Excel Slingshot Tires Review: Slinging Slop with Style
The Situation:That old prankster Mother Nature decided to dump half a foot of powder atop a crispy layer of chunky frozen slush despite spring’s arrival. You’ve got the urge to shred but a miniscule budget and no love for chains.
The Solution:
The Slingshot tires from Excel come in at a reasonably priced $72.95 a pop (no pun intended) for 25” meats and $120.95 for the high lifting 27-inchers. Marketed as mud tires, those of us forced to endure the annual winter wonderland have long ago realized many of the traits that make for a good mud and gunk conquering tire also excel (there’s a bonus pun) at slicing through the pow pow.
The Product:At this pricepoint, the Slingshot can be considered a budget mud tire; a trait that’s especially impressive when you take an up close and personal look at the product. The Slingshot benefits from a deep lug pattern with self-cleaning treads and beefy 6-ply construction.
Generally in this type of situation, we would mount the snow (mud) tires to a spare set of rims to make for easy swapping between the more all-terrain friendly stockers as the conditions demand. However, we were pleased enough with the Slingshot’s hard-terrain performance to justify simply replacing our worn OEM tires with Slingshots all around. In fact, and very rare in the mud tire arena, the Excel Slingshot is Department of Transportation (DOT) certified.
The Test:
In a rare act of patience and maturity, the editors at ATV Connection managed to refrain from rounding out the lugs on their fresh set of Slingshots until the first 6+-inch snowfall of the season had thoroughly coated the trails. By then we were so eager to ride, critical cold-weather protection such as gloves and socks were forgotten in a fury of engine revs and airborne powder.
The charms of the Slingshot tires were immediately apparent, whether blasting through a layer of light powder or clawing for traction through deep packy accumulation. The wide-open nature of the tread design truly prevents packing between the lugs; the number one enemy to traction in the slick stuff. While the lugs themselves are spaced to act almost as paddles do in sand, dimpled tread elements on the surface of each lug offer additional bite that was felt especially in melted slush.
Finally large shoulder lugs wrap the sidewalls to provide side bite to keep you on point even when the slick stuff does its best to drag you sideways. Massive reinforced lugs extend right to the centerline of the tire to smooth things out on the hardpack. Again this is extremely rare for such an aggressive tread and the reason we felt comfortable in relying upon the Slingshots for our all-season needs.
Conclusion:
Whether mudding, swamping, snow going, or snow plowing, the Excel Slingshot offers a whole lot of performance without breaking the bank. We were unable to truly put their hardpack prowess to the test, and suspect we won’t have a chance to until at least July with the way things go around here, but were quite dazzled with how well the tire transitioned from slush to a solid ice base and through the deep snow whether powdery or packy. Ours even saw some paved driveway usage in the process of plow-based snow removal. The noticeable gains in traction were immediate and appreciated by all. Sure we would still prefer teleporting to somewhere tropical for the duration of the winter; at least the Excel Slingshots have alleviated some of the snowmobile-lust we experience without fail this time of year.