Im looking into some new tires for my 04 Kodiak 450. Ive been lookin at the ITP 589s and ITP Mud Lites. Will a 26" tire fit on a kodiak450 without rubbing? And if so which is the best tire to go with. I dont do a whole lot of deep mud riding, but i want the security of knowing i can handle it when i come across it. I dont want to lose too much horsepower and accceleration and ive been told the 589s are about the lightest that the mud tires come. Any advice on which would be the best setup?

 

Hi beenmuddin,

I have no personal experience with 26" tires on my Kodiak, but I read alot of people on here are running 26"ers on theirs with no problems, so I can only assume you should not have any rubbing. I'm not sure if you'll need different than stock rims for 26" tires not to rub, so hopefully someone else can comment on that.

As far as those two types of tires, it's a tough choice, they're both good. I ride with a friend who has 26" 589s on his grizzly, and they look and perform great on rock, mud, just about anything. They wear very well and they ride surprisingly smooth on hard smooth surfaces. They are more of a tractor type lug as you can probably tell, which means they will be the better of these two types in mud imo.

The other weekend we were at Callalantee OHV area and a guy on a Honda Rincon came flying up behind us on a pure rock trail (actually it was a stream bed if you ask me), and he was on spankin' new 26" mudlites with aftermarket rims. He was bouncing 1-2 feet off the ground at the speed he was travelling! So the mudlites are pretty tough too I guess. They seemed a bit soft though when I checked 'em out, so they'll probably wear out faster than 589's.

I personally decided to go with some 25" Ducks Unlimited Wetlands. They are 25x8x12 on the front and 25x11x12 rear (1" wider than stock) and have 3/4" lugs. I got a little over 5/8" extra ground clearance over the stock tires even though they're still 25". I'm totally happy with them. They're a radial, reasonable weight (17lbs. front & 24lbs. rear), 6-ply and they ride awesomely smooth and have excellent traction on everything. Waaay better than the stockers. I can go anywhere the grizzly can. Haven't done any deep mud (higher than middle of the engine) though. Even though they're heavier than the stock ones, I did not notice any loss of power whatsoever with these tires. I feel alot more confident on these now.

If you go 26", just consider that you might feel a loss of power, how much I really don't know. If it were me, I'd choose the 589s out of those two selections, but the choice of course, is ultimately yours. Let us know what you get!

 

i would go with 589's because mud-lites wear down really fast