New Tire Decision...Multi Trac or Wide Bar?

[K.P.]

I currently have Agricultural tires and wheel on my tractor which worked great for doing work in the woods and pushing/blowing snow in winter. Now that a majority of my use is going to be on and around the yard, I need to switch to a tire that I can still get good traction for FEL work, but not tear up the lawn just driving over it. I traditional turf tire won't work for me and is not necessary, I'm not mowing the lawn with this tractor. I've been looking at Flotation rated tires both in a Multi Trac design like Goodyear and BKT, and a Bar design like the Firestone 23 degree G1.

Any experiences and input with these types of tires would be appreciated.

 

[North Idaho Wolfman]

No matter what tire you end up getting, make sure the RC is the same as the original tires, or you'll be replacing broken or worn drive parts.

Most Wide trac or flotation tires require a much wider rim then stock.

 

[K.P.]

Thank you Wolfman, understood. It's definitely a significant investment getting new wheels and tires to achieve my objective. Add to that the limited availability of wheels and tires that meet the spec RC for my tractor. I'm hoping as long as I maintain the same RC ratio between front and rear, I can increase my options. But for now, BKT, Firestone, and Goodyear offer decent tire options. I'll just have to have the spec rear wheels painted since Kubota no longer offers them. Tire wise I'm just hoping to find a good compromise between flotation and getting power to the ground. I plan to keep my Ag's for now but don't want to get into the circumstance of changing tires depending on conditions. Yet I do just that with my cars and truck, summers and winters. The wife will kill me if I end up racking a fourth set of wheels and tires. ***128516;

 

[tiredguy]

KP,
since you can only die once don't worry about your wife bumping you off as
I assume you're useful to her in other ways proving food roof over her head
and probably keep your home and yard from looking like a dump. If she likes
to have a nice yard simply explain it to her that the lug tires make ruts in it
and common sense and logic ( often lacking in woman especially liberals )
would say it makes sense to have 2 sets. She obviously enjoys staying on the
roads safely instead of the ditch and avoiding crashing her car running snows
so there's no reason she shouldn't understand the need.
Be prepared however to spend way over double on tires and wheels that you
do for snows for the car. Also if I were you I would add the Carlisle brand tires
to what your shopping for and drop considering the BKT. I'm not saying it for
quality reasons it's all about accurate RC measurements because most of the
BKT's I've did the math on aren't consistent and don't match the other brands
at all...not even close! If it were 2wd the BKT's wouldn't be an issue as it is
with the 4WD.

If I were you I'd lean towards the R4 tread as they have traction bars but don't tear up the lawn. I've mowed my yard with my B3030 for about 10 years
without a single rut ever and me rears are loaded to boot. There are other
places to get wheels that several have mentioned when Kubota stopped the
supply and they are very reasonably priced too. Hopefully someone will chime
in or you can simply get on the net and search. First figure out what size
brand and type you have now so you can find out what the RC is then figure
the ratio needed ( divide front RC by rear RC to get the ratio ) and go from
that to find what other types of tires will give you that same ration needed.
It has to be withing 2% to avoid nasty expensive problems and that 2% is
the percentage not base number that the ratio actually is. Do the math it's
like measuring twice before you cut once on a piece of lumber.
Al