wide tires on zero turn?

MI-Bill

Member
I have a 27HP Grasshopper zero turn mower. It has 24-12-12 tires. I understand the last 12 is the rim diameter. These wide tires really tear up the lawn when I turn and my lawn has a lot of trees and obstacles. I have seen discussions suggesting loading the tires will improve traction resulting in fewer lawn divots??? I have also been considering going with a narrower tire. It appears a 23-10.50-12 tire will fit on my rims? This is about 2" narrower and I can get a pretty good deal on 2. What is the consensus on whether this will reduce the damage to my lawn? How about the weighted tire idea? Thanks for your experiences and thoughts.
 
Obviously the wider the tire the more the outer extremities will move in a turn and improve your chances for lawn damage. However, I'm running 12" studded snow tires on my 52" ZT for sloping terrain mowing, but use it for some lawn work too and it's all about how you drive it if you ask me.

Unless you have deep pockets, with the cost of tires these days, a 2" reduction in a 12" tire isn't worth the cost of a new pair of tires.
 
I would say that neither is going to help and might indeed make the problem worse. When we were mowing commercially we had a several places with loose sandy soil and the only thing we found that prevented what you are experiencing was to run the smoothest tread tires available AND to slow down when turning AND to not pivot on the inside tire when turning, instead making wider turns.
 
I just checked mine and they are 23x10-12: 23 is the tire OD, 10 is the wheel mounting surface diameter (aka the ID of the tire) and 12 is the width of the tire. The tires I am running are CST Ambush in that size. Great tires for whatever you want to do if you drive it right.
 
You may be mowing the wrong way. With a ZT I was instructed to make a "three point" turn or else you will get some divots in your yard. If you just spin around on one tire your gonna mess up the yard. Kinda hard to explain but you can watch some youtube videos on it. My 17 year old son taught me this and he was right. These mowers have their own little quirks they take a little change in lawn mowing methods. Hope this helps.
 
Your rims are 1 1/2 inch too wide for the 23x10.5x12 tires. The middle number is the tire/rim width on these tires.
 
On making a turn, I release the inside handle and back off the outside handle to slow forward movement through the turn with the outside tire doing all the propelling. If I have a sharp turn and wish to navigate it I release the handles coming to a brief stop and then slowly reversing the inside handle and easing the outside handle forward. Just takes a second and easy to make it "second nature".
 
Look at the width of the rim and not the tires you have now.

7 to 9" wide rim will fit a 10" wide tire without any problems. A 10" wide tire on a 7" wide rim will give you the true tire height.
 
23X10.5X12 =

23 = Height if the tire when inflated.

10.5 = Width of the tires tread that contacts the ground.

12 = Rim Dia.


If Bill looked at his rims. I am willing to bet that they are 12" Dia X 8 1/2" wide. Same width that a lot of riding mowers use with 23X??X12 tires.
 

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