Thread: Great day at Straddie

Great day at Straddie yesterday. Very pleased with the Defender. When you take it off road it all starts to makes sense. Learnt a few lessons too!

Driving along the hard part of the beach and there was a lagoon type thing on the inland side, obviously draining back to the sea. Was no noticeable color change in the sand to give it away either. Was like being in a boat running into shallow water and not knowing which way to turn, whether you're going to go even worse. I think I was just lucky yesterday :-)
Was like hitting quicksand! The vehicle just stopped dead and sunk in. Put her in low range and she waddled out easy. Had a few other "experiences" with soft sand too but felt like the Defender could get out of anything. Amazing vehicle. Was also very amazed at the ride on the rougher tracks and corrugations. It's pretty bumpy and hard on the road when you hit a pot hole etc but was very smooth.

Originally Posted by fender22

They were fabulous actually, never let them down either. I'm not sure how much more effective wide tyres are actually. In theory sounds good and it's the common consensus from people far more experienced than me. Have a look how textured the side walls are. That means they're biting in and pushing from the side of the tyre as well as the footprint tread (which fills up with sand anyway), like a paddle . I reckon I'd rather have these on in the sand than wide road type tyres deflated.

And if you had let them down it would have been much, much easier.