Have been doing a lot of beach driving and the other day I happened to go out with my mom and her fiancé driving in front of me in his 03 ram 1500 with Firestone destination at's (265/70/16) and while I needed to air down to make it up the entrance he breezed through on 40psi. I've been getting a bit bogged down at lower speeds. Once I get going I'm usually good but I am shocked when I see jeep liberties and grand cherokee etc with 20s and low profile tires doing just as well and I'm down to 15psi

So my question is, what would make my car better in the deep sand?

Could it be the three amigos? If I resolve that would it be noticeably better?

Would a CDL make a huge improvement?

Would a certain specific tire help? I have crappy 265 70 16 starfires from the last owner. 2 are about 40% tread, 2 are around 20%. I want new tires but I have heard that bald tires are usually better in sand. I'm debating between cooper adventurer at or MT baja stz. The baja looks like it has a good tread pattern for sand but I know very little and it would be about 200 dollars more. Also, would I be better off trying to stuff a wide tire on there like a 285 or would a 265 be sufficient?

Just trying to sort this as it hasn't been too confidence inspiring in current form. Ideally, I would like a beast that can blast down the beach without really needing to air down but I don't know what I need to get there. I see a lot of trucks that look stock making me feel foolish

 

As someone who lives in a desert, I've driven on sand quite a bit. Beach sand can be particularly tricky when it gets torn up by other people driving over it. I have a longer-term plan to install an onboard air compressor, which is one good upgrade if you're deflating tires a lot to go through sand. The other big one is tires. While sand-specific tires are of course best, there are plenty of AT tires that do well, and wider isn't necessarily better. Speaking very generally, deep-tread mud-type tires tend to do poorly because they dig into the sand, and you want to be gliding on top of it. I just got some Cooper AT3s, which I've heard are pretty decent in sand despite the tread profile. I haven't driven them in sand yet, though. Others swear by the BFG KO2 as the best overall off-road tire, but they're known to be less good on sand.

Technique also plays a major role in good sand driving, probably a bigger one than you think. It requires a delicate balancing of throttle and momentum so that you sort of plane on top of the sand rather than dig in. You have to steer with the way the sand is pushing the truck to some degree, because if you resist its momentum too much you'll end up bogging down. I consider this to be a pretty solid guide, despite a lot of fluff: Sand, Tyres Driving and Recovery - Dubai Offroaders - Just for Fun!

I'd recommend practicing and getting stuck and digging out a bunch, and eventually you'll get better at this.

 

Onboard air is definitely on my to do list as I have a fairly small compressor and a 6 month old that cries whenever we are standing still. A few of the beaches here have air stations with huge compressors and the difference that makes in filling speed is enormous . Another alternative that I have considered is making a board that has a dedicated 4 gauge power cable and 4 of the harbor freight compressors that I currently have. Just one to each tire and I should good plus I like it for the redundancy should one or more fail

I purchased sand ramps and am going to get an exhaust jack. One of my biggest concerns is that I have a lot of frame rot out back and no real good recovery points besides the axle, so for me being able to self recover is kind of imperative. I totally get what you are saying on the technique...there are a lot of fishermen out here that have been doing this for years and they don't even think to air down unless they are driving an extended distance and don't want to put strain on their trucks. Some don't even put them in 4wd.

Please update me on the Coopers once you get to try them in sand. They are number 1 on my list at the moment and I'm starting to see sidewall cracks in the crappy tires that are on mine right now, presumably from running at 12psi on the beach everyday

 

Fixing the Three Amigos will definitely help, and it's (very often) not difficult. Get the ABS codes read and address the problem. If a problem with the shuttle valve switches is indicated do the Option B fix.


CDL would also help, of course, but traction control alone gave me great performance in sand before I enabled the CDL in my truck.

 

Different beaches have different sand types, but all the sand I've ever driven on the TX coastline in a LR was a piece of cake and I'm talking deep soft sand to hard packed sand.

I normally run BFG KO's, Goodyear Duratrac's or a good AT/MT tire on any of my vehicles. I've never aired down in the sand and I think a lot of it does have to do with driving style. Heck I've taken a 2wd Ford Ranger places people in 4wd's were having problems.

Only issue I have with driving in the sand is sand sticking to the rim and causing a horrific death wobble so I always make sure my rims are free of sand before hitting the highway.

 

Fixing the three amigos will make a world of difference. The presence of the three amigos means the traction control is not working, which means your truck is crippled off road.