How does it do off road? -- deep, soft sand

[josepi63]

I'm still trying to decide between the Cherokee and X-terra.

I'm a surf fisherman and drive on the soft sand of the Delaware coast and outer banks of NC. My Cherokee does very well in both sand and snow.

Will I be losing out on off road capeability (besides the drop in HP and torque) if i switch to X-terra?

[OffroadX]

Nah, the only thing that really matters in sand is power and tires. The Xterra is strong enough in 4Lo to handle lower-speed sand duty. It's not strong enough in 4Hi to do well if you were to be climbing dunes and such like at Glamis, but there's none of that around where you'll be, at least not that I think you're allowed to drive on.
Main thing is to run the widest tire you can with a mild to moderate tread pattern, and I'm sure you know to air them down for sand use. A mud-terrain type tire is typically not recommended for sand because they are prone to dig and sink the vehicle to the axles, exceptions of course are the paddle-type tires seen on sand rails or high-powered trucks that are lightweight and/or have enough power to really make them work. A good all-terrain or all-season tire is what the Xterra needs.
The factory tires on the Xterra are about 10.5 inches wide, and the last 2-3 years they've been about 31" diameter. The SC models (and 04 SE) have 17" wheels inside the 31x10.50 (well, 265/65-17, same difference) tires, other sized used on various trims through the years are 265/70-16 (also 31x10.50), 255/65-16 (30x10), and 265/70-15 (30x10.50). The smaller the wheel diameter, the better-suited the tires are for airing down. Not sure how the 17" will handle pressures under 20 psi, but the 16" ought to handle 15-20 psi pretty well, and the 15" ones can be taken down to 12-15 pretty well as long as you don't try and take hard turns while doing so.
I run 32x11.50-15 BF Goodrich All-Terrains on my 2000 and I've had them in a little spot of deep, loose sand with no problems. I've aired them down to 15 psi and have had no worry of them coming off the bead.

Not to say you can't get out on the beach with the factory tires, they'll do a very admirable job as well, but if you think you might need the extra footprint, the BFG AT would be my recommendation.
A 31x10.50 BFG AT would have a larger footprint than a 31x10.50-15 (or 265/70-16 or 265/65-17) "street" tire because they have a squared-shoulder tread rather than the gently rounded tread of most tires. If you have the 16" wheels, the 265/70-16 is going to be that same bit wider than the factory tire, plus about an inch taller (32x10.50). If you want even more width, plus a little more height, consider the 32x11.50-15 if you have the 15" wheels. And of course, the BFG AT is a fantastic all-around tire for most anything short of mud too. Wet, snow, ice, dirt, sand, etc, it does quite well in all and will last 50-60K miles easily too.

Check out www.encxc.org if you spend much time down in the Outer Banks. Also check out www.ne4wd.com, temporary home of the New Jersey Xterra Club, for folks in the DE/NJ area.

Brent