When to Air Down, Preferences, Opinions, and Discussion

[hjdca]

with 33" tires, 20 -22 psi in the dirt.. 15 psi in the sand dunes...
If you have lockers, you can keep more psi in the dirt to maintain ground clearance over rocks...

In the past, without lockers, I used to air down religiously to 20 psi.... Now with Lockers, I tend to make the decision more complicated, taking ground clearance into consideration. As you go to 35" or 37" tires, this becomes less important.

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[jimbom]

Most of my off-roading is desert terrain, but occasionally we're in the mountains in snow that turns to treacherous mud. We've gotten stuck in the mud a few times. Should we be airing down for those conditions?

 

[Klutch]

Most of my off-roading is desert terrain, but occasionally we're in the mountains in snow that turns to treacherous mud. We've gotten stuck in the mud a few times. Should we be airing down for those conditions?

Yes. Most people assume airing down is for increasing the width of the tire contact patch. However, the width increases only a tiny bit. Airing down significantly increases the length of the contact patch and that makes a huge difference.

 

[DocMike]

I just picked this up. Figure it will make it easy to set PSI.

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