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UTV Tire Test

7 different tires from 7 different manufacturers

Ever wondered what tire would work best for the types of riding that you do? We’ve been wondering the same thing, so we decided to test 7 different tires from 7 different manufacturers. Some of the manufacturers you’ll be very familiar with, and others you may have never heard of before. But, before we can get into the results of the testing, let’s explain how we tested them first:


1. High Speed Gravel – In this test, we ran the RZR at speeds in excess of 50 mph on a gravel road with sweeping turns for about 2 miles in each direction, totaling 4 miles. This test proved that some tires do well at high speeds, and some tires tend to wander or push through the turns.

2. High Speed Hard Pack – During this test, we drove the RZR at milder speeds, ranging from 25-35 mph on hard pack dirt with some rocky terrain. This section of the test ran a couple miles in each direction out and back to our soft dirt hill climb, so a total of roughly 4-5 miles. It included plenty of ups and downs, slabs of slick rock, hard pack dirt, and lots of turns.

3. Soft Dirt – Slow/High Speed – This test was a combination of a timed sand drag and a soft dirt hill climb. The timed sand drag was 285 ft long, and the tires were tested in both 2wd and 4wd. The soft dirt hill climb we used to see how the tires hooked up or dug into the soft dirt while trying to climb a short yet pretty steep hill. We drove at slow speeds in 2wd until the forward momentum stopped. Then, from the same point, we put it in 4wd to see if it pulled it up any further. Last, we used as little throttle as possible in 4wd to see how slow we could go up the hill, essentially, to see which tires required the least amount of wheel spin.

4. Cornering – We feel there’s really 3 things that a tire can contribute when cornering:
a. Power Sliding – If you own a RZR or another UTV that has the power to slide the rear tires out in turns, we all know it’s a blast to do. In this test, we had a great turn on hard pack where we tested whether a power slide was easy to induce.
b. Traction – Even though power sliding is a lot of fun, the most important thing is that the tire is hooking up and still propelling you forward during the turn. For the traction piece of the cornering, some of the tires almost had too much traction, while others could use a little more.
c. Controllability – We found that a little too slick of a tire or a little too grippy of a tire could quickly put you in a precarious situation you may not want to be in, such as lifting tires or not quite making the turn as planned. A large part of this had to do with the tread pattern and sidewall stiffness.

5. Rock Crawling – Because we have a lot of dry hot rock out in the Midwest, we wanted to find a location that allowed us to mimic wet rock more often found back East, as well.
a. Dry – During this test, we pulled the RZR up to the base of a 5-6 ft rock face with a couple of small uneven ledges on the way up. We ran this first section in 2wd, very slow speed, where none of the tires made it up. But we measured the distance, as they did differ in traction. Then, in as slow speed as we could drive in 4wd, we started over pulling up the rock face into a succession of more horizontal ledges that were basically 10-14” in height. From here, we dropped down and to the right along some rocky ledges into the soft sandy bottom and over to another steep climb with a ravine to really test out the sidewall traction.
b. Wet – From here, it was down some sandy slickrock into the bottom of the creek bed filled with some very slimy rocks submerged in water. When exiting the water, there was a ledge on the left covered in slime that was about 18-20” high. We angled the tires directly into this ledge, attempting to test the sidewall traction and flex. After getting up the ledge or sliding down the ledge, it was angled slickrock that was nice and wet from the tires while trying to pull the back tires up the slimy wet ledge at the same time. After getting up and out of the water, it was uphill in a combination of grass and boulders at slow speed as the tires slowly started to dry off.

6. Appearance – We wanted to throw in appearance, because obviously looks are first, function second, right? Nah, but we all know that if one tire performs as well as another and looks way better, we’ll probably pick that one. This was obviously a subjective taste from each of the testers, but we think you’ll agree with us.

So, now that we have tested the tires out of the way, let’s talk some basics about tire design/construction. There are really only a few things that differ on tires, but are important to point out before you make a decision to buy.

1. Ply Rating – This is exactly like the ply ratings on automobiles. The more plies, the tougher the tire is. So, what does this mean exactly? Essentially, these are layers of rubber/material that are laid on top of each other to form the tread portion of the tire. The less plies the tire has, the more prone it’s going to be to punctures. It’s also going to be more pliable and have increased chance of popping a bead. The benefit to a lower ply tire is that it’s lighter in weight. So, essentially, the more plies a tire has means it’s more puncture resistant, has less chance of popping a bead, and is usually a little heavier tire.

2. Construction (Radial or Bias Ply) – Just as in automobile tires, there’s two types of tires, radial and bias ply. In today’s world, unless you have an off-road dedicated trail rig that sees little to no pavement, most automobile tires are radials. For UTVs, this has been the opposite, and you can imagine why. Most of the time UTVs are off-road, so it’s normal to see more bias plies than radials, until now. Now, it’s not unusual to see a lot of different radial tires available for UTVs, primarily because the ride quality is better. From a construction standpoint, radial tires have steel belts in them that keep them somewhat more rigid and smoother riding under most conditions. On the other hand, bias plies will typically conform better to rocks, because they lack these steel belts that the radials have. But, the downside is that they don’t ride as smooth.

3. Tire/Wheel Size – Today, there’s been a huge emergence of 2” larger wheels, from 12” to 14”. If you’re wondering how this affects performance, we’ll tell you. For the most part, folks have been choosing the 14” wheels because they look a lot better than 12” wheels. For our test, because not all the tires were offered in 14” wheel size, we chose to use the most common 12” size. 14” wheels have a little less sidewall flex when running the same size tire, meaning your cornering should be a little more precise. So far, only 26” and larger tires are available for 14” wheels. Anything smaller, and you risk hitting the wheels a lot more on rocks because of the lack of sidewall height.

 




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