There’s something so relaxing about a beautiful sunny Saturday afternoon down at the beach no matter what time of year, setup far away from the crowds relaxing in your own space, as an added bonus, the lessons learned whilst beach 4WDing is the perfect way to find your feet for more hardcore long distance tracks.

By bringing your 4WD off the tarmac and onto the soft stuff you must carry a handful of important tools to make sure you have absolute control over your grip and vehicles performance through the tough stuff!

If you don’t want to get bogged on the beach, then you have to let your tyre pressures down. This will allow you to easily navigate your 4WD on the sand, and increase grip and offroad performance.

By dropping the tyre pressures down you allow the sidewalls to flex and create a larger tyre ‘footprint’ with a smaller down force and more “float”, this float lets your tyres sit up on top of the sand, instead of digging down into it. A lot of 4WDers ask the question about what modifications are needed for driving your 4WD on the beach, and the truth is, there aren’t many that are essential!

The first offroad accessory you’ll need to go beach 4WDing is a tyre deflator like the Kwiky Tyre Deflator. This tool easily lets release the valve from the valve body letting you drop your tyre pressures way down to levels that are perfect for beach driving. The rule of thumb here is to start at 17psi, but you may need to go even lower if the beach is really soft.

If you are still struggling, and need to know just how low you can safely run your tyre pressures you will have to consult your tyre manufacturer, with some brands beads being stiff enough, you can drop them right down to as little as 10psi this helps for when things really start to get tough, and when you are begging for more traction. Be aware in these conditions that your steering, braking and acceleration will change dramatically when you deflate your tyres to beach-driving tyre pressures.

After a successful day of offroad driving there is a dire need to re-inflate your tyres to get them back up to road driving pressures (32-36 psi). Newbie 4WDers drive until they reach the local service station, but you should never rely on a service station air compressor. For one they’re incredibly slow and can take up to ten minutes per tyre to re-inflate your tyres.  They almost always get busy on sunny afternoons as well, and sometimes you can wait up to an hour to use one! We’ve seen them knocked around so badly that they read between 5 and 10psi out, making inflating your tyres a potentially dangerous situation.

The number one reason you should carry your own 12v 4×4 compressor is that if you drive on the road with your tyres at beach-driving pressures, you’re causing massive amounts of internal damage to your tyres. That’s because the steel belts within the tyres are moving and flexing to such an extent that intense heat is being created within the tyre. On the other hand, if you use a 4WD air compressor like the Thumper MKII or the Thumper Max to air your tyres back up to road pressures immediately after coming off the beach, then those steel belts don’t have as much opportunity to move around and create excess heat.

The heat that is created by driving on the tarmac while still running beach-driving pressures is enough to cause a blow-out on a hot day in as little as 10km of tarmac. It doesn’t matter if you’re running your factory issued tyres, or big chunky 4WDing tyres – there’s still the potential for a blow-out if you mis-treat your tyres. It’s incredibly rare that a service station will be situated right at the beach exit, so it’s a much better idea to find a nice shady spot under a tree and use your own portable air compressor to re-inflate your tyres.

Connect the alligator clips to your main or starter battery, start the car and let it idle while you re inflate your tyres. This will make sure you don’t drain your battery flat as you go, and with the massive output of the Thumper range of compressors, you’ll be back up to pressure in no time!

But the best part about bringing your own 12v portable air compressor, you no longer have to wait for ages at the service station to use the built in one, that’s if it actually  works and the nozzle hasn’t been run over by every man and his dog.

Tens of thousands of Thumper MKII and Thumper Max 4WD compressors have been sold and are being used right around the country everyday and with our experience, will keep being used for many years to come. Get your hands on reliable air pressure no matter where you hit the tracks thanks to 4WD Supacentre!