Thread: D4 Driving over Big red on 19' rims

Hi All, Ive been back about a week from my birdsville trip and after spending a lot of time on here worried about my tyres I thought I report my experience.

Due to budget mainly I decided to risk going with the tyres that came with the car - Goodyear Wrangler 255/55 R19 about 70%
I took one spare, and a can of (I hope this works) inflate my tyre. + a repair kit.

I did 3200km in 5 days and at least 1000km of that is on mostly good condition, but sharp rock roads.

Ive never driven on sand, other than on a dirt bike as a kid. I went over big red from west to east first, I pressured down to 20psi ( a recommendation I learnt from here), put in in sand mode, turned off traction control and went for it. It bolted up, never looked like stopping and never looked like having any trouble at all. I was super relieved

I played around outside the car on top for a bit then decided to go back down the east side and back up. Id seen many youtube videos of cars getting stuck there so I was curious to see how it would go. Same thing, like I was going up a steep hill and nothing more.

Bolstered by my awesome car I thought Id go back down the other side the way I came up. Having never driven on sand I made the mistake of approaching a crest at an angle and not only got myself stuck, but I feel lucky to not have rolled it. The pictures attached do nothing to show the seriousness of the angle the car was at. I got the shovel out and dug behind the top two tyres and the rear tyre on the bottom of the hill. Climbed back in and reversed around and out. 100% operator error.

After deciding to try again, but at 90degress to the slope it went over great, albeit abit too fast

Once I'd had my fun I was at the bottom of the east slope I pumped the tyres back up and I wondered if the car could do it with out low pressures in the tyres and the aid of the electronics. It cant. The steering was really heavy and the car drove as if the handbrake was on. It got about 1/2 way up and got bogged. In reverse and wiggling the steering wheel got me back down.

I then put it in sand mode and turned off the traction control and made it up about 4/5ths of the way with the same result. I'm sure someone more experienced could have done it.

Looking back I would have loved to try dropping the tyres and having no electronics on, but it didn't occur to me at the time.

The tyres survived, no punctures. But only just. They are severely cut up and last night one of them went flat. I suspect that all 4 will need replacing in the next few months.

I had a ball sleeping under the stars on the roof, the vastness of the area is hard to overstate.

Steven

Originally Posted by RovingS

thanks guys,
Ben_Vapid I'm glad the roof wasn't fuller either, most of the heavy stuff was in the car. traveling by myself meant it was a lot lighter than it could have been

strydes - Brave or Naive? I'm not convinced either way lol

LRD414 & Celtoid Yep the DSC Button, icon of a car doing skids on on it. Im not sure thats what made it feel like the handbrake was on, I recon it just dug further into the sand.

The star photo is 30second exposure. I wanted to do much more night time stuff, this was from the practice run, but the remaining nights were overcast

I just got a quote to replace the flat tyre, $385 at a wholesale rate I recon it will be fixed and the remaining ones will have to last longer than I thought

Should I have reduced pressure to drive on the dirt roads?

DSC - based on what I've read only ... the D4's electronics are never really off ... so if you got a bit wobbly, the DSC may have lightly intervened. It could also have been just the fact that you were driving a 3 ton car with tyre pressures that are too high, on tyres that have little floatation due to their size.....exactly as your test was designed to explore. Good on you for testing your car out a bit ... most folks wouldn't do that

Tyre pressure on the Wranglers - Wranglers perform pretty well for what they have been designed to do, which is primarily road based driving. They are quiet and stick well in both the wet and dry.

However, IMHO they have three flaws:

• They are not as rigid on the road as they possibly could be ... but I guess that's a comfort thing and compensating for their lack of sidewall.
• They are woefully over-priced.
• They become very puncture prone, so I'm not sure how much the pressure matters. I lost three in a weekend on gravel Forestry Tracks (around 40K wear). Stones just pushed through he tread block at both standard and heavy placard pressures ... which are actually quite soft if you talk to tyre people.

Cheers.