hey everybody, i went down the jersey shore, for thanksgiving and took my sisters boyfriend for a ride in the rex. i was showing off a little and decided to take a ride on the beach, brigaintine nj has a 4x4 beach that you can drive on normally you need a permit and there is a checkpoint you have to go through but it was thanksgiving and 7 at night, nobody around. it was awesome when we were on flat sand close to the water but when i tried to go back and get off the beach i went or rather tried to go through some soft sand with deep ruts and got stuck. after trying to dig it out and spinning wheels and digging it deeper in and smelling my clutch heating up i realized i was officially screwed. just before i was about to call a tow truck, a friendly passer by with a dodge ram and a tow strap happened to pull up. it took a few tries but we got it out. that was fun and it sucked. lesson learned: the rex handles great on the beach, doin 60 up the beach pitch black out with no one around and the waves crashing 20ft away was awesome, going to slow through soft deep sand and getting stuck is no fun. i hope i didnt hurt anything. there is a lot of sand to vacuum out and the clutch smelled pretty bad when we were trying to get it out, stalled it three times. what do you think, is she ok?

 

You can have fun in the sand in a WRX but it isn't made for off-roading. You don't have the ground clearance or the tires for it. The stock differentials aren't up to that kind of punishment and can be damaged. If so, a dealer would probably rule against warranty repairs in a case like this. If the clutch still doesn't function normally after a cooling off period, you'll probably need a replacement. Won't be covered under warranty since you've abused it.

Good luck. I wish I had something more positive to tell you but if the clutch and diffs are fried, I'm afraid you're looking at some repair dollars.

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0==WW==0
"…axles of evil…" - george w. bush

 

everything functions normally the smell went away after it cooled off.

 

Hopefully your car didn't suffer damage other than some wear on the clutch. Sounds like it's okay.

--
0==WW==0
"…axles of evil…" - george w. bush

 

Yup, I got mine stuck in the sand also. Things began fine as I did donuts, figure 8's at ~ 20mph but when I slowed down I slowly sunk. It was more silty/dusty than sand, almost like quick sand. When the frame is sunk, awd can only do so much. It sucked!

 

Ive off-roaded my wrx a lot and have gotten the clutch to burn/smell plenty of times. The clutch should be OK...as long as you're not slipping/burning/smoking it up for long periods of time at least...