I read in some article that the Rawhides that come on the 03 sportsmans are a run flat tire. I have not heard this before and whant to know before I put slime in them. Anyone know for sure?

 

As far as I know, they are not run flat. From a buddies past experience, they were severely unballanced at high speed after he filled his with slime. You may need to rebalance.

 

I just found out where i got that info from it was the front page of ATVCONNECTION it is in the Sportsman 600 article. They refer to the tires as Goodyear Rawhide Run Flat tires.[img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-confused.gif[/img]

 

Goodyear does make the Rawhide Grip in a run flat version but I doubt that is what comes standard on their machines. They are much more expensive and they would have it listed in all their advertising.

 

Actually it says it on the Polaris site, all Sportsmans come with RawHide Run-Flat tires.

 

Could you kindly post a link to that, as I have never seen the "run flat" part

 

I read that atvconnection article as well, and said "Wow! I didn't realize I had run-flat tires!" I went out to the garage, and looked at the sidewall of my rawhides, and it has no markings saying anything about the tire being run-flat. I remember that when I bought my Mudrunners for my SP500, I could get it in a run-flat or regular version. I'm sure that the run-flat version of the tire would have a label on the sidewall.
I highly doubt Polaris would sink the extra money into a run-flat tire, and if they did, I bet they'd be advertising it like crazy in their catalogs. I don't remember exactly what the price difference was, but it was too much for me to justify on my mudrunners. So I would assume it would have added about $25 per tire. I just about memorized that catalog before I bought the new ride, and I don't remember anything being said about run-flat tires.
I assume that Polaris ships an atv to atvconnection and all the other magazines for testing. Maybe they slipped a pair of run-flats on the atv so that no testers would get a flat and have a bad day on the ride.

Maybe tonight I'll bring home my compressor, and just deflate the tires to find out for sure.

I used Slime in my original stock tires off my 00 SP500, and wasn't happy with how it performed after about 6 months. I won't be using it again. If I go on a long ride, I throw my Craftsman air compressor in the toolbox just in case.

Arcosanti

 

You have to be careful with slime, only use a reputable brand. There was a recall a couple years age for 1 brand that consistantly caused severs unbalance in cars leading to accidents. I find that using 6 ply tires has greatly reduced the number of flats I get on the trail. (1 in 3 years).

 

Arcosanti, what didnt you like about the slime?

 

Guess what i just checked the site again and it doesn't say Run-Flat anymore. Must have been an error on Polaris's part.