Just how capable is an argo without tracks, are we missing out??

[Coast2Coast]

As some of you may know I've been running my argos without tracks. I was talking to someone the other day who was curious about argos ask "so from what I gather, an argo with tracks is good in mud but sucks in water, and an argo with tires is bad in mud but good in water?". I told him that an Argo with tires in good shape is still better than a quad with good mud tires. But I got wondering about that.

I think maybe the areas I use my machine are just unique and that's how I get by without tracks. I drive over muskeg to get to my hunting areas, and that's basically just a thin layer of vegetation over an infinite depth of watery peat/mud. Sometimes if you're close to a lake you can get out of the machine, jump up and down, and the ground all around you bounces and produces waves, floating muskeg. I can get through it 95% of the time as long as there's a layer of mossy/grassy plantlife growing on top, but drive into the black stuff and I'm done, have to winch through. But even the big souped up quads with 30" mud tires can't get 30 feet in this stuff. They just chew through the mat of mossy grass and sink down to the skid plates. I've ran into those guys in these trails and they just spend all day to get a mile down these trails tearing them all to oblivion. Where I can just cruise over the top of it picking my way around the holes and covering that same ground in 10 minutes with the tires barely chewing through the first layer.

What I have learned is that there is a pretty decent learning curve to get the machines through regular muddy rutted up quad trails without the advantage of tracks. You have to keep them from getting high centered. Take funny diagonal lines across holes to stay out of ruts. But most of the time the quads are hammering it right into the middle of the big holes to try and get through. Well I'm just out hunting so I just drive around those holes lol, so I end up being able to get further easier than the quad guys because I don't have anything to prove going into the middle of the deep holes when there's a perfectly clean line off to one side of it.

So in thinking of this stuff I went back to youtube and looked up old Martin O videos on youtube because I remember his whole crew never used tracks. Holy crap! I've never seen so many argos get stuck so often lol. Those guys just get stuck in every single hole one after the other, drive 10 feet and get stuck in the next hole. Then a guy in a side by side comes along and just blasts right through them all! Obviously there's something going on here that I don't see out here in Alberta because the side by sides and quads seem to have an easier time through some of them anyway.

So that got me to thinking, if a regular quad can get through that stuff easier than an argo, why the freak am I riding around in a $30,000 specialized "go anywhere" machine that can't get where a $5000 quad can go? Am I missing out on life by not using tracks? LOL! What about anyone else going trackless, do you guys ever go out with the quad guys? What do you think, does a quad get around better than an argo with the stock tires?

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[curtisbyrne]

i can relate. this year i went on a fishing trip to serpentine river about 2hr drive from home to the river. had a full load of gear not overloaded though. i come up on the first bog drive on to it and it full of ruts and first thing the argo sucks right into one of the rutted tracks and just like that stuck. get pulled out by a quad and barley makes it past the ruts. half way we encounter a steeper mud hole.....i go through it get to the top and stuck bottomed out....... get pulled out again as the quad goes right through it.on the way back i try to avoid the rutted part of that first bog by going around through some scrub and over a small bank.....goes down and stuck the front of the tub hung me up and i was stuck again. now my Argo is 30 years old and has worn runamucks and the classic style tranny so it dont help but i know what you getting at here. the quad literally find the bottom of mud holes as an Argo floats on top of them and is just grabbing and throwing slop due to the fatter fires and low pressure that keep it on top of things. this has its advantages(bog without ruts,ice,snow,occasional mus) and disadvantages(bottomless mud holes, rutty terrain) the quad tires are skinny and spin deep into a what you thought was a bottomless mud hole till you see him crawl out of it while your there watching.
hope this helps somewhat.....thats just my experience. like i said my Argo is older so has lack of grip,ground clearance,and everything else an HDI say would have and i know people around here with HDIs that go to that river without a hitch due to the Argo but i understand in more difficult terrain like you explained coast2coast.

[scimanstev]

Although I am still gaining experience, a properly configured Argo is a real beast. I have never seen a quad cross a lake, or drive through several feet of snow. With the right tracks an Argo is one of the most capable vehicles on the planet. With just tires, they are still magnificent, but can get stuck. They can carry lots of equipment and people. Because of the multiple low pressure tires, as you point out, they do very little environmental damage. A bit more with tracks, but everything is a trade off at some point. When I designed what parts would be part of my Argo, I had no preconceived bias. I watched every video I could find, and studied them closely. I asked questions and evaluated the answers against the videos. Now, I have a vehicle that is virtually unstoppable. I am very proud to be an Argo owner. I can go where no quad, snowmobile, or boat can go, at any time of year. I just point it, and it goes.

Steve

[glen1971]

I have gone trackless in northern Alberta for a couple of years when it was really dry. With those times, we all (my argo and the quads) could go about the same amount of places. The real wet ones I still get through them better than the quads. With the tracks on in the mud and snow, I can get alot further than they can. I know I'm never the first one to our destination, but when we shoot a moose, we have hooked it on to the argo to get it out. If we had to haul it out, it would be alot easier in the back of the machine than on a quad rack. With my machine I have been "stuck" a handful of times.. Some highlights.. High centered on a log (once) - chainsawed it and drove out. High centered because of quad ruts (once) - avoided them on the way out. Crossing an open piece of water that was about 12' long and I couldn't get the momentum, with the tracks on, to get out - pulled the machine out by hand with the winch line. Stuck in a soup pit of mud without the tracks, that the quads weren't even gonna try - winched out backwards. Came up to a bridge that was only quad width. I tapped out and and told the other guys to go ahead and if they shot something or it looked good, to come get me and I'd cross the beaver dam and get there with a bit more work.
There's also quite a few places the quads have been stuck, that I've winched them through.. It seems like the places we are heading into now with the machines is not anywhere near as nasty as it was when we first started hunting up north. Maybe getting older and realizing that getting stuck sucks.. lol...
Like a buddy of mine said on one trip "without that thing, we couldn't even try going into some of these places with a quad. We know we can always get out."

[allwheeldrive]

But most of the time the quads are hammering it right into the middle of the big holes to try and get through. Well I'm just out hunting so I just drive around those holes lol, so I end up being able to get further easier than the quad guys because I don't have anything to prove going into the middle of the deep holes when there's a perfectly clean line off to one side of it.

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This is an excellent point. Off road is after all usually an excuse to push the boundaries and see what is and is not possible for our machines. Usually the deepest, rockiest, nastiest part of a trail is avoidable. I’ve driven the same trails in my 4x4 truck as my Coot. The truck takes the easiest paths and it’s a fun challenge and the Coot the hardest and likewise it is fun and challenging. SxS are better than a wheel ATTV in some places and worse in others. My Coot with its very aggressive 31” Tractor tires is sort of a hybrid between an AATV and a SxS. It will dig in and bite where a traditional AATV may get high centered or bogged down. But at the same time I cannot reach down as deep as a dedicated mud built SxS, nor do I have the flotation to ride atop a marsh. I think “bottomless mud” is often used indiscriminately. This is due to the limitations of a machine. A bottomless pit to my Coot may be well within reach of a Quadractor or hilifted ATV. Likewise a bottomless pit to a SxS may be impossible, but an argo with tires will eventually make it through.

If there is water with mud under it; AATVs are better, they can avoid the mud all together and paddle through the water. If there is deep deep heavy mud an ATV / SxS will be better as it can chew and cut through it. If there is very shallow slippery mud on an incline. A SxS/ ATV can often spin uselessly and go nowhere. While the soft low pressure tires of an AATV (and more of them) will keep pulling and climb.

There is no perfect solution. I think SxS and ATVs with aggressive tires are more fun to “watch” and maybe more fun to ride for some. Thus they are more popular. An AATV usually tackles most terrain effortlessly, and when it can’t drive any further it sort of just stops. This gives the illusion to most people into off roading that the AATV is less capable. As it is less showy, but in reality it may be driving through stuff with no flare that an ATV would need to rip apart to move in.

Come spring the mountain roads where I live get very slippery. The 4x4 club I’m part of may spend hours tackling these greasy black mud hill roads. The Coot climbs these hills with so little fanfare you’d never know how difficult they’d be in a standard ATV or mud truck.

As a last point it SHOULD be noted: There is a big difference between an ATV IE standard off the showroom floor model and a crazy nitro powered portal axel machine sporting 37” tires and a final modified price over $50,000. I’ve never run into one of those in the wild, they mainly exist in the realm of Youtube, and when they’re not being filmed, they are being repaired.

[Noel Woods]

I have multiple friends that purchase a Harley Davidson for $25-30k only to drop another similar amount into it making mods and getting custom paint jobs. While I've always believed that some such folks are separated from their money as in that old saying..., however if you already have an expensive aatv and you can make it perform remarkably better by adding tracks, I'm all for it.

[allwheeldrive]

There are no upgrades one can do to a SxS / ATV that can compare to the performance gained by adding tracks to an AATV that is for sure. Including Tracks on a SxS. They get stuck a lot more than I thought possible.

[Terra]

We bought a 2010 Avenger and took it back into an area where we wanted to moose hunt, no tracks 33 kilometers, lots of back up and choose a different path in the peat and muskeg. Had to winch a couple of times. We mounted a winch out back (sometimes there is nothing out front to winch from), and discussed the tracks, ended up buying a set from Adair Argo. Went back up to moose country, and down the same trail, instead of 33 kilometers, only 17 to go the exact same distance. So the first time we spun our wheels almost twice the distance. No need to back up and re-group, it is now virtually unstoppable, only spins in the water (and probably moves twice as fast in the water as just tires, although that's not much), and don't really need the winch out back. My opinion, without the tracks it is a good machine, with the tracks, it is a fabulous machine. Throw half a moose in the back, and drive right out, through mud, muskeg, water, slough grass, whatever.
We bought the argo so we could hunt where no quad could go, so far we are the only ones back there, the quads turn around at the first beaver flooded hole.
Doug

[glen1971]

We bought a 2010 Avenger and took it back into an area where we wanted to moose hunt, no tracks 33 kilometers, lots of back up and choose a different path in the peat and muskeg. Had to winch a couple of times. We mounted a winch out back (sometimes there is nothing out front to winch from), and discussed the tracks, ended up buying a set from Adair Argo. Went back up to moose country, and down the same trail, instead of 33 kilometers, only 17 to go the exact same distance. So the first time we spun our wheels almost twice the distance. No need to back up and re-group, it is now virtually unstoppable, only spins in the water (and probably moves twice as fast in the water as just tires, although that's not much), and don't really need the winch out back. My opinion, without the tracks it is a good machine, with the tracks, it is a fabulous machine. Throw half a moose in the back, and drive right out, through mud, muskeg, water, slough grass, whatever.
We bought the argo so we could hunt where no quad could go, so far we are the only ones back there, the quads turn around at the first beaver flooded hole.
Doug

Good to see a trail non-tracked vs trail with tracks comparison! Our group echos the same sentiments with having an argo in the group.. It definitely opens up lots of areas to hunt..

[curtisbyrne]

all in all its just a great thing to have parked in the shed waiting for whenever you WILL (NOT MIGHT WILL) need it!