When talking about driving a 4WD offroad with your mates, everyone becomes a professional, throwing statements around like “you need lockers” or “all it takes is more lift and bigger tyres”.

Whilst back here in the real world, there are next to no hard or fast rules for getting skilled up. Many people get stuck on the tracks the first time they head out, and when they get home decide to take drastic measures and spend stacks of money on their vehicle, attempting to turn their vehicle into a “more capable” machine, in reality there is really no point unless you already know your vehicles current limitations.

Modifications may help, however knowing the limitations to your 4WD takes spending a lot of time behind the wheel and finding out, just what it can and cannot do will take to get your 4WD stuck, and subsequently unstuck, familiarizing yourself with engaging 4WD and low range.

The only way to know what modifications to make is to get your 4WD into some serious offroad situations and find the point where it can no longer easily progress, and from there you will understand which limitations your vehicle needs.

Many people are quite surprised at just how capable their stock 4WD is offroad particularly when driven by able hands. A 4WD is like a musical instrument, whilst in the hands of a beginner, things may not quite ring true like they do when a professional is at the wheel and the rules of what to do, are more like knowing what not to do when you are offroad!

Even if you are at the beginning of your 4WDing journey, the following tips will definitely help you get further and learn more about your 4WD!

Drop your tyre pressures down LOW, we aren’t talking like 1 or 2 psi less than normal, the objective is to flex out your sidewalls a little bit and enhance the effective footprint of your 4WD! By reducing your tyre pressures you reduce the effective PSI or puncturing force being put on the outside of your tyre carcass!

This means it is much less likely to find out what a sharp stick, or rock can do to a fully inflated tyre. Using an affordable and cost-effective tool like the Adventure Kings Kwiky Tyre Deflator, can easily open the full potential of your un modified 4WD, but as they say what goes down must come back up, and this is where a heavy duty double cylindered Thumper MKII compressor or the Thumper Max com in handy.

With plenty of high pressure air output when you are done driving your rig on the rough stuff no matter where you end up back on the hard top you’ll be able to get your pressures back up to highway pressures in just a couple of minutes. You’ll find you have faster inflation times, than you will find at any servo air service!

Get familiar with your 4WDs operation and how slow your 4WD drives when it is in low range, you’ll find that unlike the tele ads that probably sold you on a 4WD, most hardcore offroad driving is done at a slower pace in your low range gears, and by increasing your gear ratios your 4WD will be able to tackle steeper obstacles, without slipping tyres, the slower you go the less likely you are to dig your tyres into the soft surfaces!

Start on the simple stuff and work on to the harder tracks, when you are starting out head out with more experienced 4WDers and always bring a fully equipped recovery kit like the Hercules complete recovery kit and before you know it, you’ll be choosing the perfect suspension kit for your 4WD, like the RAW 4×4 2” lift kits, and deciding on the perfect set of tyres for your next expedition.