ATV & UTV Tire Basic Facts You Must Know
1. Tread Pattern - There are 4 basic tread patterns for an OHV tire. The best one for you depends on what kind of terrain you ride on the most, or want to ride on (sand dunes for example).
All Terrain - The Jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none tire of the ATV & Side By Side world. But for general trail riding in most of the country, this will be your weapon of choice. Designed to have decent ride and handling on most types of terrain. You can find tires within this category that are designed to favor one kind of terrain more than another. This usually mean mud. Look for a little more tread depth with a bit more space between lugs for better self-cleaning. These will give you better traction in the goo without wearing as fast as real mud tires.
Mud - If you ride in mud most of the time, there is no substitute for the real thing. ATV mud tires are all about going forward in sloppy surfaces. Unfortunately, that means they're not that great at doing anything else. Not too bad on other soft surfaces, you'll pay the price if you ride them in rocks or on hard pack terrain.
Sand - Also called paddle tires because that's pretty much what they look like. Except the fronts which are normally smooth or have a couple of simple ribs around them. Sand tires are an either or proposition - if you ride the dunes you must have them - but they're no good for anything but sand. In fact, they are so specialized, most folks just keep at least a pair of rear paddles mounted for when they get the urge to get sand in their shorts.
Racing - Racing tires are a whole specialty by themselves. Special tread designs and compounds are engineered for specific track conditions. If you're a racer, you are already well aware of those differences. If not - well it doesn't really matter. Most racing tires have a flat profile and are intended to run on medium to hard packed terrain (think motocross). If that's the kind of trails you ride, they could work on a sport ATV, but there are probably better choices in an all terrain type tire.
2. Tire Size - You know the little numbers on the sidewall? Those tell you what the tire size is. What are the pros and cons of changing the tire sizes from stock? Check Out The Size Guide below:
How To Read Traditional Tire Sizing
- 25
- x8
- 12
- The Overall height of the tire when mounted and inflated to recommended air pressure, In this example the tire is 25 inches tall.
- The Overal width of the tire when mounted and inflated to recommended air pressure. In this example the tire is 8 inches wide.
- The diameter of the wheel that this tire will mount to. In this case it will be a 1 2-inch diameter Wheel.
How To Read Metric Tire Sizing
- 205/
- 80
- R
- 12
- The width of tire in millimeters when mounted and inflated to recommended air pressure. In this case it's 205 millimeters wide. Divide this by 25.4 to convert to inches. The result is 8.07. This runds off to 8 inches.
- The aspect ratio to the width of the tire when mounted and inflated to recommended air pressure. This specifies the sidewall height. In this case it's 80% of 205mm, which is 164. To convert the sidewall height to an overall diameter you must multiply that by 2 (wich results in 328mm), then divide by 25.4 to convert to inches (wich equals 12.913) and is then added to the wheel diameter (in this case, 12 inches). The result is 24.913 inches. This rounds off to 25 inches.
- This indicates that the tire uses radial construction
- The diameter of the wheel that this tire will mount to. In this case it will be a 12-inch diameter wheel.
- This converts to a traditional equivalent of
- 25x
- 8
- 12