Tips for offroad driving, particularly mud

Hi,

Me and a few friends have been experimenting with some local offroading, but have gotten stuck pretty badly this evening. I thought we were going to need a helicopter to get us out of the mud in this field! Basically I'm looking for tips to get out of mud, or to avoid it in the first place.

All help appreciated

Is this on private land or public rights of way? If rights of way then the only answer is don't drive them if they are as bad as you make out.
Otherwise, is there away round the mud, what tyres are you using, are you going in too slow with no momentum to carry you through. The list goes on, but in the end if the goo is too gooey you ain't gonna get through :lol:

Try these links some good info.

http://www.fronteraowners.co.uk/info/4wd.htm

http://www.fronteraowners.co.uk/info/using4wdfaq.htm

http://www.pps.net.au/4wdencounter/4wdtech/4wdtech.html

Good links Ste.

Great links, thanks. The problem is that the muddy bog thing is over the only exit from our play area.

Think I could chuck gravel or rocks or something into the mud tracks to help thicken up the goo? Or maybe there's some sort of offroading gadget for getting me out of the mud. Except for a winch of course, because I get married in 10 days and I'm poor

Depends on the type of mud you're faced with.

Ideally for "bottomless" mud, you want your tyre to be able to float, rather than cut through the mud, thus low tyre pressures up to 0.6bar would be ideal and will aid in the tyre "floating" on the mud. The opposite also holds true, if you're faced with shallow mud that has a firm ground underneath, you'd ideally want your tyres hard to cut through the mud and obtain grip on the harder surface underneath. Well that's the theory. When I see mud, I normally don't stop until I'm well and truly stuck :oops:

instead of trying to avoid it. A friend of mine was stuck for 3 hours in a mud pit with his Frontier - eventually the farmer had to bring his MF Digger loader to pull the Frontier out. Even then the MF had to anchor properly in order to pull the Frontier out :shock:

If it is because of wear and tear at an entrance/exit point and not a normal driving point for vehicles then try getting some tiger matting from an army surplus (I use Anchor Supplies in Nottingham). Will allow even normal road cars a fair amount of grip over mud, just make sure it is fixed down properly otherwise it can wrap itself around important bits of the car and cause more damage....