When you are hitting the road or the tracks you can have all the mods in the book’s but nothing will give you a better connection to the road surface than having the correct tyre pressures for all four corners.

We’re going to give you tips and tricks for figuring out the best tyre pressures for your 4WD whether the rubber meets the road or the tracks!

THE 4PSI RULE!

Every vehicle manufacturer provides a pressure placard which gives you a good idea of the pressures you should be running if you are still running standard sized rubber under your 4WD!

However, if you are like us and you have a penchant adding accessories to create a bigger and better 4WD, then you have probably chucked bigger doughnuts under your 4by for more clearance and offroad performance, with bigger rubber the likelihood that your pressures will remain the same as factory recommendations is low.

Due to the way air expands when it heats up – the 4 PSI rule is an excellent way to make sure you prevent overheating within the rubber under your rig, as well as ensuring you have the optimal grip for the terrain you are tackling.

The 4PSI rule is exactly as the name suggests, measure your tyres before you drive, and after about 15 mins of reasonable driving in the conditions you plan on attacking, they should have increased in pressure by 4psi only.

Your pressures roughly where you think they should be for the terrain using a purpose made tyre deflator with an integrated gauge and then drive for long enough to get your tyres up to operation temperatures.

Check the pressures again, and if they’ve gone up by more than 4psi, the starting pressure was too low. If they’ve gone up by less than 4psi, then your pressures were too high, and you should drop a couple of PSI out. It’ll help you figure out the correct tyre pressure for each terrain.

After all, poor pressure choice and is the biggest contributor to tyre failure and will also mean that your tyres could self destruct if you try driving too long on them!

BLASTING HIGH PRESSURE AIR

There are a million and one options for getting your pressures back to highway running pressures, again the 4PSI rule should be applied, but if you plan on “limping it” to the nearest servo, you are kidding yourself, the amount of damage that can be done to a tyre in just 10km of driving at offroad pressures on the blacktop will destroy your tyres and could potentially end in a catastrophic accident. Even well after the fact and the damage has already been done!

This is why you need to bring a quality 12v Air Compressor with you when you hit the tracks, giving yourself absolute control over your tyres, means you have absolute control over your vehicle’s road handling ability and stability at speed, not to mention braking performance when you are under the pump!

We always bring a Thumper MAX air compressor when we leave the hard stuff because it not only gives us the highest re-inflation speeds out of any compressor we’ve ever owned, but because of its clever internal circuitry and pressure regulation, the thumper max combined with a 3 in 1 tyre deflator gives you absolute control over the HUGE 300 LPM output!

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EMERGENCY REPAIRS – BUSH MECH STYLE!

The numerous benefits to letting your tyres down to optimum offroad pressures is the reduced likelihood of taking a puncture from tree roots or sharp rocks when you are out having fun on the tracks – unfortunately less likely doesn’t translate to impossible, so the chances of copping a puncture could leave you stranded in a  tricky section of track. This is where having a tyre repair kit handy and knowing how to use it could save you big bucks, and the stress of swapping to your spare when the tracks are gnarly!

Keeping in mind the increased likelihood of a puncture or even losing your tyre bead when you are offroad, knowing how to take advantage of your offroad jack to completely break your tyre bead to clean and reseat your rubber is a clever skill to have – so don’t be afraid to think outside the box when it comes to getting your 4WD back on track!