Towing on sand with a TD5

[mojo]

Hi all,

We are planning on taking our camper trailer to Bribie and/or Straddie over the school holidays. It's a Conqueror 390, which I guess would weigh around 1300kg when loaded. Just wondering:
- will our TD5 wagon have any issues towing it on sand? I've had it behind the defender on the road without any issues, but I'm a bit worried it may struggle to drag it through soft sand.
- what do I do with tyre pressures? When I'm not towing, I've generally let the tyres down to low 20's PSI. Will I need to go lower with a trailer behind? And what pressure should the trailer tyres be at? I realise it will depend alot on the condition of the beach, so I'm just after some rough guide lines.

Cheers
Sean

[SG1 Bones]

I don't have a lot of experience and others on here may correct me but, I've always been told to match your trailer tyres' pressures with the towing vehicle when on sand as a general rule of thumb. You may need to go lower but it depends on the conditions of the sand. I don't think you'd have any issues with the Td5 considering that I've seen other vehicles with less of a vehicle tow on sand.

Nathan.

[defmec]

If it's a post my02 get a stage 1 remap with a little more boost as well and won't have to worry about the trailer . in fact you will forget you have one attached :)

[ozscott]

Tyres nice and low...just keep airing down in the soft sand as needed with obvious caveat about low speed and no sharp turns. Use low range in the soft to give plenty of grunt. Obviously try to keep momentum up. Of course air back up for higher speeds for eg on hard sand or black stuff. Long handled shovel. Centre diff locked if you have it.

Cheers

[Pedro_The_Swift]

Fairly high pressure situation,, barge, school hols, sand, beach,
can you practice somewhere with the trailer beforehand?
most LR rims will support tyres air'd down to single figures,
if you have to,
if you take it easy,,

naw, better advice is just be on full boost everywhere,


;)

[mojo]

Thanks for the replies guys.

Another mate has suggested a chip/remap as well, so I may look at that if we struggle at all on this trip.

Anyway, I'm reasonably confident the car will handle it OK, I was just hoping someone would say "yeah mate, we tow our trailer on the beach behind our TD5 deefer all the time, no worries!". :)

And if the worst happens Pedro, full boost it is!

Cheers
Sean

[Dorian]

I've got an MY12 Deefer but used to have 99D2-TD5 manual.
Did Fraser at least a dozen times towing a trailer about 1200kg . Hook point up to the cape, over the back of Ngkala rocks and from orchard beach to west coast.
I found thru trial and error that keeping the trailer pressure about the same as the car was a good choice. The lower the better on soft sand (of course) but when you drive on the beach, the up side on the washouts will still pinch the tyres on the rims if you hit them too hard. I discovered this once cause i'd pumped up the car but didn't worry about the trailer.
The D2 did fine without a chip as long as traction control was disengaged. If it was on the D2-TD5 would struggle in the soft sand, all the power would be sapped away by the traction control. If you have traction control in the 2000 Deefer i'd say it's probably the same system, so if you have it turn it off if you can.
Oddly enough the traction control in my MY12 Deefer gives me much better performance on the sand, so they must have done some tweeking.

You'll be fine just keep the revs up above 2K.
Have a fun.

[mojo]

So we're back from our trip, and had mixed results towing the trailer. We aired down to 18 before hitting the beach, and managed the entrance track to the beach in high with no problems. Then as soon as we hit the soft sand on the beach we stopped. After changing to low range we managed to get going again.

The tide gave just enough room for one car to get on the harder sand. We stayed in low initially, wich was pretty slow going. My mate in his 200 series went past us, and we fell a fair way behind, so I changed in to high to try to keep up. This was fine until we had to go up into the soft sand when we passed a car coming the other way. Again we got stopped and this time low range couldn't save us. So out with the shovel we started digging. My mate came back and another guy also stopped to help. They both had max trax, so we were out pretty quickly.

Similar things happened a couple more times- I can't remember exactly what happened, but basically we were forced to stop each time on the soft sand and couldn't get going again. Eventually we lowered pressure to 14, and my mate snatched me to get out of our last bog on the entrance to our camp site.

No more problems after that. Our trip off the beach at the end of the week also involved a bit of driving on the soft sand, but this time I stayed in low the whole time, and any time it looked like I'd have to hit the soft sand I made sure I changed down before hand and the revs were high.

Low range + low tyre pressure + high revs = no hassles. Basically all the advice given previously in this thread that I didn't pay quite enough attention to ...:wasntme:

[ozscott]

Mate did you have the trailer pressures down also?

[mojo]

Yep, trailer pressures were the same as the car.

[ozscott]

Mojo what tyres do you have?

Also when you say no more problems after you lowered to.14 does that include towing the trailer through soft stuff?

Cheers

[Blknight.aus]

start the deefer at 16 psi, the trailer at 10-12.

if shes digging down a little drop to 12/6

if its still digging down you can goto 8/6 but keep the torque and speed low.

[SG1 Bones]

I'm glad you had a great trip. I think it's all trial and error, because conditions and weight are always different in every vehicle. You got there in the end which is the main thing.

Nathan.

[mojo]

Mojo what tyres do you have?

Also when you say no more problems after you lowered to.14 does that include towing the trailer through soft stuff?

Cheers

I have Maxxis Bighorn, which I'm sure aren't the best on sand.

And yes, at 14 psi and in low range, we didn't have any more problems in the soft sand, although we didn't have to drive in as much soft sand on the way out as we did on the way in.

[ozscott]

What size Mojo?

I never had problems towing in soft sand with the original Michelin XPC at 29.5 inch. But i did notice a real benefit with higher profile tyres.

Also do you have CDL? Was it locked....i towed heavy with stock tyres and no CDL in deep soft sand and it was fine in low range BUT Cdl.certainly helped when i fitted it especially from a standing start.


Cheers

[mojo]

Standard Deefer size - 235/85R16 from memory. CDL was engaged.

[scarry]

Does the trailer track the vehicle perfectly?

If not it can be a real PITA,particularly in soft in sand.

Learnt that lesson on Fraser island in the early 70's.My fathers company had a few different trailers,if he ended up with the one that didn't track the Series 3,i think it was in those days,it felt like someone had thrown out the anchor.:(

[ozscott]

It is fantastic but all of the campers, vans, and box trailers i have towed have been way off my track. Its a pain but just dont take any prisioners!

Cheers

[malsgoing130]

Hi mojo thanks for asking the question! Ive got a 2.4 puma and the same trailer and have been meaning to try the combo out on sand.

The defer and puma are almost the same track only a tiny difference between them.

I assume the defer was fully loaded as well?

Glad it handled the sand, always tricky to get it right and a real pain digging both out.

Cheers
Mal

[mojo]

Hi Mal,

We were reasonably loaded up in the Deefer.

I assume the Puma has a bit more power than the TD5, so you should be ok. If you have any issues in the soft sand, just remember low tire pressure, low range, and keep the revs up.

Cheers
Sean

[ozscott]

Mate its a weapon even with the standars tyres in sand. Cheers