R4s or Turf Tires

[cchoate]

I had my new 7500 come with turfs because I mow 3 acres now and around my pond. Even they will leave their mark in wet areas. As far as winter - everybody says they get a fair amount of snow, but come over to my neck of the woods around January - Buffalo, NY and see what REAL snow is. I have a 6' rear blade and chains for my 300' gravel drive. We will see how they grab when our first 3' of snow hits.

 

[Carl_NH]

Robert,

I had rings around the trees and beds, however solved this by mowing differently each week - makes for a more ineteresting ride. Note that I usually don't take the same route both ways when on a trip, makes for a better journey.

Back to the issue at hand, the turfs because of their width spread the weight across more area, also causing less damage but more compression, so my experience is the R4's and Ags cause less damage because they compress the ground in higher density in the tread pattern only, not the entire soil mass.

I have turfs on the lawn mower and R4's on the TLB. For FEL work and grass I would go with the R4's overall,

Carl

 

[chim]

After agonizing for a couple weeks, I went with R4's on my B7500. Main reasons were travelling at least two miles per week in the Summer on the road - figured they's wear better than R1's. My Ford 1210 has R1's and they worked fine, but the fronts especially wore down rather fast.

My soil is brown topsoil that gets quite soft in wet weather, and the area near the creek sometimes floods and gets an inch or two of yogurt-like topsoil from somewhere upstream. This happens mebbe once a Summer. In that stuff, anything leaves marks. The kids left tracks there with their bicycles already.

Right now I'm running 10# both front and rear in the R4's and they work great. The rears are around 1/2 filled (15 gallons each) with antifreeze/water mix. I've had them in dry grass, dry dirt, wet grass and mud - no snow yet. They give better traction and leave less marking than my R1's. The Kubota w/ R4's goes places in 2WD that the Ford w/ R1's needed 4WD..............chim

 

[hazmat]

<font color=blue>Right now I'm running 10# both front and rear in the R4's and they work great</font color=blue>

Chim,

What is the recommended pressure range for your R4's? New Holland recommends 26-35? psi. The manual says 10psi for turfs. I'd like to go lower than 26, but am worried about breaking a bead loose. Does the lower pressure help?

 

[Kodiak]

Hazmat:

I'm running 20#s in the front R4's and 12#s in the rear, on my TC29. Its a personal preference, that gives me good flotation resulting in good traction. also less chance of marking the lawn. I personnally can't run under 20#s on the front when operating with a full FEL bucket.

 

[frank_f15]

ah! a fellow wny'er. i also live in the buffalo area, and my 2400 has r4's i do mow with it but mostly field so i am not much concerned with tire marks. but i do a lot of fel work and beleive the R4 is a better choice for that. if your main use is going to be mowing then turffs are fine. flat tires should not be a problem. but all tires will skuff grass if the conditions are right especiallly in 4wd.

 

[chim]

It has been working fine this way. Next time the loader is on, I'll need to get it full and take a look at the tires. Both front and rear feel pretty hard with 10#, and are not bulging the sidewalls.

The fronts (23X8.50-14) don't show up in the B7500 owner's manual. The nearest size in the manual is 23X8.50-12, and inflation max is 35#. This pressure max. matches the info on my 23X8.50-14's.

The rears are 12-16.5. The tires show max pressure as 40#, which is what the manual gives as the inflation pressure.

With 35# front and 40# rear, I may as well have steel wheels. These tires would be hard as rock.

I'm sure no tire expert, but with anywhere near 10# pushing each and every little square inch on the inside of the tire, it would seem like it is seated pretty hard..................chim

 

[akman]

My B2910 has R-4's and a 60" MMM. I never have a problem doing the finish mowing with the R-4's. Just take the turns a little slow and don't cut when it's wet.

Wife is getting into the mowing last week. Decided to do her Patty Waggstaff (Aerobatics Ace Pilot) impersonation and really made some nice tracks on all her turns. I can't complain though!

 

[chim]

Hazmat, one of the jobs today was filling in a big low spot, and it involved a whole bunch of trips between the pile and the low spot. I pulled onto the blacktop and took the attached photo with a load of topsoil in the FEL. There is some deflection, but I didn't think it was excessive. The front tires have a very short sidewall with the 14" rims, and it doesn't take a lot of air to make them pretty stiff. If I did a lot of loader work on blactop, I'd probably want to inflate them a bit more.

The rears don't show much deflection at all, even when carrying the Landpride AT2560 RFM, which is a heavy unit. My tire gauge starts at 10#, so I think I'll look for another. The rears look like they would be happy with the pressure in the single digits..................chim

Almost forgot. 2thdoc is right. They are manly. Vee don't vant any girlie tyahs.

 

[hazmat]

Chim & Kodiak

Thanks for sharing your experiences. Also thanks for the picture. I think I'm going to give lower pressure a shot. My rear tires aren't filled yet, so I've got nothing to lose (except air /w3tcompact/icons/grin.gif).