Soft sand driving with auto transmission

[jmag]

Am off to Fraser Island for a few days soon. Any opinions on driving in soft sand with auto trans? Have done plenty of hard sand driving on North Stradbroke, Teewah, Rainbow and Bribie but Fraser different story on the inland tracks and some beach sections. Opinions on the Googleweb seem to lean towards using low range on the real soft stuff to avoid boiling trans oil. Speed limit is 30 kmh anyway.
2017 2.8 dual cab auto standard minimal weight in the back.
Thanks.

[NZMarkb]

Low Range & Drop your tyre pressure

[HK1837]

As above.

[ADAM1987]

I live in Hervey Bay and goto Fraser a few times a year - TBH 2wd is all you need if you drop your tyre pressure. I run 18psi and never have an issue on the inland tracks, only time it goes into 4wd is Indian Head. I have an auto also, do have a PWR cooler for piece of mind when towing the boat.

[Krat]

I live in Hervey Bay and goto Fraser a few times a year - TBH 2wd is all you need if you drop your tyre pressure. I run 18psi and never have an issue on the inland tracks, only time it goes into 4wd is Indian Head.

Totally agree with this. I did my first trip to Fraser in Sept 2018. Used 2WD for 90% of the time.
Most of my beach driving is around Beachport S.A. Fraser was a walk in the park.

[Critter350]

I’ve posted this elsewhere recently so sorry for repeating myself. I reckon 18psi is high true pressure for the beach. Unless it’s very hard sand I guess. 15 is max but I do most of my beach driving at 12. Heading north from Jurien Bay I actually bogged in and let down to 8 psi to get out.
A good test for me - when you take your foot off the loud pedal, how far do you roll before stopping? Car should roll pretty Frey and stop gently. If it pulls up suddenly, you’re digging in and working hard.
That and tranny coolers should be mandatory on autos (IMO).


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[HK1837]

I went for a drive along Stockton on Thursday and it was an almost 40deg day so I did some experimenting.Tyres at 15-16psi. Even in low range the tranny fluid was getting close to 100deg (sender located as fluid exits the converter and heading to cooler). Sitting on 40 it wanted to be in 4th, got hotter in 3rd and revved too hard, didn’t want it in 5th. What I found best and kept temp down around 75deg was to leave it in 4th and lock the converter, although I didn’t want to load the converter clutch up too much. No point using H4 as fluid gets way too hot no matter what you do.