But ABC the only Rusos I know in Baja.Have bald tires.We got caught on
Baja 500 course 1 day after rain storm.From Rancho Coyote down to paved road to observatory.Nealy Impossible on dirt bikes,we passed many 4x4 trucks
stranded. If you have ever driven in red clay,it makes Ice driving easy.
well, David has the the house wife version of traction control.
Works pretty good, but not as well as Ken's manual diff locks.
So, Ken bought some cool stuff - but failed as operator.
Naw....we are talking about all sorts of things "is" this thread
Well, if that's the case... sand requires floatation over traction to move over. Spinning is just as big a no-no in sand as in any other condition,
but will bury you the quickest in sand!
Traction Control works in sand very well, but only in 4WD-HIGH RANGE to move across. LOW RANGE has so much power to spin the tires, it can be worse to
use, unless you have a traction control (anti-spin/limited slip) system in Low Range. If you are stuck, then going into L4 could help to take
advantage of A-TRAC or CRAWL systems to get unstuck.
Air pressure is always the place to achieve floatation on sand, even if you don't have 4WD!
A wider footprint will have a far less ability to dig in vs. move you forward. The amount of air to remove will depend on several factors that
include: tire type and sidewall type; vehicle weight; 2WD or 4WD; climate (temperature and humidity); and type of sand. Usually down to the 10-20 psi
range.
What modern traction control can do in sand is make it possible to not deflate thanks to the anti-spin technology, under ideal conditions...
When I first took my new 2010 Tacoma onto the beach south of San Felipe (at Bahia Santa Maria), I was stunned that I did not need to deflate the
tires, as I had with my 2005 Tacoma. The system Toyota uses is called TRAC (standard equipment since 2009) and it is an electronic limited slip that
applies brake pressure to any tire that begins to spin faster than the others. I was able to drive about on the dry sand with ease. The truck was
empty and on the next trip when it was heavily loaded, I did need to deflate.
To see if it was indeed the TRAC system that was doing the amazing job or just conditions that day, I disabled the TRAC (putting it in VSC OFF MODE)
and withing a few feet, the truck got stuck!
Now, with all four tire dug in, I tested the A-TRAC system for the first time, and the truck crawled out of the stuck! I went back into High Range,
and with TRAC back on and continued to drive. I was totally jazzed, and have been ever since with the traction controls. The truck also has a locking
rear differential, but with A-TRAC, it is not needed except perhaps when pulling others out of stucks or up hills, as I have down a few times.
Here is a video showing how A-TRAC (incorporated into a 2016 Tacoma as 'Crawl Control') takes the Toyota out of a sand stuck:
Well said ABC4x4.
DavidK- I watched the video of the Toyota stuck on an incline. That is a soccer mom advertising shenanigan. The truck backs down an incline..... WOW!
WTF? That was just 4 minutes of wasted time. Sorry, but Kens rubicon was poorly represented by its driver.
Maybe if you turn on the sound, you can hear the Baja 1000 race guy explain what is happening? The truck was driven up on that sand climb, put in 2WD,
buried the rear to the body, then put into 4WD, open diff only and buried the front so that all four tires were useless, no backing downhill. Then,
the operator engaged the CRAWL CONTROL (which uses A-TRAC) and drove out of the stuck.
When I first intentionally stuck my truck, it was level, dry, beach sand and I crawled out ahead... I also did it in much less time.
The point of all this is showing how the traction control systems on a new truck can now prevent you from needing to dig out, perhaps not needing to
deflate the tires, and travel solo without fear of needing a pull.
impressive how far traction control has come
very sophisticated programming of the software
I published 2 books in '97 and '99 about the first generation Mercedes and Jeep traction control
It worked on pavement when the car was in motion
it failed miserably off-road
but you gotta start somewhere
sure the Toyota engineers cheated by getting stuck uphill and recovering downhill
however, that is pretty much real life
you never get stuck driving downhill
I still prefer manual traction control (lockers) - in the hands of trained drivers it beats electronic traction control
the distribution of torque left and right is better with the manual system
all 4 wheels get (unequal amounts) of torque
with electronic traction control, the torque on 2 wheels is turned into heat (brakes) - only 2 wheels get torque that is turned into motion
wrong forum, sorry - I'll go back in the pool
Even the FJ Cruiser got pretty bogged with Baja mud. I used the 4000psi washer to wash off the mud. Then a week later, I had to do it all over again.
And even then, there was quite a bit of mud left. So much that the auto detailer complained about the mud left on his floor two weeks later.
David, You are so right! That mud, and sand mix is REALY hard to get off. We call it 2 time dirt. You clean it once, let it dry, then you have to
do it again, To get it clean! but it is still so worth it
"If it were lush and rich, one could understand the pull, but it is fierce and hostile and sullen.
The stone mountains pile up to the sky and there is little fresh water. But we know we must go back
if we live, and we don't know why." - Steinbeck, Log from the Sea of Cortez
"People don't care how much you know, until they know how much you care." - Theodore Roosevelt
"You can easily judge the character of others by how they treat those who they think can do nothing for them or to them." - Malcolm Forbes
"Let others lead small lives, but not you. Let others argue over small things, but not you. Let others
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