Tire and wheel slip?

[HaulingAss]

Tesla recommends not going below 36 (but doesn't say never). Wes unmounted a tire at 25 psi while drifting.

I would suggest that recommending a lower limit of 36 psi on the stock wheels and tires is exactly the same thing as recommending never deflating lower than 36 psi.

That said, not all surfaces are created equal in terms of avoiding tire damage (or de-beading) at low pressures.

Silver Lake Dunes in Michigan requires 15 psi or lower. Guess we'll see how the hold up after doing that.

It's not as bad in sand or old, soft spring snowpack because the surface of sand and snow conforms around the tire, providing more support. Just avoid de-beading by limiting speed, sharp turns, and side slopes. The real problem, repetitive fatigue damage, happens with very low pressures when driving on unyielding and irregular surfaces so the tread can conform around the irregularities. Unfortunately, tires designed for freeways and a high GVWR tend to have a stiff tread that doesn't conform very well around irregularities. Airing down helps a little, but the tread is too stiff compared to a true off-road tire. And high-traction surfaces like clean rock are when low pressures can cause the tire to rotate around the rim. Not good.

Driving on soft snowpack is when you are least likely to encounter issues with low pressures because snowpack generally doesn't offer enough traction to allow the tire to rotate around the rim. You could still de-bead a tire in soft snowpack by going too fast and turning too hard, causing the tire to dig in. Same with deep sand. Either one will provide side wall support which will help reduce the chances of repetitive fatigue damage to the side wall reinforcement fibers.

Dry sand is really boring to off-road in, at least for someone who likes more technical challenges. It uses huge amounts of power and energy (less if you air down more) but doesn't really return much enjoyment. It has always felt tedious to me. I'll do it to get to a destination I want, but you'll probably never find me driving on the sand dunes in Michigan. I did enough deep sand driving in Mexico to last me a lifetime. Boring.

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[mongo]

Dry sand is really boring to off-road in, at least for someone who likes more technical challenges. It uses huge amounts of power and energy (less if you air down more) but doesn't really return much enjoyment. It has always felt tedious to me. I'll do it to get to a destination I want, but you'll probably never find me driving on the sand dunes in Michigan. I did enough deep sand driving in Mexico to last me a lifetime. Boring.

Boring? I don't know what deep sand driving in Mexico is like, but driving up the leeward face of a 150'+ dune at the sand's angle of repose was anything but boring. (though Cyberbeast did make it easier)

 

[HaulingAss]

Boring? I don't know what deep sand driving in Mexico is like, but driving up the leeward face of a 150'+ dune at the sand's angle of repose was anything but boring. (though Cyberbeast did make it easier)

After you do it a few times it gets boring real quick.

 

[ARMANDO PADILLA]

I don't think this caused any damage to my tires. I only deflated them to go up that hill and at low speeds, then back in camp site I used a portable tire inflator to get back up to 50 psi. before going high speed on the dry lakebed. I was just worried about the misalignment from the slip that did occur. But I didn't know you can adjust the wheel covers to line up.

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