Offroad rims and tyres

[Heebee]

Interesting. My photo was RHS tyre on full lock left, front of car to the top of the photo. The LHS looks to be identical on my car.

[Murphenzo]

Ahhh right. No issues on the RHS on my car (with stock tires), it was only the left. If I recall correctly the RHS would have fouled with the ATs on stock offset wheels though.

[Murphenzo]

Heebee: Does your transporter have the DSG or Manual? I'm really interested to see how the 2L bi-turbo motor goes off-road. I've only driven one once, but from what I remember of it, I think it'll be a far better engine than the older 2.5L like mine.

[Heebee]

Hi Murphenzo,

Sorry, totally missed your question. Mine is a DSG. So far I have only ventured onto sand and unsealed roads. No problems so far but no real testing offroad conditions. Got a few camping trips planned through this year so I'll share any information I can on here about where I've taken the van.

[Sunny43.5]

Some words of caution if my feeble memory serves me correctly VW did not fit DSG on the Amarok because of clutch burnout risks , apparently the DSG would get confused in the sand . Maybe someone with a DSG in a T5 .1 can enlighten us if that is the case or not .

[Heebee]

Thanks for that Sunny43.5.

Yeah, I have read something similar re Amarok and auto box. I thought VW stated the auto chosen was more suitable for heavy load carrying and offroad conditions than the DSG.

I don't remember anything specific about sand and confusing the DSG but I can imagine that if you were pushing the DSG through long runs of soft sand, loaded up or up hill, and the box is trying to go up and down gears you could damage the clutches. Same as a manual box I suppose if you drove it like that.

They run around Europe through snow so I don't expect problems on sand (excluding really deep stuff I guess) but something to be aware of definitely.

[Transporter]

Thanks for that Sunny43.5.

Yeah, I have read something similar re Amarok and auto box. I thought VW stated the auto chosen was more suitable for heavy load carrying and offroad conditions than the DSG.

I don't remember anything specific about sand and confusing the DSG but I can imagine that if you were pushing the DSG through long runs of soft sand, loaded up or up hill, and the box is trying to go up and down gears you could damage the clutches. Same as a manual box I suppose if you drove it like that.

They run around Europe through snow so I don't expect problems on sand (excluding really deep stuff I guess) but something to be aware of definitely.

You've nailed it. Though I would change the DSG oil at every 30,000km and even installed an additional oil cooler, if I were using it frequently in the sand (not just 200m at the beach ).

[Murphenzo]

I think the big issue with DSGs off road, and in the sand especially would be any time you're taking off under heavy load (up a hill or in particular, stuck in loose sand) or having to crawl at less than idle speed under load. Stuck in sand or example, to drive out of it, you don't want to be turning the wheels hard. You want them to be pretty much idle speed.....but there will be a lot of load. Without a low first gear my manual 2.5L certainly doesn't have the off boost grunt for it, so I end up either stalling = fail, spinning wheels = 50/50 fail, or you slip the clutch with a lot of revs.....it's works but it's hard on the clutch.

If I recall correctly the 2L twin turbo is a little more ballsy down low, but I doubt it'd be enough to get out of the same situation with out slipping the clutch. And that's a particular situation the DSG wouldn't have been calibrated for. Maybe it'll slip it well, maybe it won't slip enough and without enough torque it'll keep having to grab at the clutch. Either way, I can see it being pretty hard on clutches. $$$.

This is where the auto in the amarok is a great choice. You just keep stalling up on the converter until you have exactly the amount of drive you need to get out. Easy peasy. And being an eight speed box is genius. Everything from a crawler gear to tall over drive in one box without needing a transfer case.

Anyway, don't let that deter you, just something to be aware of. Mine is less than ideal and it's still got me everywhere I've asked of it. I've only got stuck twice, once on purpose in some really soft stuff to see how far I could push it and once coming into camp and I hadn't aired down the tires yet. It's just a little more reason to be sensible when it comes to recovery. Don't keep the boot in and dig yourself into a big hole. Try and reverse out, if that fails, get out, dig the sand out from in front of all four tires and have another go.

[Heebee]

Transporter - good advice there thanks.

Murphenzo - You pretty well summed up my thinking. My understanding is DSG is essentially 2 manual gearboxes so would be a similar situation to trying to crawl a manual car with no low range out of deep sand - slipping clutch etc. with associated wear and tear.

Here's a theory for you - VW would have designed the vehicle to handle European winters. Park the van, overnight you get 6+ inches of snow and in the morning you need to drive out through unplowed roads. I think this is a reasonable scenario and engineers would have designed for this. I don't know how analogous this would be to driving through soft sand though.

Anyway, enough talk. Time to just plan a trip away and get out there.

Cheers!