My “offroad” expertise comes from 20 years of being a professional beach lifeguard in So Cal and after that, 24 yrs of driving on dirt roads and the beach here in Baja. That includes launching and landing boats and watercraft and flying an ultralight here using “tundra tires” on the beach and arroyos. My Gem is a 2001 E825, 3.5hp motor, 8.9 gears, brand new flooded lead acid batteries, T1 controller, 22 x 11.00 x 8, 2 ply knobby tires.
The key to beach driving is low air pressure and tires with a large footprint. (Low air pressure helps this). The larger, thin, higher pressure tires most folks run for “speed” would not work in deep sand for sure.
My GEM has no real problems driving on hardpack sand and dirt. Turf mode helps when the tires tend to spin on loose sand and gravel. Really soft sand is a challenge. I run my tires about 3 PSI when on the beach. I can go from hardpack sand/dirt to deep sand fairly easily at speed but when starting from a complete stop in soft sand there is a major tendency to dig the tires in due mostly to the heavy weight of the GEM. I can do it but my experience driving on sand helps immensely. Once the GEM has momentum the “fat tires” float on top of the sand. Starting in reverse is better than going forward but it’s hard to look cool driving backwards all the time…… My old 81 Club Car golf cart with the same tires was much better because of the rear wheel drive. My 2 wheel drive ATV’s perform even better and are much lighter.
One unanticipated challenge with my GEM is the controller has a tendency to overheat when driving in deep sand. (Error Code 41). Since I just bought my GEM in June of this year, (2018) I have only been driving in very warm weather ie temperatures averaging 96 in da shade this summer with an average humidity of 60 percent. I will see what the difference is when the weather cools this winter and will make modifications to keep the controller cooler after seeing the difference.
I had to cut and modify parts of the GEM body so the fat, larger diameter tires would fit. The front end was no big deal but I had to cut the rear “spat” in half and splice it back together to make it wider in order to cover the rear tires. The spat also had to be lifted approx 3 inches to keep the tires from rubbing. Extended mud flaps were added to the front. The knobby tires kick up LOTSA sand, small rocks and dirt. I also semi enclosed the battery compartment under the seat from below to help keep out all the debris. I’ll prolly do a 4” lift at some point to help with this since I seem to remember solving the same problem with the Club Car. Lifting the GEM would possibly make cutting the front end wheelwells of the GEM body unnecessary. Dealing with “camber” is another completely different animal because of the tires and constant air pressure differences. Only the future will determine what the wear on the tires will do but I’ll rotate the tires often. There are no “control/steering issues” when driving on any surface so far with the “fat tires”.
Top speed on pavement with my “fat tires” is 25mph confirmed by GPS. I just got the hardware/software to do controller “tweaks” but prolly won’t cause 25mph is fine for my purposes and pushing those fat tires with my 3.5hp motor is about the safe limit without burning up something I imagine. When I can find a good, used 5hp motor for cheap I’ll switch motors and start tweaking the controller.
One last benefit to the “fat tires” is that it really helps with softening the ride with lowering the air pressure. I run about 4.5 lbs of pressure on the pavement and dirt roads. I tried some used Harley air shocks on the rear but was having problems due to the GEM weight. I’ll play with them more but I’m back to the stock shocks for now.
If anyone has any questions or needs more info you can email me at makomarkos at yahoo dot com
Hasta,
m&m
Unique post. We haven’t had much information on beach driving.
You need a ruff-n-tuff type trans-axle. The have an electric dif lock in the front. Or a golf cart rear for 4wd.
Hey, you must have got the programmer from me! 
As far as I know, no one else does the T1.
Dave
He sounds like a Lithium upgrade candidate.
Loosing 400 pds of lead will surely help your heavy issues.
The truth is GEM’s are not a good choice for sand. Rear drive carts are better.
Rodney
Looking forward to when one of you guys start the “i’m making a 4wd gem” thread.
Matt
A friend of mine may be driving down this winter bringing me some lithium batteries. When I bought my GEM it needed batteries. I got lucky with the US dollar against the Mexican Peso at the time and got 6 12V LTH SEALED lead acid batteries designed for solar systems for $670 USD. LTH batteries are made here in Mexico with the parent company being Johnson Controls up there in the USA. I’ve also been following a gentleman named Robert Murray Smith on Youtube. He’s making GRAPHENE batteries which seem to blow away lithium batteries in every way. He made one for an electric scooter and is currently making one for a Twizzy. I’m hoping to replace my batteries with graphene ones in 5 yrs??? By then I should have my GEM in 4WD…
Hasta,
m&m
Rodney, you’re correct. Grant asked about the performance in sand so I posted my experience with my GEM. I couldn’t find any other info about using a GEM “off road” so I thought I’d share my results so others could make an informed decision when buying one for that specific purpose. Only deep sand seems to be problematic so far.
Hasta,
m&m
Thanks for the post. Your controler over heat issue code -41 can be dealt with if you to install a Heat Sink and Fan. The early cars like yours have the controller under the dash. It’s hard for cool air to get in and under the dash.
The 2005+ cars have the controllers mounted up under the hood where cool air is more available.
Do a search here for Cool Air kit. You can see a heat sink and fan. How do you keep the salt air from messing with electric connections
Hey Grant
As long as the electrical connections don’t get “wet” they won’t corrode immediately. Yes you have to put a little xtra effort into keeping them bright and shiny but that’s beach life. I have been doing research on how to keep the controller cool and saw your post. Is your solution effective? I’ve also been looking at how the computer folks who are much smarter than me are cooling their supercomputers. There are some very clever and fun cooling solutions out there.
Speaking of keeping cool. One of the ways I stay cool when we lose electrical service down here due to storms is to use small, 12 volt 7 " Camafro fans. They are super efficient. ( 2 speeds that consume .28 & .49 amps respectively). I know you like to pimp out GEMs and these would be perfect for that.
Thanks for the advice!
Hasta,
m&m