6 wheeler tire forum

[Mike]

Why have a whole forum dedicated to tires? Think about how important they are to the performance of our beloved 6 wheelers. They serve more than one purpose for us: Traction, Water Speed, and or course Suspension. So let's use this forum to compare different tires and see what others have experienced.

[hydromike]

My tire opinions...

I certainly don't have experience with every brand of tire, but I'll list a couple of my thoughts. First and foremost... I don't like flotation tires. Hate 'em. Get 'em away from me. From what I understand, the benefits of the flotations are that they ride nicely, and offer a lot of suspension. Oh, I guess they swim well, too. The downfall? They're about as fragile as they can get, and difficult if not impossible to repair once you really start doing some serious off-roading with them. Give me a Goodyear Rawhide, or Rawhide III, a Runamuk if you want to to really have some gooey suspension, or if you want big floaty marshmallow tires that swim relatively well, go with the Nankang Chevron (now discontinued). I run 'kangs on both racers, and they're bouncy, give a good ride, and have traction that is great on both land and (if you call it traction) in water. I don't do a lot of trail riding with them, though since they are fragile. I've held a pair of the 26" MaxIV tires before, and I think they are about as bullet proof as they get. Like Jeff P says, they ride like manhole covers...There's no perfect tire; everything is a tradeoff. The durability of newer tires (in my opinion) makes flotations obsolete. I shake my head when I see flotation tires go for twice or three times the price of one new Goodyear.

~M

[Mike]

Mike, that was an awesome post. I agree 100% that every tire is a trade off. I think it all comes down to what you use your 6x6 for the most. For me, when I first got my Max, I thought I wanted a good tire for water speed. But realistically I am not in the water much at all. Every now and then I find it fun to float around the pond but for the most part, the best part of the water for me is entering it as fast as I can

Now I want a tire that will do good in the mud because that's where I spend most of my time. And those Max IV 26" tires do seem bulletproof. There are only two things that suck about them. Like you mentioned, the ride is terrible but also if you are going to be using the Max around the house or if you are limited to where you can ride and end up riding in the yard a lot, they will tear your yard up (or leave a bunch of rubber on your concrete driveway )

[Don]

I have to agree with all the bad things Mike says about the flotation tires. That being said, I love'em. Flotation tires are what these machines were designed around, and they give by far the best suspension of any tire out there, no matter what the cost. Old as I am, I appreciate the suspension of the soft tires more than I used to. Flotations also give superior traction is many situations and can wrap around obstacles like a hand in order to climb over it. I've got a set on a Tomahawk that the kids run around in and I seldom have tire problems, but when I decided to run a set on a liquid-cooled 440 Superchief I ended up tearing the center hubs out of both rear tires the first time I opened it up.

The Nankangs are nice, and it's a shame they don't produce them any more- the Carlisle Chevrons now use a stiffer rubber compound and ride (almost) as bad as the original Rawhides. I have a set of 22" Rawhide IIIs on a Superchief and they ride very well, give great traction and swim relatively well. Plus, they look pretty cool. They may be the coming trend for amphibs. I've also got a set of 25" on a RIM, but haven't had the chance to test them out yet. My Li'ltruck's got 21" original Rawhides on it and just looking at them makes my back hurt.

Don

[hydromike]

Well golly; I'm actually pleased with my 21" Rawhides on the 295. I keep about 1-2 psi in them, and they hold on the Kawi Rims well, offer "OK" ride quality, and they really dig well. They're dinky though.

I walked out to warm up the "R" for the video (posting soon... hold on to your britches) and found out that one of the 'kangs had "no psi" in it. I put a whopping 1 psi in it and filmed the video. The quality of the vid is low, but you can get an idea from the site and sound of it that it's bouncy. Not a bad firm harsh bouncy, but sorta like being in the balloon castle at the county fair with a bunch of 8 year olds....

Skid steers don't "steer" well unless all six tires are on the ground, which wasn't the case in most of the video.

boing boing boing boing boing boing boing

~m

[Don]

Skid steers don't "steer" well unless all six tires are on the ground, which wasn't the case in most of the video.~m

I always thought the idea was to re-aim every time you hit the ground.

I'm not unhappy with the way the rawhides dig in the mud, and they don't swim badly either, but even with the 3-4 pounds I keep in them, they ride a little on the "hard tires, no suspension" side (go figure).

Don

[hydromike]

Re-aim? Exactly.

It's for this reason that I keep the laterals WAY out of adjustment. There's a lot of involuntary steering that happens when you're only on the ground 60% of the time. Being a tall gangly dude, I can't really lock my elbows into my lap to stop from involu-steer. When I strike the ground, I need to make sure there's enough slack in the steering system so that when my arms jut forward into the dash, it doesn't mistakenly engage a band and throw me out into the rhubarb. The D/stock is the same way.

[egoperf]

I just switched from the 26" terra grips to the 24" frontier tires on my max IV and let me tell you the performance is great. these tires wiegh 24lbs compared to 40 for the 26". thats almost a 100lbs of rolling wieght I took oof the machine. the 26" only measure 24" with 2lbs of air, the 24" measure 23.5" with 3lbs. they are alittle soft, but the ride is great.

[Mike]

That's some interesting comparison info. Can you tell a difference in the water or is that about the same too?