Taking the Explorer to the beach!

[elizabeth01]

Has anyone driven the new model explorer on the beach? If so, did you lower the air pressure and to what amount? The owners manual says not to lower the tire pressure but that seems contrary to all I have heard about beach driving. I would love to be able to drive all the stuff to the beach since carrying it all is pretty much impossible any more.

 

[phareous]

Maybe it has to do with the tire pressure sensors/monitoring?

 

[jcerrion]

There is one or two members who have been beaching. I will try and track down their names.

 

[boltsfan17]

Has anyone driven the new model explorer on the beach? If so, did you lower the air pressure and to what amount? The owners manual says not to lower the tire pressure but that seems contrary to all I have heard about beach driving. I would love to be able to drive all the stuff to the beach since carrying it all is pretty much impossible any more.

Although I haven't taken my 2013 Explorer on the sand, I do have a lot of experience off roading. It really depends on the conditions of the sand if you need to lower the tire pressure or not. For example, a lot of East Coast beaches like Daytona Beach are hard packed and lowering the tire pressure is not necessary. You can drive a car on Daytona Beach with no problems. I drove a Mustang on the beach in Daytona without lowering the tire pressure and it was fine. I live in California so I've been to the Oceano Dunes too many times to count. Parts of the beach there are hard packed as well so you don't need to lower the tire pressure. When the sand is deep, that's when it's good to lower your tire pressure to around 20psi or lower. Which beach do you plan on driving on?

 

[peterk9]

Has anyone driven the new model explorer on the beach? If so, did you lower the air pressure and to what amount? The owners manual says not to lower the tire pressure but that seems contrary to all I have heard about beach driving. I would love to be able to drive all the stuff to the beach since carrying it all is pretty much impossible any more.

Welcome to the Forum elizabeth01. :wavey:
The thing to remember is that you have to have some way of putting air back in. It could take a while with those small portable compressors.
Perhaps you can try driving on the beach first to see if it is necessary before lowering the PSI. I'm not familiar with the tread pattern of the Michelins you have. If it is anything like the Hankooks, it isn't very aggressive.
Good luck and have fun at the beach.

Peter

 

[1995E]

Sounds like insurance reasons since tire separation due to low tire pressure accompanied with the poor quality of the firestone tires caused Ford a lot of issues in the 90s and early 2000s.

 

[Sedition]

Lower those tires to 20psi. At 20psi you will have resonable traction on the sand and still be able to drive to the gas station on the road to pump them back up. Be sure to choose the "desert" setting on your 4x4 control knob so you will have maximum traction all the time.

If you feel adventurous and want to drive over sand dunes drop the tire pressure more, say 15 psi. You can still drive on the road to the gas station at 15 psi but at reduced speed and take your time around corners.

If you start to get stuck drop your tire pressure more before spinning your tires in the sand and you will be able to just drive out of your predicament.

 

[Fab]

i'll be taking my explorer over sand soon. there are tire tracks/ruts and i'm a bit concerned that the front plastic spoiler that hangs low might hit/scrape the sand that sits up higher between the tire tracks/ruts. anyone have this problem?

 

[Sedition]

Oh yeah careful, you will snap that right off if you hit something too high too fast. Just take your time and move slowly over where you think it is too high in the middle.

 

[182RG]

After seeing the corrosion on virtually every part of the Jeeps we rent at the Outer Banks each year, the only way I'm hitting the beach is in a rental. Sand and salt water are not kind to machinery.

 

[Sedition]

I could not recommend driving a 45,000 dollar peice of machinery in salt water, ever. But drive it on the sand all you like!...

 

[elizabeth01]

Thanks for the pointers. We would be going to New Jersey and so the tricky part would be getting through the softer part farther from the water. @Fab did you take it out yet? How did it go?

 

[spitfisher]

After seeing the corrosion on virtually every part of the Jeeps we rent at the Outer Banks each year, the only way I'm hitting the beach is in a rental. Sand and salt water are not kind to machinery.

Then again thats Chrysler product, junk!

 

[MikeFreas]

I drove mine on the beach. Lowered the tire pressure to just over 15 psi and set it to sand mode. I drove in both hard and soft deep sand without issue. I'm sure I could have gotten it stuck if I tried but that would have ended the fun. After leaving the beach the gas station was about a mile down the road. If you are worried about airing them back up buy a cheep 12v air pump.

 

[ocracokeBound]

Beach Driving Update

I have read through and seen a couple of threads regarding driving on sand, but most were from a while ago. I was hoping to get some more information on how this explorer does in fairly deep sand. I am headed to Ocracoke and some of the ramps there are pretty deep, then headed to Portsmouth Island where I don't want to make a fool of myself in a AWD. I am used to beach driving in a Liberty (9.5") of clearance, and know the rules as far as air down, tow strap, shovel ect. Since the older version of the explorer had 8.3" of clearance and had an ok rep I am hoping that the 7.6 will be enough. Also being a 2013 I noticed the lower facia notches up a foot or so from each side, not sure the previous years did that. I have 17" wheels which should help balloon out the tires. Anyways would like to hear what to expect.

 

[MercuryMullet]

Low pro tires do not do as well, I've driven in alot off sand with low vehicles, if you see a rut or something you might use some skinny pedal to make sure. But from my experience, if you had zero problems with your other vehicles, you'll do fine. Just be tentative at first. You can also do a traction test in an area where you know you are safe. I know on the way down before the ferry there is some sandy streches along the highway. Or maybe stop more in the outerbanks and do a test run.

 

[peterk9]

I have read through and seen a couple of threads regarding driving on sand, but most were from a while ago. I was hoping to get some more information on how this explorer does in fairly deep sand. I am headed to Ocracoke and some of the ramps there are pretty deep, then headed to Portsmouth Island where I don't want to make a fool of myself in a AWD. I am used to beach driving in a Liberty (9.5") of clearance, and know the rules as far as air down, tow strap, shovel ect. Since the older version of the explorer had 8.3" of clearance and had an ok rep I am hoping that the 7.6 will be enough. Also being a 2013 I noticed the lower facia notches up a foot or so from each side, not sure the previous years did that. I have 17" wheels which should help balloon out the tires. Anyways would like to hear what to expect.

There are a couple of things to keep in mind regarding the ground clearance. Ballooning the tires will decrease the ground clearance. Also, although the specs show a ground clearance figure of 7.6 ", it can't be consistent across all 3 models. There was some discussion on this over a year ago. Overall diameter of a 20" wheel is 30.04" while a 17 is 29.54". A difference of 1/2".
So is the 7.6" the maximum with the 20" wheels or the minimum with the 17" wheels?

BTW, welcome to the Forum ocracokeBound.:wavey:
Have fun and don't get stuck!

Peter

 

[ocracokeBound]

Thanks for the welcome and information guys, luckily it is not all in the machine, knowing to air down and not gunning it when you start to spin helps a lot https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oc2G3TYsCK8

 

[77rednecktruck]

The manual on page 233 says to not air down the tires when driving in sand. That goes against everything I have been told about beach driving.

I did not air down my Jeep the last time I was on the beach and it did just fine though. I was going through pretty deep stuff with no issue. Maybe AWD is different, in a normal 4x4, airing down is a must from my past experiences. I will be going to the Outer Banks in June and will be driving on the beach so I will test out normal air pressure vs airing down.

 

[bigmoose15]

Airing down is a must. I used to do a lot of beach driving in my old '95 Bronco beast. First time out i didn't air down and didn't even make it 100 feet. All it took to get out was to air down where i was and just drive out, never had a problem since. I think i usually dropped from 32# down to the upper teens.