Turf vs R4 Industrial tire

[LittleBill21]

guys i know im popping an old thread, but im a bit shocked on the response of the turf over the r4. what about wet grass up hills? do the r4 accell at anything? i will agree that the majority of mahindra's are r4 based. i 'd be interested to know why if the turf is considered a better tire.

 

[Musdalen]

guys i know im popping an old thread, but im a bit shocked on the response of the turf over the r4. what about wet grass up hills? do the r4 accell at anything? i will agree that the majority of mahindra's are r4 based. i 'd be interested to know why if the turf is considered a better tire.

R4s excel at being a good jack of all trades. I'm glad to have mine instead of turfs. Sometimes I wish for standard ag tires, but not often. R4s are good at a little bit of everything for the tractor that has a lot of different uses

 

[pmsmechanic]

guys i know im popping an old thread, but im a bit shocked on the response of the turf over the r4. what about wet grass up hills? do the r4 accell at anything? i will agree that the majority of mahindra's are r4 based. i 'd be interested to know why if the turf is considered a better tire.

If you want a tough tire that can handle rocks and heavy weight then an r4 works great. The down side, because they are built so tough is that they are a rough riding tire They are of heavier construction and you run them at higher air pressures. R4's also have a lower sidewall height vs turfs. This all contributes to a rougher ride. That's also why they don't do as well as turfs on snow.

Look at the difference between an automotive snow tire and a a summer tire. The snow tire has a lot of small groves in it vs the summer tire. That's to give lots of small edges to grip ice or snow. They also have a softer rubber compound vs summer tire which is why summer tires generally last longer. All of this applys to turfs vs r4's.

But if the grass is really wet no tire is going to do great.

 

[johncanfield]

Yup, the R4s are a rough ride on anything other than dirt. I've had both and I'm not sure if one has better traction than the other but there's so many variables. My current Deere has R4s, they work fine on our ranch.

 

[LittleBill21]

when you guys talk about rocks do you mean gravel or like 4" and larger? i plan to do gravel, but loader work would be limited to trees and, i would use this about 40% of the time to cut grass, but i have hills, now i use a white outdoor with turf tires in 2 wheel and don't have a ton of trouble. but snow and ice are an issue as well.

 

[TractorGuy]

I have Galaxy turfs on my JD. Very pleased with the traction and sturdyness.

My backhoe has R4s and will spin quicker than you can say don't do it. I also had a small stump ruin one of my R4s. That was when I was running pressure that the owners manual suggested. I run all my tires at 20 psi now.

 

[Bullwinkle123]

My applications (forest and field) really call for ag tires. However I must drive my tractor across the lawn from time to time, and for that reason I have R4's. There's no way turf tires would work for me.

The R4's are a compromise, short of two tractors I'm not sure I had any viable alternatives. The R4's _will_ rip my lawn, I have to be careful. Dry lawn if possible. 2WD only. Drive "gently". Even with all that, the weight of the tractor (say 6300lbs with lighter attachments) is probably compressing the heck out of the roots, but this is my first season and we're still coming off winter, so it'll be a year before I really know how that plays out, and the weight factor probably isn't much helped with turf tires.

 

[oosik]

My tractor is used out and about on my 80 acres. For max traction reasons - I went with R-1s. They also provide the needed traction when plowing my mile long gravel driveway - summer or winter.

 

[LouNY]

If I wasn't running R-1's I would look at the newer R-14's or turfs.
If a person looks turfs can be found in 6 ply in many sizes, then chains for now lawn work.
Out of over a dozen tractors on the farm only one has R-4's and that one is the most dangerous tractor on any surface other then pavement or dry hard gravel or dirt.