Are industrial tires worth the upgrade for Rocky terrain?

[DTB]

I'm looking at buying my first tractor, MX 5400 HST rops. I'm in Kerrville, Texas in the very rocky Texas Hill country. I have steep terrain and in some areas there is a 35° incline.

Is it worth upgrading from the AG tires?

 

[InTheWoods]

...I have steep terrain and in some areas there is a 50° incline...

No way this is safely going up that, regardless of the tires.

50% maybe?

 

[jimh406]

The carcass of the industrial tires is thicker and has higher load rating. I bought R4s for the toughness. I don't use the tractor when it is muddy since it makes deep ruts. If you were using it in mud, the AG tires are better.

I don't know if the R4s have more traction than R1s though.

 

[Mark_BX25D]

No way this is safely going up that, regardless of the tires.

50% maybe?

50% grade would be 45 degrees, so not much different from 50 degrees.

Not going to happen on a tractor!

 

[nave.lb]

I'm looking at buying my first tractor, MX 5400 HST rops. I'm in Kerrville, Texas in the very rocky Texas Hill country. I have steep terrain and in some areas there is a 35° incline.

Is it worth upgrading from the AG tires?

I'm looking at buying my first tractor, MX 5400 HST rops. I'm in Kerrville, Texas in the very rocky Texas Hill country. I have steep terrain and in some areas there is a 35° incline.

Is it worth upgrading from the AG tires?

I don't know if the move from ag to industrial would necessarily be an upgrade as they are a completely different type of tire. One could debate that a 10 ply ag tire would be an industrial grade tire over a more standard a six ply. It will be a tougher tire and stiffer as well. But those characteristics are not necessarily what you want for a rocky surface. Not stiff anyways. That being said why not an R- 14? no matter what you buy 35-45° incline is not where you want a tractor and I would be looking at trading for a rock crawler.

 

[jyoutz]

No way this is safely going up that, regardless of the tires.

50% maybe?

I wouldn’t consider taking a wheeled machine up any slope greater than 35%.

 

[InTheWoods]

50% grade would be 45 degrees, so not much different from 50 degrees.

Yikes - here I am arguing with a guy who's avatar is a protractor. But, a 50% grade is 26.5 degrees, not 45 degrees.

OP's original claim of 50 degrees is 119% slope.

And OP's new value of 35 degrees is 70 % slope.

To Determine Percent of Slope and Angle of Slope

www.usgs.gov

 

[WI_Hedgehog]

It also depends on the type of rocks. Like in Texas we in Wisconsin have granite too, and I advise not smacking into it with a tractor.

Texas granite


Wisconsin granite, from under a maple tree,
about 4.5' H x 5.5' W x 6.5' L
(and more than the BX can move )

 

[BAP]

The carcass of the industrial tires is thicker and has higher load rating. I bought R4s for the toughness. I don't use the tractor when it is muddy since it makes deep ruts. If you were using it in mud, the AG tires are better.

I don't know if the R4s have more traction than R1s though.

R4s have way less traction than R1s or AG tires in most cases. R4s were designed for longer wear and in many cases, heavier loads and were designed for use on industrial equipment like payloaders and backhoes.

 

[NCL4701]

R4 advantages over R1/Ag: longer service life on hard surfaces, higher load (weight) capacity, more cut / puncture resistance, less damaging to turf / dirt trails.

R1 advantages over R4: better traction, better ride quality.

R14: marketed as a R1 - R4 hybrid. Folks seem to like them on utility type tractors but I have no direct experience with them.

What tire is best for your applications is almost always a compromise of some sort on a utility tractor because it’s used for a wide variety of jobs.

A 35 degree/70% slope is steep even for a 4WD tractor, and never sideways. If I couldn’t traverse grades that steep, I couldn’t access well over half our property. 4WD with R4’s handles it FAR better than 2WD with R1’s and causes less damage to our dirt trails. We don’t have rocks. Ability to go up and down safely depends on a variety of factors. There are some pretty good threads on here discussing the issue.