Tires New 1510 tires

Roonabeck · Feb 5, 2011

Johndeere3720 said:
Those tires look really good on your 1510.

Thanks!

Johndeere3720 said:
I can agree that R1 tires are not my favorite choice for snow.

Your american-market yanmar has R1's, and I might have stuck to those if I had them, but the grey market ones (like mine) have R2's. Supposedly for working in an all-mud situation, like a rice paddy. The R2's have really deep lugs. In a dry snow a few inches deep, my tracks look like I was driving a rototiller with no center tines. I was also pretty sure if I tried to add chains they'd just slip down between the lugs and not help at all.

Incidentally, these anchors were on my old wheels -- I didn't notice them much because they were on the inner side and I had my tires reversed for the extra width. I assume they were for attaching either duals, or for attaching one of those metal contraptions that looks like a big hamster wheel that I've seen in pictures of rice paddy tilling. Are they useful to anyone?

Roonabeck · Jun 12, 2011

Well the snow at my house is in fact gone (although I hear there's still a pile that hasn't melted in Natick), so it's time for an update.

I did move some mulch this spring with the loader, and the biggest difference I noticed doing that was driving on pavement is much, much smoother than it was with the rice tires. I took a few rocks out of my ballast box and still get great traction. The new tires still do a fine job of digging into the ground when I'm pushing into the pile, too.

The biggest difference I see is using my finish mower. I have a pretty uneven yard, and going up some of the inclines while pulling the mower was a challenge before -- I used to use the diff lock a lot. The added weight in the new tires makes one heck of a difference when pulling the dead weight of the mower (its weight sits entirely on its own wheels). I've mowed the yard dry and wet and don't have to use the diff lock at all anymore.

When things are wet, the front tires do at least as much damage to the yard as the new rears do. Since the new tires contact the ground across their whole width, I find that the inner tire will leave some tracks on a sharp turn if there isn't healthy grass covering that spot. And speaking of turns, I find that the new rears tend to push the front in a straight line more than the old ones did. So I find myself using the brakes to help with sharp turns a lot more.

A couple of pictures -- one of a muddy spot that the rice tires used to tear apart trying to pull the mower through. Still some damage, but not near as bad. And then a picture of some soft wet sand I drove across -- notice the mower wheel sinks in just as much as the loaded tires do, so I don't think I'm adding much compaction to the lawn.