What Desert Tires For RZR 1000?????

dezerteryx

Active Member
Jun 13, 2010
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28
san marcos
They have almost 800 miles on them. 500 was from the baja 500(utv inc race car take offs) I have a new tire(the spare) I ll put next to the ones on the car. Being LT tires they have long tread life were as a utv tire would show lots of wear.
 

Rynomx785

Active Member
Jun 21, 2015
548
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Wickenburg, AZ
I've got 1000 miles on my bighorns with no issues other than fast tread wear and lots of people say they don't hold up either. Even running low air pressure...
 

Sgabriels21

New Member
Sep 19, 2015
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Well... Ended up picking up the car today and got talked into the raceline wheels with the 30" mongrel's. Thanks for the help.
 

NIKAL

Well-Known Member
May 13, 2012
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Here is the thing, there is NO perfect tire! What you need to do is to list what is most important to you and find a tire in that range. Is best overall performance what your looking for? Maybe tire wear? A tire that will reduce load to the drive train? A tire better for rocks and stronger sidewalls, general hard pack dirt and higher speeds, sand washes?

One of the first posts mentioned the 33" Yokohama Super Digger 3 tire. Really this would be ideal, but it is bigger then 30-31 inches tall. Depending on wheel width the Supper Digger will be 32-34". But the concept of the Super Digger is really the optimal UTV desert designed tire. Its very light, strong sidewalls, rounded tread to help reduce rut tracking, and allows tire spin, reducing drive train shock loads.

This is why I chose the GMZ Cutthroat tire which is D.O.T approved for my XP4 900 in Baja, as it is as close to the Super Digger I could find. The Cutthroat worked really well and tire wear was pretty good considering all the different terrains and 580 miles we drove. Bad news is they only offer it in a 28" tire, and it will wear quicker then a real LT tire. If I was asked to improve the Cutthroat I would make the tread lugs a bit tighter and in the areas with a wider spacing, add stone ejectors to reduce stone drilling. But this tire was also designed for the short track racers in mind, so by changing the design to accommodate my wishes, would hurt another sector of UTV users. Once again there is no perfect tire!

When it comes to traditional LT type tires you are going to find they are all going to be steel belted radials, as they were designed for heavier vehicles that will see hotter tire temps from running faster and longer on asphalt, then a UTV ever would. I personally don't think the weight of the UTV needs heavy steel belted radial, and I personally see more overall down sides then positive sides. This is a lot of un-sprung weight, and it adds a lot of rotating mass which is harder on your powertrain. The LT tires will be a flat tread surface which promotes better tire wear and better on road traction. But in a lighter off-road vehicle you will find the flatter treaded tire will rut track more, and being that you have increased the contact patch with the ground you will transfer allot more shock load to Powertrain, which could lead to more belt failures and CV axle failures. Plus you shocks will work harder and run hotter with more un-sprung weight.

I dont know how many are in the off-road racing world, but if you are then you will know about tire shaving, and grooving. Many teams in multiple classes, even class 1 will shave or buff off the square tread edge off a tire, to help reduce rut tracking. How many times have you seen TT's with a tire that looks different on the front? They look to have lines in them? That is a because they have added groove lines around the tire to aid with steering and get more cornering bite in the center of the tread. In class 10 they would take the BFG Baja TA and shave half the tread off to reduce weight and promote tire spin, to help save the gearboxes. No Perfect tire!

BFG just released a new Bias Ply KR2 for the class 10 &12 cars, and they are way heavier then a UTV. BFG was the Pioneer of the Steel Belted LT tire. With knowing that, Why would BFG develop a Bias ply tire for both the UTV and heavier class 10-12 cars? The KR2 35" tire is lighter then the steel belted BajaTA 33" that these guys were running.

There was discussion in another thread where paddle tires came up, and guys like Bajaxp & Joey both mentioned how they prefer the Maxxis Bighorn tire in the sand dunes vs a paddle tire. Reason was they felt they could go everywhere the paddle tire went almost as fast, had better whipping & sliding ability, and with a greater reduction of drivetrain stress and saw little to no belt failures because of it.

I too like the Bighorn style of tire in Plaster City / Superstition where we do most of our desert season riding. The reason is Superstition offers every type of terrain as you might have read about in the Score Imperial race stories. While the GMZ Cutthroat is Great in the hard pack flats and places like Barstow or Baja, it does not perform well in the sand dunes, unless you air them down to 5lbs and even then they are more narrow then a Bighorn. But then I will most likely damage a side wall once back in the hard pack flats. For a general purpose tire where I know I need to run 50% in sand dunes and 50% in hard pack flats on the same ride or weekend, I too like the Bighorn style tread. Also their are several companies who make these style treads, if you dont want or cant afford Maxxis pricing. GMZ offers one called the Slammer and I carry one as a spare tire. Another in our group made the switch and runs GMZ Slammers on his RZR in place of the Maxxis and seems to be happy with them.

So in the end if you are looking for shear performance and to reduce drivetrain stress as much as possible then I would look at a lighter (Bias Ply) more rounded tire for general desert usage, but you will lose tire wear and are going to be more susceptible to sidewall damage if you like pounding & sliding into rocks. If tire wear & the strongest sidewalls are at the top of your list then you will most defiantly want a LT tire as they were made to get 30+ thousand highway miles on a 3500+ lbs trucks. But you will most defiantly see a performance loss as you are turning a heavier tire and you will see performance lost in soft loose sand I dirt.
 
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Rynomx785

Active Member
Jun 21, 2015
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Wickenburg, AZ
So what would you say is the most versatile 30/10/14 on the market?

At this point it seems like the Kahuna is. Rounded and not overly heavy yet is still a DOT approved radial.
 

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