Which Tires are best for Sand?

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Daggerfall
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Hi

I am considering to change my All Season Tires with All Terrain Tires but I am not sure if ATs have any advantage on the sand? Maybe because of reinforced side walls they might be more durable against deflation .

Do they have a clear advantage against All Seasons?

Also is there any tires you know specifically built for sand like Nitto dune grappler?

Please advise
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use the magical search field on the top right handside corner of this webpage
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Maddie;39917 wrote:use the magical search field on the top right handside corner of this webpage
Thanks I got that already :) But it seems like there are many different opinions
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Paul
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Hi Daggerfall

There is no magical tire that will have unlimited grip and never pop out..... i am sure you know that.

The optimisation could be a long and expensive one, if you tried every tire on the market.....
So we do what you are doing and ask.

The problem is there is no correct answer.

There is lots of advice on the internet. Take that with a big pitch of salt.... you have no idea who writes the recommendation, if he is working for a particular tire company or distributer or is just plain clue less.

We are also in a unique situation as we have only 2 requirements, highway and sand. No ice, snow, mud, rocks, etc, etc.

Each car will be different with the same tire.
Even on the same car, different drivers will like different tires.
As your experience improves, you may feel differently about your needs.

On sand, most "street" tires are OK. Tires with big nobly treads look cool, but don't always work well.

What car are you driving?
What tires are on? Make and size.
The tires you have on, are they worn out or time expires that they need replacing?
Have you experimented with different pressures?

If you are getting lots of pop outs and stucks, new tires will NOT fix that..... experience and driving technique will.

Sorry i can't say "go buy XXX tire"...... life is not that easy.

Regards
Paul
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Daggerfall
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Dear @Paul

Thanks for the response.

Ok I admit that I sound like wanted to be spoon feed.I also made some research and let me ask more specific questions.

Since I am looking for the best tire on sand lets start with the facts

1. I need more contact surface
2. I need light weight
3. I need tire settings which decrease the chance of pop-outs

Contact Surface:

Most people think about the width of the tire to increase the contact surface but I made some rough calculations and come to a conclusion that size and capacity to reduce the tire pressure gives you also more contact surface with less consequences. Here below an example

Image
I think also How tire bend is important tires with flexible sidewalls and less aggressive threads creates more contact surface then the ones with strong walls and aggressive thread.

Image

Is seems like Cooper HT is a good option in this case but this of course puts a lot of stress on the tire so my question is: Is there anyone using these tires had any problems?

2. Weight : I assume tires with less thread have less weight.

3. Pop outs: What I understand is when pop-out occurs the tire detach from the rim inwards so I assume using a Rim with the min allowed width for that specific tire will reduce the chance of pop outs. Is that correct?

How does the size of the tire sidewalls affect the pop-out risk? Smaller or bigger size is better?

Please note that I do not have much experience and what I suggest is just a theory . Maybe the guys with more experience can bring different perspectives to the subject

Thanks & Regards
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Paul;39920 wrote:Hi Daggerfall

There is no magical tire that will have unlimited grip and never pop out..... i am sure you know that.

The optimisation could be a long and expensive one, if you tried every tire on the market.....
So we do what you are doing and ask.

The problem is there is no correct answer.

There is lots of advice on the internet. Take that with a big pitch of salt.... you have no idea who writes the recommendation, if he is working for a particular tire company or distributer or is just plain clue less.

We are also in a unique situation as we have only 2 requirements, highway and sand. No ice, snow, mud, rocks, etc, etc.

Each car will be different with the same tire.
Even on the same car, different drivers will like different tires.
As your experience improves, you may feel differently about your needs.

On sand, most "street" tires are OK. Tires with big nobly treads look cool, but don't always work well.

What car are you driving?
What tires are on? Make and size.
The tires you have on, are they worn out or time expires that they need replacing?
Have you experimented with different pressures?

If you are getting lots of pop outs and stucks, new tires will NOT fix that..... experience and driving technique will.

Sorry i can't say "go buy XXX tire"...... life is not that easy.

Regards
Paul
I have 245/70R16 (Yokohoma H/T-S on the rear and Goodyear M+S on the front) I did used them with 12f-10r PSI ,had good grip (For my opinion) and never had pop-out. But I don't have much experience to make a judgement about their performance. Lets say so far, so good.

I am considering to change with 265/70 or75 R16 to increase the height of the car a little bit. Considering Cooper HT since I will mainly drive on sand but I assume these tires are not going to perform "terrible" on different surface like in Oman.

Regards
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Hi Daggerfall

I agree with you 100%, bigger tire will give a longer footprint and wider tire will give wider footprint.

I have BF Goodrich AT on my Jeep and they look like your second drawing when deflated. Even at 7psi.
On harder ground it drives on the tread only and on softer sand, the sidewalls do "carry some weight" so it is not necessarily a bad thing.

There are many issues when deviating away from stock.

-The bigger tire may make contact with the wheel arch when the suspension bottoms out.
-The bigger tire effectively changers your "gears". This may help or hinder, depending on the specific car/tire.
-The wider tire will balloon out more than the std tire. The inner wall may contact the suspension. Usually on the front, but also on the rear (ak the FJ guys)
This then leads to spacers or rims with a reduced back spacing to have the inner wall of the tire at the stock position.

Have a look here:

http://www.rimsntires.com/specspro.jsp

What car are you driving, i can't make it out from the picture.

Hopefully someone with more experience with that car and your "preferred" Cooper tire can give some more info.

Regards
Paul
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Just my two cents on pop out, as many times mentioned in the forum by experts, i agree that the driving style is important. At the end this is physics so if you give enough stress to any joint, you can brake it apart. But also, i think having a wider side wall would be better against the pop out. The deflection in a tire is in water drop shape (or something like that) so it gets minimized when you get close to the rim. When you use a smaller diameter for the rim and bigger aspect ratio for the tire, the tire to rim joint gets far away from the action zone with too much tire deflection and that might have a positive effect on the risk of pop out.

Cheers...
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Paul;39926 wrote:Hi Daggerfall

I agree with you 100%, bigger tire will give a longer footprint and wider tire will give wider footprint.

I have BF Goodrich AT on my Jeep and they look like your second drawing when deflated. Even at 7psi.
On harder ground it drives on the tread only and on softer sand, the sidewalls do "carry some weight" so it is not necessarily a bad thing.

There are many issues when deviating away from stock.

-The bigger tire may make contact with the wheel arch when the suspension bottoms out.
-The bigger tire effectively changers your "gears". This may help or hinder, depending on the specific car/tire.
-The wider tire will balloon out more than the std tire. The inner wall may contact the suspension. Usually on the front, but also on the rear (ak the FJ guys)
This then leads to spacers or rims with a reduced back spacing to have the inner wall of the tire at the stock position.

Have a look here:

http://www.rimsntires.com/specspro.jsp

What car are you driving, i can't make it out from the picture.

Hopefully someone with more experience with that car and your "preferred" Cooper tire can give some more info.

Regards
Paul
Thanks [MENTION=1788]Paul[/MENTION],

It is a nice link and I will consider the points you mentioned above. I think they are also important. But I don't think I can find someone have experience with my car since it seems like I am the only one driving a Sorento :)

I made some research about the max size tires can fit to Sorento without any problem even with full compression.There are a lot of modified samples I found but mostly for different terrains .It seems 265/70-75 are ok without any rubbing or contact to suspension.

What [MENTION=3080]Agalon[/MENTION] told is also make sense so I am considering to go for 265/75

Thanks & Regards
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Oohhh Yess some physics :004:

Dear Daggerfall, I think the answer for all your questions would be a personal judgment done by you, after you read some drivers experiences. So I share mine with you.

I had an Fj Cruiser 2012, with stock tires which are Dunlop AT22 (265/70/17). The optimum pressure on sand was for me 10 PSI. This tire tread is not very deep.

Now I am driving an FJ Cruiser 2014, with modified rims and tires. Tires are BF Goodrich All Terrain (275/75/16) with deep and irregular tread and harder sidewall, with these tires I am driving at 8psi with medium grip and 7psi with strong grip. Above 8psi with these tires on an Fj cruiser you start digging in the sand if it is soft and suffering climbing dunes.

So you see, the stock tires are narrower but have more contact surface and are softer. So with 10PSI you are fine. Similar tires are Cooper Discoverer HT.

Now theory says: Pressure on sand = Force / Surface. So in our case force remain the same (same vehicle weight), if we increase the surface, the pressure on sand will be reduced. But in my example tire tread and sidewall play a major role depending on your vehicle weight.

From my personal experience, when I will change my tires, I will go for Cooper Discoverer H/T, for Jeepers they tend to keep BF Goodrich because their cars are less heavy.

I hope it helps,

Cheers
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