Vendetta high performance AATV tires by Mudd-Ox

[kghills]

I had a chance to go directly to Mudd-Ox in Shipshewana, Indiana this weekend to test a set of their new Vendetta high performance AATV tires on my Max. I feel really lucky to live close enough to be able to drive to the "Mudd-Ox Mecca" and get to view Matt's new tires first hand. I also found out a lot about tires. The Vendetta is not just some random ATV tire made by some company that makes lawn mower tires. The Vendetta is made by Hoosier about an hour away from Matt. Housier is a company known for high performance racing tires. In fact, Hoosier actually makes the performance tires for a number of other larger tire manufacturers. The construction of the tire gives the tire a very compliant sidewall yet its bead construction allows it to stay on the rim even at very low pressures. Hoosier even changes the compound in different sections of the tire to give it performance and wear characteristics that Matt specifies. The result is a true high performance AATV tire designed from the ground up for amphibious use and manufactured by a company known in the industry for its high quality performance tire manufacturing capabilities. Sort of a win-win for the amphibious community. I found out later that the Vendetta rides AWESOME, skid steers GREAT, is FAST in the water and has so much floatation on sand and in mud that it is really tough to get stuck. TIme will tell the wear characteristics but the really neat thing is if Matt doesn't like them he can have the compound changed in just the tread. The hole deal is just over the top cool.

Here are a set of 26x14x12 Vendettas mounted on my Max.



Matt was great and picked my Max off my trailer with his giant fork lift and after a little (maybe a lot) of spit swapping started pulling the tires off my Max to fit his new Vendettas.


As soon as a Super Terra Grip was off my Max, Matt grabbed a fancy didgital scale and weighed it to see how it compaired to his Vendetta and a Rawhide III. All tires were mounted on steel rims made by Kawasaki. The results surprised even me. The Vendetta is a lightweight monster.


I took a few pictures of the 26x14x12 Vendetta along side a Rawhide III and SUper Terra Grip to show just how big the Vendetta is.


The Vendetta is big and has a really flat tread face that measures nearly 14 inches across which I found out makes for some serious traction in sand, mud and I guess you could say water, as I found out later.


Fitting the tires on My Max that is set up for 18.5 wide Adair tracks turned out to be a simple matter of bolting them right on. My machine is a factory tracked model with bearing supports and a bearing support bar. I run 4" wheel spacers to keep my tracks the proper distance from the body and the 4" spacer kept the Vendettas about 3/4 of an inch away from the bearing support rail. The distance from the top of the tire to the tub was about the same as the Super Terra Grip.


Matt already has the first run of tires committed for use on new machines with Hoosier gearing up to make hundreds more over the next few weeks. Here is a pallet of tires and wheels.


I have a bunch of video from the Mudd-Ox proving grounds that I will be posting soon. I will attempt to try my hand at editing it so it is not just some long random single shot video like I usually post so please stand by.

Keith.

Here is the video:

[thebuggyman1]

AWESOME

The more I see and hear, the more I want a set.

Edit: What size (actual measurement) did they turn out? It looks like the rawhideIII's were the 25x12-9(approx24") so I'm guessing about
25 1/2"????

[Buzz]

Keith, thank you very much for all of the information and pics

[amphibious drew]

Kudos to Matt O for making a tire designed specifically for amphibious skid steer machines. It takes a lot of guts and capital to venture into the tire business. Will these tires fit a stock Max IV without spacers? I can't wait to see them in person at the races next weekend! They look good. Very similar to argo's tires. Kinda wish they were that hight and width but on his 9" rims though. They would look like giant marshmallows and probably ride the same.

[mudbug3]

Keith

Running the same air pressure in the Terra tires and the new Vendetta tires, which tire is faster in the water.

[kghills]

Keith, thank you very much for all of the information and pics

No problem Buzz. I know I am lucky to be so close. Sharing good fortune makes it all the more fun.

Kudos to Matt O for making a tire designed specifically for amphibious skid steer machines. It takes a lot of guts and capital to venture into the tire business. Will these tires fit a stock Max IV without spacers? I can't wait to see them in person at the races next weekend! They look good. Very similar to argo's tires. Kinda wish they were that hight and width but on his 9" rims though. They would look like giant marshmallows and probably ride the same.

Drew, Matt was sort of forced to make the tires to make the advancements in the Mudd-Ox model line his customer base was asking for and stay in business. Argo will not sell him tires so what options does he really have? That's the question he asked me. My only reply was ASX Vampires and he quickly responded "and when will I get them to put on the machines that need to ship in two weeks?" There are no other viable options for Matt. The non-Mudd-Ox owners in our amphibious community are just lucky Matt has a passion for other and older AATVs (you should have seen the load of crap I mean treasure I delivered to him) and considers us in his tire venture. The Vendette is the result of a need for tires for the new XL line of Mudd-Ox and to that end they are a tire that makes that machine a total package. The rest of us are just lucky they will fit some of our machines. They will fit a stock Max IV but will require a 1" or 2" spacer depending on your body and what kind of clearence you feel comfortable with. On the 9" wheel comment let me say a few things. Argo makes tires for 9" wheels. The company that makes the tires for Argo makes tires for lawn mowers. The Vendetta tires are bigger and need a larger rim. I completely get where you are coming from but remember the early balloon tires had no rim to try and mantain a bead on. You start to roll the tire off the rim if the sidewall is to compliant and large enough. I am hoping my video will show this aspect clearly because I ran the tires at 3PSI and tried my hardest to debead them. Hi speed turns and the machine would buck up and down as the tires rolled and bounced back. It was scarey, fun and hard to hold on but I could not get them to pop off the bead. On a bigger machine I don't know how much bouncer a person could stand. I consider the Super Terra Grips a bumpy ride, the Vendettas give you a bouncy ride. Thats the best word picture I can come up with to describe the ride.

AWESOME

The more I see and hear, the more I want a set.

Edit: What size (actual measurement) did they turn out? It looks like the rawhideIII's were the 25x12-9(approx24") so I'm guessing about
25 1/2"????

The tires are just a tad over 26". I know people say sizes for tires will vary greatly from production run to run. Given Hoosiers reputation as a tire manufacturer I do not think this will be the case with the Vendetta line of tires. I think you will see them all being just over 26" tall. Thats my guess at least.

The Vendettas are a home run for us amphibious owners with machines that will fit a 26" diameter tire. Look for them at Ashtabula and on a machine near you soon.

Keith.

[kghills]

Keith

Running the same air pressure in the Terra tires and the new Vendetta tires, which tire is faster in the water.

My honest non Kool-aid drinking response would be I think the Terra Grips might be just a tad faster, but if they are faster it is not by much. I would have loved to have had another Max in the pond to race to know for sure but I really think the two are close. There is one big difference though. You guys with Terra Grips know how the faster you spin them the faster you go but at some point even though you give it more throttle you don't really go that much faster? The Vendettas are sort of the same way but at 3/4 to say full throttle it just did not seem any faster but if you backed off the throttle to like say 1/3 it was like they jumped up in speed. Sort of like a sweet spot but like a lower throttle high water speed sweet spot. Also the water sheds outwards a bit on the tires so it (and mud in mud holes) doesnt really seem to get thrown back in your machine. That was sort of nice given that with my setup the wheels are outside the body a bit and uncovered. I think the hole day I got two specks of mud on my left arm, that was it. Wait till you see the video of the tires in runny pudding mud, I garentee you will be suitably impressed. They work like tracks. So much flotation you do not sink in and they will just pull you along with minimal throttle and I could always back out of anything I could not move forward in anymore in and split shift for another try at a different angle. You should have seen Matt's jaw drop when I made it through the hole that eats his 8 wheelers. It was a blast.

Keith.

[thebuggyman1]

Keith, if that's the mud hole in the far back side of his property....I have video of Matt winching his orange 6 wheel Ox out of it. I didn't even try.

[mudbug3]

Keith

How well would Matt's new Vendetta tires perform in the mud in these two video's?

[kghills]

Keith, if that's the mud hole in the far back side of his property....I have video of Matt winching his orange 6 wheel Ox out of it. I didn't even try.

That's the one. I think Mike and Matt thought they were pretty funny till I dropped in it and kept moving. I think I could spend all day at the Mudd-Ox proving grounds when it is as wet as it's been.

Keith.

[kghills]

Keith

How well would Matt's new Vendetta tires perform in the mud in these two video's?

Dave, more like the second video. Matt's soil does not have as much clay as the mudd in the first. It has that rotting vegetation smell when you start turning it up. I don't know if it would have climbed out for sure but I know I would have been able to move around in it. I swear these Vendetta tires make my machine feel at least if not a little better than the waffle tracks but they swim like fish. Very stable in the water. Wait till you see them on wet water soaked logs in the rain. There will be no doubt how tuff the max is after you see me work it on the wet logs. I think I even impressed the Mudd-Ox boys although they might not admit it. Did I mention the Mudd-Ox proving grounds was a blast?

Keith.

[mudbug3]

Keith


Because of the wider width of the Vendetta tire, , plus the 4" inch spacers that you're now running , I would assume that this is why your Max IV feels so stable now with out the added weight of the Adair tracks. Your Max IV now floats higher out of the water now too. I also don't think that you have the HP to spin the Vendetta tires fast enough in the water to gain any more water speed. This is what the forum member Ray Kolis found out when comparing the water speed of the 24" inch Carlisle tire to the 25" inch Carlise tire on a 27 hp Argo Avenger. The 24" inch tire was faster in the water. Ray told me that the 25" inch Carlise tires need at least a 31 hp motor to turn the larger tire fast enough to post more speed.

[Noel Woods]

I'm proud that Matt got these tires to the market, they will be very useful on many larger machines. Kudos to Matt and MuddOX as well as Hoosier tire.

[eddieb1965]

Keeping a tire from rolling off the wheel is ALL in the wheel,not the tire.It depends on how much of a bead is rolled into the wheel.Rolling to much bead into a wheel will cause excessive air pressure to seat a bead(Unsafe condition).It is a fine balance of what is to much or not enough on rolling beads into a wheel.Bassett Racing Wheel had an extreme bead wheel that is not offered anymore,it took so much air pressure to seat it that injurys and fatalities were occuring.

[kghills]

Keith


Because of the wider width of the Vendetta tire, , plus the 4" inch spacers that you're now running , I would assume that this is why your Max IV feels so stable now with out the added weight of the Adair tracks. Your Max IV now floats higher out of the water now too. I also don't think that you have the HP to spin the Vendetta tires fast enough in the water to gain any more water speed. This is what the forum member Ray Kolis found out when comparing the water speed of the 24" inch Carlisle tire to the 25" inch Carlise tire on a 27 hp Argo Avenger. The 24" inch tire was faster in the water. Ray told me that the 25" inch Carlines tires need at least a 31 hp motor to turn the larger tire fast enough to post more speed.

I guess i do not really have an answer for that Dave. The pitch of the motor sounded similar and it did not seem to labor under full throttle but could be. The Vendettas do apear to be good swimmers though and as time goes on they will find their way on more machines and we will have a better answer.

Keeping a tire from rolling off the wheel is ALL in the wheel,not the tire.It depends on how much of a bead is rolled into the wheel.Rolling to much bead into a wheel will cause excessive air pressure to seat a bead(Unsafe condition).It is a fine balance of what is to much or not enough on rolling beads into a wheel.Bassett Racing Wheel had an extreme bead wheel that is not offered anymore,it took so much air pressure to seat it that injurys and fatalities were occuring.

I do not really believe this is true. While the depth of the bead roll is important I do know that the tires bead construction and sidewall are just as important. Take the AquaTorque tire for example. I run mine with no air and they do not come off the bead on an Argo wheel while if I run my Rawhide III tires with no air on the same wheel they will debead themselves about my first hard turn. Also for the AquaTorque tires the guys at Tim's shop hate to mount them and set the bead (unsafe condition) while the Argo and Rawide tires on the same wheel get no complaints.

Keith.