Snow's coming soon, and want to be able to ride my Xplorer in it a little bit. I remember reading somewhere about flipping the tires (lefts to right, & vice versa) for better flotation in snow, I would assume because the tread pattern doesn't dig down into the snow (which is what I did last year... its fun getting stuck, but you don't go very far).
If anyone can tell me if this actually works, or is a good/bad idea, whatever, it'd be quite helpful.

 

I rode with a few folks who did this. It didn't seem to provide better flotation, but if you look at the ***** and you should see that the leading edge, the one needed to dig in is rounded off. flipping put the unused sharper edge of the **** on the leading edge. These guys actually removed them from the rims and re installed them.

 

I posted a similar question to yours and the replies that I got said that it should make you stay on top better instead of digging in. They said it was an old trick farmers used to do with their tractors so that they wouldnt sink in the soft dirt.

 

The stock tires on the Xplorer, when about 1/3 worn off or more, seem to have about as much floatation/traction pointed either way. After the bars get rounded off about so much, reversing them exposes the sharper edge of the ****, just as racerx said. If the tires are good, yet, you may see some advantage, but if there is mud under the snow, they won't clean.

More aggressive tires than stock, however, are a different story.

 

With mud tires it works. If I were you I’d get sum good mud tires.

 

Bad Elk, I can't really warrant getting new mud tires as, for one, I don't do much mudding, and two, I've got three snowmobiles, so I don't ride the 4-wheeler that much in the winter. I just take it out and jump banks on my front lawn, and get it stuck in the field. Flipping the tires would be a free way to possibly make it a bit more fun.

Farmr, we never have mud under the snow, the ground is usually frozen well before the first snowfall. And, if there is any mud, I won't be riding anyway because it'll rut up the lawn.

 

Campy - lucky you. Last year we got about 6 or 8 inches of snow on top of MUD (like a 2 inch all-day rain). The Xplorer was the ONLY thing that could go out in the fields to be able to bring the cows home. A snowmobile did great on the grass, where we didn't want ruts, but there was enough wind, we had areas of bare mud, seperated by drifts of wet snow up to about a foot deep or so. No one had a Sportsman, but the Xplorer did circles around some 'other' makes that the neighbors had out there trying.
If it weren't for the lugs being able to clean themselves, I doubt I would have gotten around very well, unless I had enough tire speed to throw the mud off the tires (and onto me).

The single best thing I have done to help inflation is to air DOWN the tires to about as low as I felt comfortable running them.
Chains help DIG, but are useless for floatation. In fact, if the snow has a crust on it, chains will cut through the crust, ruining any chances you had of floating over the top. If the snow isn't so deep as to hang up on, though, they really give traction.

 

Heh, sounds kinda messy...

What the Xplorer got used for last winter was jumping the banks that resulted from the driveway being plowed, into the foot or so of powder beyond. MAN wasn't that fun. Never had to worry about a rough landing because you came down soft EVERY TIME. All 4 tires would spin frantically until the frame got hung up on the snow... then the shovel came out. At least it wasn't a very long walk to get the shovel!

Except for that one time... my brother had it out once late in the snow season, and there wasn't an awful lot of snow left... so he was riding around in the field... well, he found his way into a drift of snow nearly 4 feet deep, and got that thing so very stuck. It sat there for one night (I was away for some reason) because he couldn't pull it out by himself, we had to use one of the snowmobiles (we thought we were going to have to invite some friends over to drive the other two snowmobiles at first, but we kept shovelling). I've never seen anything so stuck in my life... the snow was well above the racks...