Towing off-road trailer in SAND

[XJINTX]

Ok, looking for experience...

Going to N. Padre Island this weekend and taking the Jeep and trailer into the beaches 50+ mile 4X4 area.

I have good experience driving vehicles in the sand but not with a trailer.

I will air down Jeep but wonder about trailer? Since it will be around 900 lbs do I need to air down for a bigger footprint of keep aired up to "slice" through the sand as pulled?

Thanks in Advance!

[teotwaki]

I had similar questions before I went to Arizona & Utah in April this year. (http://suntothenorth.blogspot.com/20...n-trailer.html) I read all of the threads here and elsewhere and saw some pretty questionable advice too. I also found some videos from a guy in Australia (http://www.expeditionportal.com/foru...d-videos/page3). Anyhow, Mario (ElCoyote) from Adventure Trailers wrote a post that convinced me that airing the trailer tires down makes perfect sense. The whole idea of airing down is to provide a bigger contact patch and a lower pounds per square inch of tread that contacts the sand. On pavement you want to minimize rolling resistance with a moderate contact patch through proper tire inflation. However, on the sand you'd like the trailer to have less of a chance of digging its tires into the sand and causing more drag that the tow vehicle has to fight. How much air you let out is best determined through experimentation and possibly at the location you'll be traversing. In my case I had the vehicle down to 18 PSI and the trailer at 22 PSI. Load up your trailer and start airing down one tire until you have gotten a max contact patch and note that air pressure for later use.

Take lots of pictures!!

[UK4X4]

low pressure as wide a tire as possible

make your anchor a light as possible and know you'll be peddle to the floor in soft sand.

You have spread your total load over 6 tires instead of 4 but only the four are driven so you want the trailer to sink as little as possible
reducing the drag as much as possible.

multiple sand ladders will be your friend in soft sand !

[kevint]

Subscribed. Looking forward to learning from your experience.

[XJINTX]

Should be a good experience as there will be a couple of us pulling trailers with different vehicles and different type tires.

We too will have sand ladders, a couple winches and straps of course.

[SWITAWI]

Also looking forward to hearing your report afterward, but I'd say the driving style won't change when towing. Easy-does-it on the throttle inputs and keep your momentum up. Flooring The Throttle = Digging A Hole every time I go down the PINS. Overall I don't think you'll have much of a problem since you're already familiar with the terrain.

[teotwaki]

I'd throw in that you'll also want to be mindfull of the tire sidewalls which will stick out a little more horizontally when aired down

[adventureduo]

I don't agree. I never air the trailer down for sand. If anything i'd inflate. I want to minimize the pulling resistance on sand as much as possible. Let the tires cut through the sand, instead of plowing. They do not have a powered momentum so they don't need traction or an adequate "foot print". They rotate through and therefore don't slip or bog down due to lack of floatation. Only problem situation i'd ever change this would be if i knew i was going to be "side hilling" the trailer and wanted to make sure i had a bigger foot print for stability.

Also, make sure to keep your momentum up and give space in front of you so that if you need to stop you can do so on a downgrade of a drift or dune. It's a little harder to get going with a trailer behind you. (See photo)

And for the record, we absolutely air down the tires on normal washboard roads, but you asked about sand in particular.

[teotwaki]

I'd like to see a picture of how a tire "cuts" through sand

[UK4X4]

Sorry dave - the thiner the tire the deeper it goes into the sand- the harder to pull it

The wider the tire- less pressure means it floats more and less power to pull it through as its not as deep into the sand

take a look at any desert specific vehicle and trailers- I don't see any skinny high pressure tires

This is as big a trailer I've seen, this was in the UAE- close to saudi- used to move drilling rigs- its about 2x the size of a standard tractor trailer

I bogged my Patrol- he bogged his truck- he went arround the whole truck and trailer dropping tire pressure and got it out

I used my sand ladders



This is a real sand tire- its a lrage ballon with a huge surface area to float the tire over the dunes