Low range driving is such a fun part of 4WDing. There’s something that is so relaxing about a beautiful sunny Saturday afternoon driving through the bush tracks in your 4WD this is the perfect way to find your own little piece of natural paradise. This is all made much easier by carrying your own car air compressor in our opinion this is an essential bit of 4WDing gear! if you want to go take your 4WD off the beaten path!

If you don’t want to get bogged or simply want a smoother ride when driving offroad, then you basically have no other option than to let your tyre pressures down. This will allow your tyres to grip better and to easily tackle the toughest sections of track whilst driving your 4WD wherever you need!

By letting the tyres spread out, you essentially create a larger ‘footprint’ that lets your tyres float up on top of the soft surfaced, instead of digging down into it. A lot of new guns to the 4WDing world ask the tough question about which modification will get their 4WD further offroad and the truth is, there aren’t many that are as effective as reduced pressures.

The first bit of gear you’ll need to go 4WDing is a tyre deflator like the Kwiky Tyre Deflator or the Adventure Kings 3 in 1 Tyre Deflator. These both easily let you drop your tyre pressures for soft terrain driving.

The rule of thumb here is to start at approximately  16-18psi, but you may need to go even lower if the beach is really soft. If you’re wondering how low you can run your tyre pressures, you can lower them to as little as 10psi if you’re really struggling for traction. Be aware that your vehicle will perform differently than normal, your steering, braking and acceleration will change dramatically when you deflate your tyres to beach-driving tyre pressures.

When you’ve had enough and are done 4WDing for the day, you’ll need a way to get your tyres back up to road pressures. This is where newbies get into trouble, as they expect to be able to do this at a service station, but you should never rely on a service station air compressor. For one, they’re incredibly unreliable, we’ve had every single servo on the way to Fraser Island (from Sydney) have an “out of order” sticker on it. Even if they were working , they are slow ….. like really slow, and can take up to ten minutes per tyre to pump up your tyres.

This should be enough to convince you to carry your own portable air compressor that will run off your car battery, but if it isn’t, then this next point will definitely put you in the market!

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 off road 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 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 heat.

The heat that is created by driving on the tarmac while still running 4WDing pressures is enough to cause a blow-out on a hot day in as little as 10km. It doesn’t matter if you’re running your original tyres, or large diameter heavy duty 4WDing tyres – there’s still the potential for a blow-out if you mistreat 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.

The best part is when you carry your own 12v portable air compressor, you no longer have to wait for ages at the service station to use theirs! And that’s if it actually works, and the nozzle hasn’t been run over millions of times.