Australia is a rugged and untamed land, with straight and unwinding desert highways that span stretches between towns that are further apart than many European nations are across. With a small and dense population situated within 100km from the coasts, the baron center is full of unpaved roads which range from main highways to what could be described as a goat track.

With regular transits from massive road trains and many 4WD’s tracks naturally develop what is referred to as corrugations or wash boarding, which are hard packed and closely spaced undulations that can be a nightmare to drive on.

Regardless of where in Australia you end up taking your 4WD, you’re more than likely going to hit a bit of dusty, dirty, ungraded and corrugated roads. If you haven’t encountered a stretch of corrugation yet, simply give it a little bit of time!

We have a handful of tips on how you should tackle these rough surfaces, and with a little bit of preparation to your vehicle you’ll never have an issue!

Firstly before tackling a remote area trip where you may encounter corrugations, you should do a bit of a once over and make sure your suspension, steering and tyres to ensure the components are all up to the task!

You want to look for things like rust, leaking oil, and even worn out bushings to determining if your vehicle needs any repairs – If you find that your springs and shocks need replacement, don’t hesitate to upgrade your 4WD with a set of new springs and shocks from Raw 4X4 suspension. Not only will you benefit from a small amount of lift, compared to your sagging stock springs but you will also get much smoother shock absorbers which can handle the heat and abuse encountered with the harshest Australian conditions.

When preparing for desert tracks, you need to ensure that all of your cargo is secure as well, going over every nook and cranny making sure that with the intense vibrations that nothing is going to vibrate loose, and potentially injure someone.

This is one reason why we love our Titan Rear Drawers, not only does everything have its place, but the reinforced tie down points on top allow you to secure your car fridge in place, plus anything else that is bulky, by using a set of ratchet straps or tie downs to secure gear.  It’s a good idea to check the load on your Steel Roof Racks as well as the fasteners holding your roof rack in place, just to be certain that everything is secure and you wont risk losing your racks and gear to vibration!

With all of your cargo secured, you are pretty much ready to get rolling, after you start driving on the corrugated surface you should stop 15 minutes in and double check all of your gear is still in place, if you discover a rattle, you can identify it and secure it, with the massive distances to travel you could be driving for hours, and rattles can be distressing, distracting, and fatiguing.

After the initial inspection you should double check your gear after about 1 – 2 hours, even if you haven’t found anything loose you should still hang around for 15mins, this will allow your shock absorbers too cool down a bit and decrease the risks of your shock absorbers from blowing up!

After confirming your setup is secure you can now head out and hit the tracks, there is a few tips to getting the drive to be more comfortable, but you will have to experiment

First up, you should decrease your tyre pressures using a dedicated tyre deflation tool like the Kwiky Tyre Deflator, you won’t need it to be as low as hitting a low range track, we recommend starting around 25psi or near abouts, your 4WD will require experiments.

With the right tyre pressures, you are mostly there but Too fast and you’ll feel out of control, too slow and you’ll feel every bump on the tracks and have a miserable time.

By finding the balance you should feel smooth and in control, but don’t top out over 80km/h, this is a rule of thumb safe speed but also keep in mind that the faster you travel, the more ‘airborne’ you are, the less traction you’ll have so give yourself plenty of stopping distance, and make sure you pack your heavy gear low down to prevent any issues with being top heavy!

Don’t forget that when you get back to the hard stuff you’ll need to get your tyres back up to pressure, we always bring a Thumper MKII Air Compressor to re-inflate our rubber when it meets the road!