Thread: Sand driving in a D3, what am I doing wrong?

Hi Forumites,
The attached thumbnail doesn't seem to reflect the real angle of the beach, looks are pretty sedate, the angle where my D3 ended up was pretty ugly, the sand was up past the door on my wifes side she couldn't get out.....

Originally Posted by Nomad9

... This is my first time driving the D3 on sand, it was very soft and at the waters edge where I ended up it was like quicksand. The over extend on the suspension kicked in but only seemed to raise the two rear wheels, is this normal (not that it mattered at this point)?
So I'm open to comments, what did I do wrong here? It's got to be me here not the vehicle I'll assume. In my old Rangie it was just a case of put your foot into it and things normally turned out ok.................... we'll see what you have to say.

I think you may have answered your own question already, and looking at the picture, it is clear you were driving on sand was recently quite wet from the tide and probably super-saturated just below the surface, i.e. not unlike quicksand. The vehicle that went through before you would have exposed the super wet sand and messed it up, they are just lucky they went first otherwise it may have been the other way round.

Why would you drive that close to the water anyway when you saw how messed up it was when there is probably ~50m of more dry sand further up the beach? Do you really want salty wet sand flicking up under the vehicle when it could be avoided?

18s and sand driving arnt a good combination, been there done that, the difference between 18s and 16s in the same vehicle (my old d2) and same diameter was huge... also at 15psi if your still not going to well try going a little lower but i would keep it above 12psi, with 18s you dont have alot of side wall before the rims riding on the ground. I once had to lower my 18s down to 8psi to get out of a bad spot, but once out aired them back up to 12, but that also comes down to the tyres and how they sit at the lower pressures.

With the lower profile tyres i find you really have to think about throttle control, to much will just sink you in, to little and you dont get the momentum needed, in my prado on 17s i really have to think about it in the soft stuff, with my county on 37x12.5s all i haev to do is drive

As for the spot you go stuck, slight side angle is never a good thing in soft sand you start to cut sideways and that just sucks up all your power and momentum.

Wet sand is usually alot easier to drive on, even in the soft stuff with a bit of rain on top it usualy firms things up a bit, the real issue in that spot in the side angle, even a slight angle like that you need lots of momentum.

Hi Nomad9.
Here are a couple of rules re D3 in sand:
If you have DSC off and then turn the car off and then on again you have to reset DSC off.
The bong will bong at 40 kph but the car will not go back to normal height until you get up to 50kph. In other words you can go up to 50 kph in offroad height, certainly thats what I have found in my 05 model.
It may be that if you had gone first then the other vehicle may have got stuck.
I don't know why you lost power, it may have been re my first point re DSC or you may have been completely bellied out in which case the little bit of Traction Control (there is still some even with DSC off) may have kicked in.
I found on my Simpson Desert trip that it was much better to have the gearbox in Command Shift so that it will not change up a gear. I noticed that in auto mode if I lifted off going up a dune the gearbox change into a higher gear, the turbo was off boost and momentum was lost. If you lift off in Command Shift the gearbox stays in the same gear.
I have to say that sand is not one of D3's strong points but for it makes up for it everywhere else.
Hope this helps.

Discojools

Hi Sean,
Sometimes you have to go where the vehicle wants to go you don't have much say in the matter. I'm not Jeremy Clarkson I don't intentionally drive through salty water. I gave up "driving it like I stole it" maybe fifteen years ago. The beach was pretty chopped up from a lot of previous attempts by others. I had the front wheels in one set of ruts and the rear wheels in another set, a previous attempt by someone else had put a line connecting the two sets. When I wanted more grunt there was any left, so I got "stucked", and as mentioned by others who clearly have experience driving on 18's in quicksand I'm not alone.
The vehicle is my pride and joy sometimes things happen and there isn't much you can do to avoid an outcome. This was my first time out on soft sand in my D3 so this was a pretty steep learning curve, yes I put a certain amount of driver error, considering all things I would say quite a lot. Driving with terrain response is like learning to drive a four wheel drive all over again, driving four different vehicles with different characteristics, I find drive by wire quite different.
I was looking for some experiences from D3 drivers who've encountered similar issues which is now what I've done, this forum has been a great help as usual.

Interesting.........

So my guess is the D4 is gonna be worse in sand,heavy ,& 19's& no 17' option,unless you go the 2.7TD & 5 seats.

We do a lot of holiday trips to Moreton is,where the sand at times, is very soft,and as Nomad9 says,in an old RR,or for me in the D2 with 16's,its just plant it & drive it,usually no worries at all.
I once saw a D2 over there on 18's & it was doing it very difficult in the soft sand.In fact this vehicle did it a lot harder getting onto the barge than a few soft roaders,almost didn't make it & had to be towed on.The tyre pressures were 12PSI.My D2 went through with tyres on 18Psi,easily.Both vehicles had CDL's,& were loaded.

Sure,the other aspects of the D3/D4 make up for this downfall,but it is still an issue for us beach goers.

Can't help you with the D3 on sand,have driven one on the black top & it was fantastic.
We all live & learn,so good luck next time.

That part of the beach is notorious for bogging vehicles. On some occasions we've had to air down to 9psi to get through. 'Command shift' would have helped, however, if your front wheels were in a set of ruts higher up the beach than the rear ones, you'd have no chance - that part of the beach is too soft to recover from that situation.

In hindsight you should have stopped asap and reversed and tried to drive with all 4 wheels in the same ruts. But sometimes that's easier said than done!

For those of you with 18" or 20" rims who want to do a fair bit of sand-driving, I'd suggest fitting internal beadlocks (SecondAir or Staun). That way you can air down to 8 psi or less without any dramas.

Cheers,

Gordon