Help me decide on R1 vs R4 tires for my first tractor

[Hay Dude]

Hi there folks,

I'm in the process of purchasing my very first tractor and the only decision left to make is which tires will best fit my needs. I've read about a million threads on R1 vs R4 and it's obviously very situation-dependent, so I'm hoping you can help give me some insight for mine.

I'm on about 150 acres of adolescent forest land (cleared about 10 years ago, young trees, lots of old stumps, berms, and brush to cut trails in), and my location is the east side of the Olympic Peninsula in Washington. It's mostly level land with some gentle hilling throughout and some rough terrain from the previous logging.

My expectation is that work with the tractor will be a lot of general utility support for land clearing (moving me from A to B with saws/equipment), brush hogging, grapple work for moving slash and debris, gravel road maintenance, and FEL work like leveling areas of ground, moving/spreading/leveling gravel, and the odd stump or small boulder. Probably also some light digging and roughing in trails until I can purchase a mini-excavator as well.

The tires will be filled whichever I go with.

Please fill me with your infinite wisdom!

Thanks,
B.

Take it from a farmer and someone who does a lot of heavy duty property maintenance…..R-1s all the way. If you get R4s you’ll be switching to R-1s later.
Reasons: your list of chores is all off pavement and off lawns.

 

[Hay Dude]

Here is the case for R1/ag tires:

1) Bar tires are designed for grip in mud. Grip well on wet flatland. Grip marginally better than R4s on side slopes. Standard R1 ag tires are 4-ply. R1/ag tires on a Grand L may be 6-ply ~~ I do not know, but Kubota does not skimp on Grand L components.

Here is the case for R4/industrial tires:

R4s are at least 6-ply. The front R4s on my L3560 came standard with 10-ply tires.

Six-ply tires are 50% stronger than 4-ply tires. R4s squat very little under heavy Loader loads, a time when R1/ag tire bulging sidewalls are vulnerable.

Tougher construction is good working around burn piles.

Both R1 and R4 rear wheels provided on Grand Ls have two part rimes, so both R1 and R4 rear wheels can be adjusted for rear wheel spread.

R4s are much smoother cruising at 12 - 18 mph on hard surface roads, relative to ag tires, which vibrate. R4s are much more wear resistant on hard surface roads, relative to ag tires. ( I wore out my original R4 front tires at 1,800 engine hours. Fronts, of course, revolve much faster than larger rear tires. At 1,800 engine hours R4 rear tires were 70%.)

I run R-1s 25-35 MPH every day down the road. They don’t vibrate very much at all.
Traction-wise, its not even a contest, R-1’s crush R4s pulling though soft dirt or mud. In fact, a smaller R-1 equipped tractor will outpull a larger R4 equipped tractor.

 

[Citydude]

Somebody gets it. R4s are for flat, dirt, rocks, & pavement on construction sites like building and road construction to take abuse. R1s are for tilled fieds, pastures, hayfields, woods, etc.. If you are on any steep ground, R4s will scoot quicker than R1s. Manufacturers started putting R4s on compact tractors so they wouldn’t scuff grass as bad. My wife had R1s put on her BX2360 because our yard has some pretty steep places.

See what your local farmers have on their tractors and what they use them for then go from there. Around here you won’t see R4s on much except lawn mowers, backhoes, and maybe a tractor on a small toy farm.

Agreed. I have steep inclines in the woods. R4's are not applicable for me.

If your mowing a lawn with a tractor, you paid too much for a mower.

 

[friendlywithbears]

I would go with the larger 14.9-26. BTW what kind of tractor are you buying?

FWIW, I've had R1s and R4s. I'm all about traction so I prefer the R1s. In greasy snow, the R4s turned into racing slicks. I suspect they would do the same in mud.

I wish tractor manufacturers offered R4s in the front and R1s in the rear or 8 ply R1s in the front for more robust loader work.

Ended up putting the order in yesterday with the 14.9-26 R1s, Kubota L6060.

 

[friendlywithbears]

Take it from a farmer and someone who does a lot of heavy duty property maintenance…..R-1s all the way. If you get R4s you’ll be switching to R-1s later.
Reasons: your list of chores is all off pavement and off lawns.

I was about to just go with R4 to make things simple but had that feeling I'd be more like swapping out to R1 eventually based on the feedback.

 

[Hay Dude]

I pick up and carry 2,000-3,000lbs of bales with a tractor with R1’s and run across bumpy fields at 10+MPH. R1 tires hold up to loader work just fine.

 

[friendlywithbears]

I pick up and carry 2,000-3,000lbs of bales with a tractor with R1’s and run across bumpy fields at 10+MPH. R1 tires hold up to loader work just fine.

Good to hear. I am more confident knowing the R1s are same ply as the R4s for this tractor as well.

 

[arrow]

I'm glad we all reached a consensus like we always do with the R1-R4 debates.
I have R1's that I put chains on. Even naked R1's that are loaded weren't enough for my needs. I do mostly logging and snow removal with lots of ground obstructions and stick ups in the woods. 6 ply R1's...no problem. I also like the added ground clearance the taller R1's provide for my usage. Chains take up a lot of abuse that would have gone straight to the tires.
Weighted R4's in the 14.9x24 category will get you into a lot of places. Why? because the thread separation is greater on larger R4 tires. Their additional volume allows for more filling and thus more traction.
I know guys who do the same work as me on larger frame tractors than I have. With the larger R4's, they have little to no trouble.
The weight of a tractor means a lot. Skidding out a 3000 lb hitch puts a lot of traction weight on any tire.
You bought a good sized tractor with good sized tires. It would have done all the work you mention no matter what tire you decided on.

When this question comes up, it is not enough to simply say "I like R1's or R4's" and not look at what the person has as a tractor or what they do with it.
An R4 tire that is larger than what they put on smaller cuts, will have more traction because of several reasons: It's floatation is better, its conducive to more filling, its tractive force is more because of cleat spacing and it has more ground contact area.
They may succeed where smaller R4's have been a pain for the owner and were those tires loaded? So guess what advice you might get from that owner.
As I always like to say: the devil resides in the details.

 

[friendlywithbears]

I'm glad we all reached a consensus like we always do with the R1-R4 debates.
I have R1's that I put chains on. Even naked R1's that are loaded weren't enough for my needs. I do mostly logging and snow removal with lots of ground obstructions and stick ups in the woods. 6 ply R1's...no problem. I also like the added ground clearance the taller R1's provide for my usage. Chains take up a lot of abuse that would have gone straight to the tires.
Weighted R4's in the 14.9x24 category will get you into a lot of places. Why? because the thread separation is greater on larger R4 tires. Their additional volume allows for more filling and thus more traction.
I know guys who do the same work as me on larger frame tractors than I have. With the larger R4's, they have little to no trouble.
The weight of a tractor means a lot. Skidding out a 3000 lb hitch puts a lot of traction weight on any tire.
You bought a good sized tractor with good sized tires. It would have done all the work you mention no matter what tire you decided on.

When this question comes up, it is not enough to simply say "I like R1's or R4's" and not look at what the person has as a tractor or what they do with it.
An R4 tire that is larger than what they put on smaller cuts, will have more traction because of several reasons: It's floatation is better, its conducive to more filling, its tractive force is more because of cleat spacing and it has more ground contact area.
They may succeed where smaller R4's have been a pain for the owner and were those tires loaded? So guess what advice you might get from that owner.
As I always like to say: the devil resides in the details.

Exactly my takeaway. The more debate threads I read the more questions I had. Seems like everyone has had good or bad success with each, in incredibly varied tractors and incredibly varied environments/climates. Appreciate your input for sure.

 

[jfh0jfh]

I have R-4s on a JD TLB. I had R-4s on a JD-4310 4WD; I chose R-1s for the Kubota 5800 4WD that replaced it.

We're in SE Ohio. A bit hilly. The R-4s would sometimes slide on hills on mowed grass that was covered with dust - sometimes drifting sideways to the hill (even in 4WD).

The R-1s tear up the ground more but they rarely slide on hills.