Ag tire or not
 

I'm maybe thinking of ags on my 1864. I haven't had many issues with turf tires with mowing since I like to mow when it's not wet and theirs no big slopes to deal with but I kind of find it a pain putting chains on the turfs before winter for the blower or the blade. I'm guessing I can't beat chains on turfs for the winter but I've never had ags on a garden tractor so I'm unsure. Any opinions would help, thanks?

I put Ag's on my 784 about 10 yrs ago. Never regretted it. I use the tractor year round. I use it in the winter with a 54" dozer blade. Install chains and rarely get stuck. I mow with it in the summer all day long.

I mow yards that are flat, hilly, hard, soft.

Early on, (years back) I thought I needed Ag tires. Matter of fact, my first garden tractor I mowed with was a Wheel Horse, five horsepower with dual rear Ags. Later, I progressed through a long series of CC's. The first had Ag tires on it and I swapped them for Turfs as I didn't like the bumpy ride and I found my grass wearing thin where I was making sharp turns and tearing up the grass. The Turfs took care of both problems plus I found that applying extra weight on the side of the seat would take care of any loss of traction problems.

I bought a 1650 that had Ags on it. I added the big, heavy wheels weights(75 ea?) and hung a blower off the front. Couldn't do much without tire chains though. Having several other tractors with chains, weights and a blower, I found that the Turfs with chains had better traction in the snow than Ags with chains.

I have a friend that has a 2084 and he runs chains year around on the back tires. My thinking if he needs chains to cut the grass he'd be better off getting some billy goats and staking them in the yard.

This question has been ask several times and has gotten heated in the past. I will give you what I have found. I have a 1572 with filled turfs, wheel weights and chains. I never take the chains off and use it to mow without any issues. I also have a 1772 with filled ags and wheel weights. I have compared the two side by side multiple times to compare traction. In snow with 54" plow, in dirt with 12" plow and in stone drive pulling a DR power grader. In every case the Turfs and chains out performed the Ags. I don't think the Ags are bad but the turf/chain set up worked better when compared side by side. The difference was not huge but definitely noticeable in all three test. I am sure you will get the complete opposite opinion from some others but I have done this comparison several times keeping all equal ( I believe the 15 and 17 to be pretty equal machines )except tire set up and got the same results. My criteria of what works better is either tractor getting stuck or wheels spinning. Just for the fun of it the last time this came up I switched the tire set up on the two tractors and still got the same results. At some point I should throw a set of chains on the ags and what happens.

With ag tires, the chains tend to go into the low areas between the lugs.
It is generally accepted most fellows see better results with turfs + chains, and weight,--- either filled tires or add on weight, or both.
Ag's are great for ground engaging work, can't beat them.
And of course the "wow" factor some feel. :biggrin2:
If you find it a pain putting chains on, you are doing it wrong.
And you don't need springs, bungee straps or shock cords with chains.
Just take some time once and shorten the chains to fit your tires.
After that it takes more time to jack up the wheels than to slip on a set of chains.
5 minutes or less is the norm to install.
I can do a bigger farm tire (15.5x38) in less than 10 min.
( it takes more time to jack up)
Not bragging, just experience.

When it comes to snow and ice I prefer turfs with chains, I run ags the rest of the year.

In my experience, Ags seem to work better the heavier the machine is. I always felt chains on (garden tractor) ags, are worthless as they actually loose surface area to put "chain to ground". On my new machine I am going to keep the turfs this year with 2 link chains. When they go I will most likely go to HDAP tires and chains. Not 100% certain on what weights if any I will use on the new XT3, I have to see how it does and where it fails.

Ags have their place, for sure. I still have 2 machines here with Ags and wouldn't change that. Ags with wheel weights, loaded tires and sometimes a few suitcase weights that I can move from corner to corner or front to rear as needed.... with no chains has always been a great combo for me on the 125, 1450 and (gone now) JD318 and (gone now) our old wheel horse.

I was sceptical, but kept spinning out on a hill. Bought some Firestone 23-degree AG tires and absolutely love the performance.

Only thing I don't like is the way they look on the machine, as I don't think the tire to machine ratio is quite right. But they work very very well.

Thanks for the reply guys, I never mentioned I might use the blade for some dirt grading and ( well you never know) so that's what got my brain thinking ags. A little off subject on this thread but I did get my double valve put on and added hydraulic to my blade plus some reinforcement where it latches

Good job! Looks good, ready for snow:beerchug:

I run loaded AG's. I have a few sets of them. Run chains on them in the winter. They work just as good as turfs with chains. I used to run turfs with chains, I saw no difference when I switched to AG's and ran chains..... except the ride. Smoother ride on ag's with chains.



FWIW, I don't know that you needed to ad that extra stuff on the front of the blade. I've never bent one there. If it's mounted right, all the "push" goes back on the lateral bars and it transferred to the frame pipe (fender support). I've bent those when I hit something a bit hard..... but if you release the trip on the blade, it just trips it instead of tearing things up. Good feature when blading snow on sidewalks and driveways.

I thought it would help if it gets used to back drag dirt or such when using down pressure for up and down movement. I had the material so I figured it won't hurt. I was looking at those deestone ags and have seen mixed reviews, would they actually run smaller than original turfs? Who has them and opinions? Thanks

You can't use down pressure on a blade. It just bends the rod. It's also completely unnecessary. They don't "back drag" very much material. Even if you could, it would rip (pull) the blade out of the front quick attach. Just a small piece that locks it in. Not really meant for much pressure. Had that happen before.

Deestone AGs just run smaller. Different tire manufacturers make things differently. Car and truck tires are the same. One brand tire can vary in size between others. Pretty common really. Example: BFG tires tend to be a bit taller than say a General.

It seems the consensus is that ags or ags with chains do not perform any better than turfs with chains. So I think the question is do you like the way they look and do you want to spend the money if there is not a real benefit. Your concern seems to be winter related and again the opinion seems to be turfs with chains are equal to or better than ags or ags with chains.

I have a set of Deestone 23x8.50-12 ags on the rear of my Jacobsen GT and they're a good 1/2" or more smaller in width and height than the Goodyear Turfs of the same size.

I just bought a set of Antego 26x12x12 ags from Amazon for a great price, but it looks like they are going to be small.




Randy

I have filled firestone ags on my 1782. love the way they look, but they will dig the yard up in a heartbeat if I am not careful. they are the thicker ply ones so not sure if that makes a difference or not.
my 1862 has some turf wheels and tires off an old sears suburban I had, no idea how old they are, but they have alot more traction and arent too hard on the grass when they do spin.

Well I ended up getting a set of Carlisle Tru powers, should be here tomorrow. They were just under 90 a piece, and free shipping. I hope that was a descent deal.

Well I finally got the blade put on and the tires on. I've had a little time due to harvest conditions in mn.

Didja load the tires?:bigthink: