I own a 99 Scrambler 500. I live on about 200 acres of woodland with alot of mud. My titans perform well, but I want to put some bigger mud tires on my quad. Any suggestions. Can I put larger tires on the quad and not damage anything? I was thinking of 25" tires. Do I need to put a 1" larger tire on the front than on the back? I do not want to go any larger than 25". I would actually prefer to go with 24" but they are hard to find in mud tires.

Thanks

Jeremy

 

Jeremy...
There are a few choices that you have...one is to change to the 25" tires and lose some high speed stability and a lot of handling.... (and with 25"'s you sometimes have to move the floorboards) Or stay with 22" tires and keep the more sporty look...
I would suggest the 22" tires... More specifically the Bear Claw 22x12.5x10... Its a great mud tire for that machine... and it will let you keep your sporty look and feel... I have seen a Scrambler with 25" factory take-offs from a Sportsman 500.. it looked awkward and bulky... and without the LOW range... it is really hard on the belt... Not that it can't be done.. but it will probably shorten belt life..
Give the Bear Claws, Dick Cepek Spider Traks, and Maxxis Sur Tracks a look.. the latter two are variations of the first.. But the Bear Claws have HUGE side lugs for extra grip in deep holes... as for the front tires, I would leave the factory Titans on it... The combo is proven and works well...
Good Luck!!..

 

It really depends on the way you ride, and the type of mud you ride in, but if you ride in really thick stuff I wouldn't go taller. I was thinking of going to 25" tires, but there has been a few places that even the stock size aggressive 22" tires haven't been turned because of the high gearing on the Scramblers.

Just going to a stock size mud tire like the Kenda Bearclaw will make a huge difference. If you can find someone who has the rims that will work on the front, the 23x8x11 front Bearclaw should work too. I haven't been able to find anyone with rims that work on the front with that size tire, but I heard Dennis Kirk has some. I personaly use the stock front tires in the mud.

If you go 25", I would still use somthing like the Bearclaw. It's not as heavy as some of the other tires and still performs great.

 

Finally I am logged in. I am awaiting delivery of my new Scrambler 400. I too have had the same delema for the past 3 weeks. Look for ``MyScrambler`` on these posts or on *********...he has a Scrambler 500 with 25`` bearclaws and is really helpfull. I also want to get big tires so I can follow the other utility quads in the real deep stuff. From what all the dealers have told me, and the guys on these quad sites, a stock sized but more agressive tire works great and goes everywhere. Like the bearclaw. I also read earlier about the 22 inch Mud Machine All Terrain...kinda looks like a small Tri-Claw. I still have a problem with the idea that I could follow my Xplorer in the deep stuff with no low gear and less ground clearance.Maybe the power and flooring the throttle could make up for it?! Anybody have experience with this same situation? There are so many different possibilities it's mind-racking!!! I also heard great things about goodyear Mudrunners.

Sorry I am probably confusing you even more man!
As for me I am probably going to order stock size in a more agressive pattern or go up 1 inch front and rear...still undecided...

 

Do not go over 12 inch wide because mine rub the pipe just a hair when im riding wheelies and ramoing just thought i would help because 12.5 is to wide.

 

Obviously I have missed this thread in my earlier visits or I would have already given my two cents..

I have 25" Mud Machines on my 97 Scrambler 500 bi-claws on the fron and tri-claws on the rear... As I have said before..I love them, not only because it looks mean as he**, but because there aren' many places that I cannot go. The wheels I am not sure about. My guess is that they are from another model of Polaris, but what I do know is that they are turned inside out to keep from rubbing on anything and the rear has spacer to extend the axle so that it is the same width in the rear as the front. The only problems that I have encountered is that in thick mud once you are really bogged down you could really use the low range and some of the trails are a little narrow (I just blaze on through anyway) other than that I havn't had any problems. I recently changed my belt because I felt that I might be time for the maintenance and to my surprise I could find no obvious signs of wear on the belt.I will note that once I changed it I thought it performed a little better...It may have been in my head though. I do feel like I probably have lost some top end speed and have been working on getting it back without having to loose the tires. I really don't know if I have lost the top end since I bought it this way.

And as far as ridding with the utilities.. If you put any type of mud tires on your quad and the utilities are running stock tires, at least from my experience, they will all expect you to be the test dummy and want you to go into mud and water first...

One more note...I was ridding in sand recently and cruising along when a banchee pulled up beside me and wanted to race.. I nailed it and pulled away from him because I had so much better traction. Now, he did catch me and pull out in front...then he hit a small little bump in the sand and endowed and wrecked pretty good. I pulled up beside him asked him if he was o.k. and then wrode away laughing. I wouldn't have laughed but he was a cocky kid who earlier in the day I had asked him about the performance of his quad and he said it was no big deal as long as you weren't scared of it.(Maybe now he's a little more scared)
Hey..there is a plus for having this heavy machine...I hit the same little bump and my tires barely come off the ground..Banchee hits the small bump and he is lucky he didn't break his neck...Before that starts anything, I am sure he was not as an experienced banchee rider as the banchee riders in this forum. Ya right!!!!


Tony

97 Scrambler 500 99 Explorer 4004X4