Morning Fewbie Desert Drive - Ramadan Series - 2 hours - Murquab - Dubai - 23 Mar 2024

[Emanuel]

20 minutes ago, DP1011 said:

Oops - My note was purely in a lighter note my friend😅 @Emanuel ! I know how attentive and communicative you were all through the drive while watching our back in your capacity as sweep role👍🏻!! 

Apologies for jumping to defense mode. Clearly though the screaming in the car was overpowering sometimes. 🤣 

Appreciate your understanding. The previous club we belonged to wasn't such a safe drive with them sometimes and this is something that has been engrained in me now quite deeply.

[Abhilash Kottakkal]

@DP1011 @Benjamin we were wondering why my vehicle don't recover on it's own and need a tug..it suffered a good damage..luckily the stock guard took it.. I will need to protect it more...

[Emanuel]

That is a big sand scooper. 🤣

You weren't alone at the shop my friend. On the way home the back of my car was wobbling a bit and this is what it was once they got it up on the hoist. There was a bulge around the tire on the right side of the tread with pieces of the steel belt sticking out and the other side was starting to loose some shape too. I got just over 2 years and 40K of use almost to the kilometer. I'm guessing being deflated and rolling around on the sand and being banged around a bit causes the steel belt to degrade over time. Would love to hear of any other ideas on what might have contributed to this.

In case you are wondering, after reading many forum articles and debates on off-road tires I decided on the Yokohama Geolander GO15s all around just in case the other tires up front were starting to degrade too.

On 3/23/2024 at 6:00 PM, Marek said:

@Emanuel in the trenches:

@Benjamin showing off to Emanuel how to drive a Jeep the right way:

And we had a lift off!

She had that covered! 🤣

[Marek]

Is 015 worth if you do desert drives? I decided that for this one or two rock-climbs a year getting 015s makes zero sense... 039 (H/T) is perfect for the desert. It's a controversial opinion and a lot of folks might disagree, but I don't need the grippy tread tires for the sand...

Or do I?

[Frederic]

All Terrain tires like the G015 are definitely worth it for the following reasons:

1) Allows for lower deflation vs a HT tire.

2) Stronger sidewall. Sand is soft and forgiving but often we come across some barbed wire or pieces of rock on sabkhas. This is where your HT tire would potentially fail prematurely.

3) knobby AT tire profile will provide better traction during self recovery.

During driving in the desert your HT tires are indeed a good option, moving to AT tires will definitely be an improvement with stronger sidewall, and better grip when doing self recovery. 

 

 

 

[Abhilash Kottakkal]

@Frederic when i see this post i searched for and saw some previous posts regrading the wheel size also and in opinion 16" is the best for desert drive. What I have is 18", I had several popouts and some times I hear experienced people saying it's the rim's that causing it. I still try to make my driving style smooth to prevent a popout and put it on 13psi, I have bfgoodrich ko2. Appreciate your insights on this.

[Abhilash Kottakkal]

@Frederic as you said AT is better in many circumstances. I don't care about sabka at full speed, I know the tyres can take it. I damaged the stock toyo tyres in wadi that too at a  very easy one I was surprised..as you said no side wall protection...

[Benjamin]

@Abhilash Kottakkal my rim size is 18inch too. In all that time I’ve only ever had a partial pop-out on my front right during an extreme tight turn into a dune.

rim size will definitely change the overall handling of your car and potentially even reduce the risk of a popout. However in my personal experience so far so good! 
 

I recommend to get use to your car. Become comfortable with 13 psi and then experiment reducing tyre pressure to a maximum of 10 psi. If you’re still not comfortable changing rim size and tyre is always an option. Just don’t make it your only option  

[Abhilash Kottakkal]

@Benjamin thank you for your feedback. I will just focus on making my driving smooth rather than worrying about popouts, I don't know I am always worried about that and troubling you all with my popouts... 

[Benjamin]

4 hours ago, Abhilash Kottakkal said:

@Benjamin thank you for your feedback. I will just focus on making my driving smooth rather than worrying about popouts, I don't know I am always worried about that and troubling you all with my popouts... 

don’t worry about popouts mate. We get good training out of it and it’s a great teaching point for anyone who hasn’t seen one fixed. 
 

it’s what support crew are there for!