can push your hand into it. The tire sinks in, creating rolling resistance, and the vehicle will get stuck. So, we want to prevent that vehicle from getting stuck, which means reducing the rolling resistance. The way we do that is principle number one, which is to reduce the air pressure in the tire to elongate the tire contact patch from about here to about there. That gives us a wider footprint, so it’s the equivalent of me pushing my finger in like that or pushing my hand in like this.
The second principle is to minimize turning. Drive as straight as you can. All right, so here’s another standardizing principle. Take a look at these two-wheel marks. There are four wheels and a car, but only two wheel marks have been made. So, that means we are minimizing the resistance to the vehicle moving forward. Now, when the car turns, take a look at what happens. We’ve got one, two, three, or four distinct wheel marks and, therefore, ruts. So, we are doubling the resistance a bit more than doubling, which means the vehicle is more likely to get stuck.
So, the moral of that particular story is, wherever possible, you should seek to drive in a dead straight line in the sand because the more you turn, the more you’ll be making more than two sets of ruts and more excellent resistance. Here’s another look at it. Look at the front right wheel, which takes the most expansive arc, and the rear wheel, somewhere in the middle, contributing to increased drag and resistance to sand driving.
Now, you may have dropped your tire pressures, driven in a straight line, and done everything right, but fundamentally, in sand driving, sooner or later, you’re going to need speed. So, here I am, climbing up a dune. You can see I don’t quite have enough speed to get to the top, quite enough Momentum, but I stopped, aired back, and it went down. I haven’t dug the car in—we’ll come to that later. So, now I will try again with a little more Momentum and see what that does for me.
Now, when I talk about Momentum in the sand, it doesn’t mean revving it hard. You should use the highest gear you can, which allows the engine to produce enough power and torque. Often, in these cases, that might be maybe third or fourth low, and I tend to use low range in many situations because that does allow me gears like second, third, and fourth at a given speed, as opposed to high range, which would only be first and second. You want to use higher gears to avoid over-revving and, therefore, overspending and overworking the wheels. So, in this case, third gear, low range, and maybe even fourth get me over the top nicely and quickly—I couldn’t have done that in second gear.
Now, here’s another example of Momentum. It’s a rough approach there, so you don’t want to take too much speed, but on the other hand, not enough is simply not going to get you up over the dune. Sometimes, you need speed to deal with side angles. The alternative to that can be to reduce tire pressure, and I’ve got a good example of that in my other tire pressure video. But anyway, here I go with more speed. You can see that the car bounces a bit sideways there to deal with that, and that’s enough to get up quickly and over this time.
Okay, now here is an example of how variable dunes can be. There’s been much wind recently; as you can see, there aren’t any tire marks. Looking right over the top, you can see the wind blowing and creating many sandstorms. Now, because of that, what’s happened is we’ve got wonderful sand in where there would otherwise be wheel ruts, and that’s going to make the going a lot harder as the vehicle comes over the top because of the fine sand and the lack of wheel ruts. We can say something very similar here. Again, there are no wheel ruts there, and if we look back to the other side, we can see the wind blowing over the top of the dune and no ruts—only my footsteps. Now, it’s still drivable, but it’s more complicated than it would be if four or five vehicles had gone through and compacted it.
Now, remember this clip. What does the top of the dune look like? It curves around to the left, meaning the vehicle is not going straight and will produce more drag. If we were going in a dead straight line, we’d need more Momentum to deal with it than if it were straight.
So, this is a case of a significant side slope and insufficient Momentum to deal with it. This one is another hill with a critical turn at the top, and this one is in the Saharan Desert, where there are no wheel marks or anything else to follow, so you have to read the terrain.
Now, the sand is soft, producing much drag. This works to your advantage coming downhill because you tend not to need much braking or engine braking. You can come down most hills in a second low without using electronic hill descent control systems. So, in this case, I’m in second low, not braking, and it’s reasonably steep, and the car is not running away from me. Also, keep as straight as possible and use any ruts as you descend.
Now, a lot of sand driving represents a risk because it’s done at a relatively high speed compared to most four-wheel driving. It involves dunes where you can’t see what’s coming over the top, and no road markings define left and right. Can you know what’s coming over the top? Look, the rest of the vehicle follows a sand flag. That’s why we put sand flags at the front of the car to warn other vehicles of our approach over the top of a dune.
So, how much time does a sand flag buy us? I will rerun the video, but stop when the sand flag appears in the shot, precisely here. Now, I will run a timer to when the vehicle seems, and that’s just over a second. Light is at the top of the roof rack, as you can see. So, one second at about 20 kilometers an hour is five and a half meters—the length of a four-by-four—and that’s enough distance to stop a 4×4. And that’s only in one direction. Imagine if you’ve got two cars coming in two directions; then you’ve got 40 kilometers an hour closing speed and 11 meters.
Okay, different dune, let’s try again. So, we’re going to stop the video just when the top of the sand flag appears, and now we’re going to run it and then see at what point the rest of the vehicle appears. This time, it’s three seconds, so that’s 17 meters. Remember, that’s just one vehicle in one direction, and in 17 meters, you can react to and ultimately stop a four-wheel drive in sand, moving at 20-30 kilometers an hour.
Now, you’ve got to worry about being seen even when it’s on a flat, big, long beach because if you’re doing, say, 60 kilometers an hour—which you could quickly be—that’s one kilometer every minute. If someone else does 60 kilometers in the opposite direction, a closing speed of two kilometers per minute and a speck will become very big. So, you want to get your headlights on. Now, if you do have to pass other vehicles on the beach, pass them to the side you usually would pass as if you’re driving on your road, and that way, everybody understands which way the vehicle is going to go when you’ve got two coming towards each other. Now, should you use the high or low range when sand driving? Well, the answer to that is it depends on the speed you will do. Generally, in sand driving, if your speed is no more than the maximum speed of, let’s say, fourth or fifth gear low range, then use low range. The reason for that is then you’ve got, in effect, a close-ratio gearbox—maybe five or six gears from zero to 40 or 50 kilometers an hour. If you’re going to be going faster than that on, let’s say, a very, very hard-packed beach with no turning, no dunes, nothing, then by all means, use high range. But for slow stuff and softer sand, I would generally go into the low range. I’m in low range here because the sand is smooth in places, and it’s tight and twisty, and I’m never going to get more than 40 kilometers an hour.
Now, setting up your vehicle for sand driving depends on each car, but I can give you some general setup tips for all types of vehicles. If you have a part-time four-wheel drive, obviously engage four-wheel drive, and that’s the case with the Ranger here. If you’ve got a full-time four-wheel drive with a center differential lock, you can lock it—examples are Discovery 2, LC80, LC200, Prado, etc. I would not generally lock cross-axle differential lockers on the front or the rear axle because they restrict you from turning, which will slow you down. The exception is if you’ve got to go up a dune that is dug out and you’re getting into a bit of a cross-axle situation, then your cross-axle lockers can help.
Now, if you are going to be in high range when you’re driving, you may find that the stability control isn’t wholly deactivated, even if you’ve got four-wheel drive engaged. For example, part-time four-wheel drives engaged or center locks in that case. In the Ranger here, I can turn it off with a press of the stability control button, and that’s done in other vehicles. Typically, however, if you’re in a low range, then you don’t need to worry about it because stability control is almost always wholly deactivated in a low range.
Now, if you have hill descent control, you typically don’t need it at all in the sand because there’s so much retardation from the soft surface. You can drive most dunes down in second gear, low range, and rarely need first gear. So, hill descent control will get in the way.
Now, if you’re driving a manual, obviously change gears whenever you feel like it, but typically, you want to change gears a bit later than usual and change down a bit earlier so you’re keeping the engine revs high up in the rev range. Automatics, you can do the same. You can often leave them in drive, but it usually pays to manually select a gear to save the vehicle from changing down halfway through an ascent. So, for example, if you decided you’re going to take an ascent in maybe third low, then you might select third low as you’re accelerating at the bottom of the dune, and then once the car might ordinarily shift to fourth, but keep it in third, rev a little bit higher, and then you won’t get that down change halfway up the dune, which could spell the difference between success and failure.
Now, one way to tell a skilled sand driver from an unskilled sand driver is when they give up early like that. So, they know we won’t make it, and then just back out without spinning the car in. Now, this is how not to do it. You can see that the vehicle comes to a halt but keeps going and going and going and going, and there’s no point. All you’re going to do is make the subsequent recovery harder. I’m only a back out here because I’m doing this on a bit of a hill.
Now, in extreme cases, this can happen. Take a look at what happens here. The vehicle slides sideways a bit and a bit further again there, and that makes life even more difficult. So, the skill is to learn when the car is about to come to a halt and then back off like this. So, you can see here that absolutely no ruts have been dug. I wasn’t going to make it; returning was lovely and easy. Now, I’ve done the same thing again here. Still, this time, I’ve just let the wheel spin in a little bit like that, particularly the front one, and this is going to cause a problem because on the next ascent, I’m going to have to bounce over those holes, and that’s going to make life harder for me to ascend the dune next time.
Now, this is how to come to a halt. Just ease off the accelerator and let the vehicle roll to a halt. You don’t need the brakes at all. And here’s what it looks like from next to the wheel—just a nice, gentle stop. Then, when you’re done, you can return a little bit, giving you a nice little runway of compacted sand again in a straight line without turning the steering wheel. Then, you can move forward, and then you can move off. Don’t try to do that while you’re turning the steering wheel.
And here’s how to stop again. Just ease off the accelerator, come to a halt, and then just come back a little bit, and then ease forwards like so—no wheel spin, friendly and straightforward. Here’s how not to do it, which is to jam on the brakes hard, and you can see the vehicle digs in. And then, if you harshly accelerate, well, yeah, you run the risk of bogging.
For example, avoid side slopes like this because sand is loose and doesn’t give much lateral traction. So, you see, you haven’t entirely managed to get that done correctly, and the vehicle slips sideways, as you can see. I’ve got another video where I go through how to recover that, but there’s the dune I just came up with. You can see that the vehicle’s on a side angle and slips sideways. I just gave up nice and early, and that’s what it looks like on the side deck. So, you can do side slopes on sand—low pressure is the key. On beaches, you’ve got to be particularly careful. So, here’s me bogged on a beach, which was—I wouldn’t have been bogged if it wasn’t such a steep beach, but it is, and that’s why I’m bogged. So, beware of side slopes on the sand.
You need three essentials: a tire pressure gauge, recovery ramps like Maxtrax, and a long-handled shovel. With those three, you should be able to escape any sand recovery situation.