Sand Driving and Terrain Response

[WazzaACT]

Still getting used to the D3. Thanks for everyones help so far. I am having real trouble driving in sand with TR. I got bogged on the beach a few weeks back so I went to an instructor and got stuck again. The car just keeps getting slower then stops. Worryingly the transmission seems to totally "disconnect" and the car will not move forward.
When I turn TR off I can get through the sand without much trouble. All other TR settings seem great.
Am I missing something?

[njz]

Are you turning DSC off? I remember hearing that the D3 works better in sand with it disabled.

[CaverD3]

Sound like the DSC is on. It cuts power to the engine when you don't want it to.

[Dorko]

Yeah make sure you turn off the DSC, it seems to choke the car.

Turn mud and ruts mode... thats the best :)

Dorko

[Jamo]

Mud & Ruts has less power than Sand.

Sand with DSC off. And remember, if you turn the car off, DSC will automatically reactivate when you start up again, so you'll have to turn it off again.

[Dorko]

Sorry dont use mud and ruts in the sand, i was referring using this mode when in mud and ruts.... :p

I think this mode shows how well the technology is in LR's

Anyway Sand mode is the best mode in Sand, but i prefer to use the gears selectors.... gives more control i feel and turn off DSC. :D

Dorko

[CaverD3]

Agree with Dorko about mud and ruts though. Was entering a very wet rutted muddy track, tried to avoid a deep puddle by going up the side of the rutt. Just slipped sideways, put it into mud and rutts and it walked up.:D
I had used the mode before but put it in before attempting a move, that was the first time I tried the same move with it off then on.

[gghaggis]

Hi WazzaAct,

As everyone has said - turn the DSC off, but _after_ you've selected sand mode. Every time you change the TR setting (or re-start the car) the DSC will automatically switch back on. You need to hold the DSC button down for at least 1 sec for it to turn off - you should then see an orange warning symbol under the tachometer.

A few other things:

If your not driving 100's of kms in the sand, and you have 70-profile tyres, don't stuff around, drop your tyre pressures to 16psi straight away. You're trying to drive 2.5 tonne of vehicle in the soft stuff!

Sand mode is for driving in sand. But if you're actually bogged, it's pretty useless. Do the normal digging thing, then raise the car to emergency height. Select the gravel/snow TR setting - this will reduce wheel spin on take-off and lock the wheels when spinning. Remember to switch the DSC off again and then try to drive out. Usually works!

Cheers,

Gordon

[Diego Luego]

gghaggis wrote:

"Sand mode is for driving in sand. But if you're actually bogged, it's pretty useless. Do the normal digging thing, then raise the car to emergency height. Select the gravel/snow TR setting - this will reduce wheel spin on take-off and lock the wheels when spinning. Remember to switch the DSC off again and then try to drive out. Usually works!"

I didn't know emergency height was driver selectable. Forgive me I am more used to Defenders

[gghaggis]

I didn't know emergency height was driver selectable. Forgive me I am more used to Defenders

It's not quite - but if you're bogged in sand, chances are that you'll already be in extended mode (normal response when bogged), after which emergency height _is_ driver selectable

Cheers,

Gordon

[Forest]

Yep DSC off. Also, DSC off to start in snow if you get that "disconnect" (first time it happened to me I thought I had broken something!!!!!!) Sometimes DSC off in mud is also worth a try if you are struggling. (careful of course)

[WazzaACT]

Thanks for all the ideas. I did select sand mode and then DSC. DSC was selected correctly (push and hold) as the triangle icon appeared on the dash. Everything seems to start out OK and then the vehicle gets slower.

Strangely normal mode worked fine. I was also able to use slower modes and emergency height to easily get out of the bog. No problems there.

I tried driving the car on the road today in sand mode and only got a few hundred metres when I lost all power. Selected normal and everything OK. Later in the day went back to sand mode and everything OK.

I think I have some sort of selector problem.

[CaverD3]

Something definately not right. :(
Could be software or a wheel speed sensor.
Back to dealer methinks.

[Jamo]

Sounds like software maybe. I used to have a similar thing happen if I turned the dial too quickly. If I spun the dial rapidly to sand, the car would lose power completely. It stopped happening after a service so I assume a software upgrade was done.

[Petian]

Whats emergency height???? is there something beyond extended

[WhiteD3]

Page 180 of the manual:D

Once you bottom out the car will automatically raise itself to extended height. With the brake on, hold down the raise button (for 3 seconds or some such) and up she goes.

[Guss]

I know this is an old thread but I am having similar problems on sand ie lack of power. The landrover dealers state that I should have no problems at all on the sand but I tend to dissagree. I have owned a number of other similar size 4x4s and have found the landrover to be the worse performer on the beach. Maybe it's just me.

The dealer also said that DSC should be left on, apparently that's what they were taught on some offroad land rover driver training they did.

The driving manual also states that DSC should be turned off only if you don't have all terrian response for driving on the sand. I had it turned it off.

I must say I'm little dissapointed.

[WhiteD3]

Guss,

What are you driving? The GCLRO just came back from 5 days on Fraser Island. In our group we had two D3 V6 and one RRS TDV6 and covered some 400+ kms while on the Island. No dramas with traction or speed for any of us (apart from me getting stuck though driver error :angel:).

I for one had sand mode on and DSC off the whole time.

[Graeme]

Are you aware that DSC has to be set off after selecting sand mode, as changing modes resets DSC to on?

[Leo]

I know this is an old thread but I am having similar problems on sand ie lack of power.....

You may have a problem - like Jamo has written above and some users reported on another forum. A software update usually cures it. Try sand mode on a dirt road or something and check if you experience a drop in power.

Also, as others have said, DSC should be off.

[Jamo]

To clarify a bit..

When on sand, particularly soft sand, there is a tendency for the vehcile to slide a bit sideways. If DSC is on, it detects this and thinks that it should correct the vehicle from what would be a dangerous situation on the bitumen. So it applies the brakes (a growling noise can be heard) and it can also mute the throttle response. Thus momentum is lost right when you need it.

I mostly remember to turn it off when I drive onto a soft beach right when i hear the growl and right before I get bogged!

[camel_landy]

Yep, if the power is disappearing, disable the DSC (we actually teach people to do that so the dealer is wrong).

Couple of things to bear in mind:


When driving on sand, it will feel as though the power is being taken away from you anyway. (Especially when you move between different sand types.)
DSC is never fully disabled... It is just moved to the end of the queue.

HTH

M

[MobyDisco]

I was reading the D3 manual a couple of days ago, and I believe it mentioned that you should turn off DSC when driving in soft sand, even when you have terrain response set to 'sand' mode.

[Guss]

Thank you for your replys, I may not have been fair on the D3, it just may take some getting used to the pros and cons and yes it may have more to do with human error


Guss,

What are you driving?...
LR3 05 HSE TDV6 Auto

It runs fine, heaps of power, great for towing. I've been through some steep rutted muddy hill climbs with no problems (quite impressed actually). It's just the sand I'm having issues with.



Are you aware that DSC has to be set off after selecting sand mode, as changing modes resets DSC to on?
Yes, worked this out the first time we went on the beach


You may have a problem - like Jamo has written above and some users reported on another forum. A software update usually cures it. Try sand mode on a dirt road or something and check if you experience a drop in power.
I'll give this a go


When on sand, particularly soft sand, there is a tendency for the vehcile to slide a bit sideways. If DSC is on, it detects this and thinks that it should correct the vehicle from what would be a dangerous situation on the bitumen. So it applies the brakes (a growling noise can be heard) and it can also mute the throttle response. Thus momentum is lost right when you need it.
I'm not sure about growling but I do hear some weird noises, I think it is more when I am bogged and reving the engine, I thought it was the turbo backing off, sort of a whoop whoop noise. It doesn't make any difference whether the DSC is off or on.


Yep, if the power is disappearing, disable the DSC (we actually teach people to do that so the dealer is wrong)....
That wouldn't supprise me, he put it down to not having the DSC on as to why I got bogged, big help.
I definately had it off though.


I was reading the D3 manual a couple of days ago, and I believe it mentioned that you should turn off DSC when driving in soft sand, even when you have terrain response set to 'sand' mode.
Unless your manual is different to mine it definately says it should only be turned off if you don't have all terrian response.
I had it off anyway

[Dingmark Jim]

Several times when on soft sand I've had my computer go a bit troppo even with stability control off. This tends to occur when (a) driving across ruts where other drivers have entered/exited the beach thereby causing my tyres to jump about, (b) not having the steering pointed straight ahead, and (c) when in extended height and doing between 40 & 50 km/hr. Note the last point is before putting on shortened sensor arms:) . This can lead to flashing dash lights, loss of power, deflation of the suspension and on two occasions, the transmission going into "safe mode". The solution each time was to shutdown and re-start. Of course now that I'm mentally ready for this to re-occur it never does....

[Guss]

I'll make sure I'm mentally ready for that also, so it never happens to me.

What's the go with the "shortened sensor arms"

[Jamo]

OK,

Turning DSC off is important on soft sand, but..It's not a magic wand to not getting bogged! You still need to lower your tyre pressures. What profile tyres do you have?? I had to put the 60 profile wranglers down to 10psi to get flotation once.

Even then, you have to pick your ground and may still get bogged if you are not familiar with the beach.

If your stuck and getting the woop woosh noise, then stop, lower you pressures some moe if you can; and dig! Pack something under the tyres and then go to Gravel mode to get out.

You call it an LR3, are you in the USA?

[clean32]

wow 3 pagers of what buttons to push LOL

sounds strange to a county driver.

not taking the Mickey just think about how things have changed

[Guss]

No Jamo, Aussie, I should have said D3

Yes I agree with tyres pressure I could have reduced them more.

Gravel mode, I'll give that a go next time.

Yes clean32, there seems to be a button for everything, I do miss the manual selections, but, I've never been so comfortable and it still tackles most conditions

[clean32]

and it still tackles most conditions

so you dont need a driver then LOL

[jtonline]

I was driving on soft sand, heavily rutted just last weekend, first time in the D3 and forgot to turn the DSC off and had no problems, but glad I read this to remember for next time. Can anyone also lead me to more info on the shortened sensor arms, as it was a pain in the but doing 50kms along the beach to have others come up behind and go past me with "stop hogging the good ruts" look on their face! Cause I could only do just below 50km before I would lower and scrape the guts out of the car!

[CaverD3]

Land Rover have designed normal height to get the magic carpet ride (air bags at lower pressure) and off road to be as high as possible. The suspension stiffens as you raise the height. Shortened rods will give you a firmer ride as well as extra clearance. The ride height of other standard 4x4s are about 40mm higher than the D3. This issue is really anoying does not exist according to LR.

[Grimace]

I was driving on soft sand, heavily rutted just last weekend, first time in the D3 and forgot to turn the DSC off and had no problems, but glad I read this to remember for next time. Can anyone also lead me to more info on the shortened sensor arms, as it was a pain in the but doing 50kms along the beach to have others come up behind and go past me with "stop hogging the good ruts" look on their face! Cause I could only do just below 50km before I would lower and scrape the guts out of the car!

Ignore those people. Continue to drive in the manor that suits both you and your vehicle.

[jtonline]

Just a simple override button (another one) that means you can over ride the lowering from 50 to about 70km/hr, would be great. I agree the ride in the D3 is much better than 'other'4WD's I was almost going to buy a prado grande (whih does have air bags in the rear, but it still feels much more truck like than the D3.

And Gimmace I did and I didn't really care, as at those speeds the cars were jumping all over the beach.

[Guss]

What tire pressure do you guys use on the beach?

I've never had 18inch rims before so I'm not sure what they should be driven at.

[Tote]

I generally use about 20 lbs but have dropped to 14 to get out of trouble, this was on Fraser Is last Christmas. I've found that 20 PSI gives good sidewall flex over rocks etc but isnt low enough to damage the rims.
Regards,
Tote

[Ashes]

I've just come back from a long weekend at Robe with LROCV. What a great trip!!!

I was the only D3 on the trip out of 12 cars and got bogged in the sand the most. I put this down to lack of experience in sand (ie none!).

DSC off makes a huge difference especially on climbs where you need to get a bit of speed up.

1st situation. Came to a quickish stop near a beach entry in the softer sand. Upon moving off again..bogged. Tyre pressures were 25 and probably stopped with sand in front of the wheel in the wrong spot. Not sure it was the cars fault!

2nd situation. Did a tight turn in some soft sand after we decided to turn around after a couple of cars LC and Patrol were bogged in front of us. DSC wasn't on, and probably sinking a good 8-12 inches in the sand. Maybe another mistake by me but not sure. Others seems to get round but I was in my own tracks.

3rd situation. Car decided to go left out of the wheel tracks already laid down in a soft section and bogged in pretty quick.

Is the D3 more prone to bogging in the beach than other LR's?

Another question..on a sandy climb are you better of being in high drive or manually selecting a low range gear? The D3 in most cases was able to get up hills with getting more power down earlier but I suspect gear selection is more vital than just pure speed.

[clean32]

the sand at robe is quite nasty stuff, but as a comparison i didn't get bogged but did get stopped in a couple of places that i needed to back out and try again. that was on 245 AT still at 30Ppsi

1 thing i have noticed is a lot of driver use to much power, on some of the sand dunes it don't matter how much air you have or power or gearing you will not make it unless you have momentum.

[Guss]

I generally use about 20 lbs but have dropped to 14 to get out of trouble, this was on Fraser Is last Christmas. I've found that 20 PSI gives good sidewall flex over rocks etc but isnt low enough to damage the rims.
Regards,
Tote
Is that with 18inch rims?

[Tote]

Yep, 18" rims with General Grabbers
Regards,
Tote

[Noosajim]

Hi guys,

Sorry to bring this subject up even further but I had some issues yesterday towing our coramal van off the beach.

We were existing Noosa North Shore at the second cutting, we had lowered tyre presssure to 18psi on Disco and van, tried 1st gear high range extended to offroad suspension dsc off.

We made it 2/3 rds the way off beach just before cutting starts to climb we felt the disco start to loose power.

Forst do you think we were using the right gear maybe should have been low ranges 3rd or fourth gear.

Also when we got bogged we try to use our maxitracks to get out, now max track recomened 1 st gear low range which we tried to no success, so then we treid gravel as discuussed here earlier with still no go.

Any ideas would be most appreciated.

PS van weighs 1.7 tonne.

Thanks for any imput.

Jim

[Guss]

Not sure on the gearing, I would also like to see other thoughts on this.

How fast were you going? Did you have enough momentum to get you up the track?

It has been very hot and dry in Qld, I think most 4x4s towing a van would have problems getting off the beach

[WhiteD3]

We made it 2/3 rds the way off beach just before cutting starts to climb we felt the disco start to loose power.

Jim, sounds like the DSC was on. If TR senses a lack of traction it'll drop the revs (amongst other things) to regain traction. Not sure about doing that in high range 1st either.

[connock]

Its not so much the belly in the tyer but the lenght of the print. I have had mine down to 10 psi on occasions , you dont do rim damage in sand its when you come out of the sand you have to slow down and drive accordingly and dont turn sharp . Did you drop the van tyres as well as the car? if not your just draging a anchor. Every pound droped makes a differance!https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/imported/2012/10/231.jpg Good to see people droping there tyre pressures and stop scalloping out all the tracks.

[CaverD3]

DSC goes off each time you change the TR setting. If you changed after switching it off it would be on.

[Noosajim]

Guys, thanks very much for the replies so far. Just to give a bit more detail, we left the beach doing 40klms/hr as we know otherwise off road height would be adjusted down automatically. TR was set to "Sand". Once we did become bogged, we did drop the tyres down to 12psi. We did check every time to make sure DSC was off. Should we have not used TR in "sand" mode? Thanks in advance for your replies.
Jim

[gghaggis]

You probably should have used low range, so that the car could maintain torque when required. And you could have tried the hill at 50kph (or just under) - the car will bong at you over 40, but doesn't drop until over 50.

When we tow the caravan off the beach, I drop to 12 ~ 14 psi instantly - the D3 is a heavy vehicle.

Finally, "sand" mode is for driving through sand, but it's not very effective once you're stopped. Try "gravel" or "rock crawl" to get going again, especially with maxtrax.

Cheers,

Gordon

[rob4play]

A quick fix if you need to stay at high suspension mode over 50. Raise manually if needed let it self level if needed due to load etc. turn off and pull the 20amp fuse for the compressor. Sounds the tone tries to lower but cannot. Everything else normal. Worked this out on a Birdsville trip when a large mechanical wheel alignment issue would cause the special programs to turn off and car lower to LA height after approx 2kms. Towing a camper trailor and still wanting to get over Big Red etc I needed a fix other than driving very carefully at LA or waiting for the truck as suggested by roadside assist to take the whole rig to the nearest dealer.
Once I had the wheel alignment corrected I tried the same and worked fine including special program availability etc. So in this instance in the right mode with DSC off, tyre pressure right and where you maybe just needed that extra momentum at HA this could have worked for you.