Farmall 130 tire question

My old tires are made in North America, this one is made in Poland. I called a tire guy I know. He tells me all small tractor tires today are made offshore in various parts of Europe and Asia, and even if I bought new tires in 24", I probably couldn't get more than 15 to 16 treads per tire. He joked with me, saying, " This is the industry's way of getting all you old guys to junk your little tractors and buy those $25,000. 4x4 monsters." I somehow get the feeling he may not be kidding. What are your thoughts?

Incidentally the mismatched rears on my Super H have different lug counts too. I owned/used the tractor 4 or 5 years before I even noticed one tire had a couple less lugs. My experience in snow, ice, mud and on the pulling track is either both tires are pulling or both are slipping. Neither has an advantage over the other…

These little tractors don't have more than 2 treads touching ground at any given time. This tire I bought will only have 1 tread on ground at a given time. My Super A has 9.5x24 tires and I checked today and it has 20 treads around the circumference, and made in the USA by General. The 12.4x24 on my 130 were made by Astro in Canada, with 19 treads. My 140 has 15 treads per tire and made offshore, I didn't bother to write it down so now I can't even spell the name of them. Before I put the new Generals on my Super A about ten years ago it had mis matched tires and it was noticeable. What is noticeable today is Super A with no weights, solid or liquid, will give my 130 with wheel weights and 140 with chloride a hard run on my two bottom fast hitch plow.

My dad always said you have to exercise more care with a small horse.

Which lug angle is better? Hard to tell, a lot depends on conditions. My Super M has nearly new 23 deg tires. It consistently finishes in the top 3 when the track is soft and loose. But when the track’s hard they don’t grip as well - I generally end up spinning out and finishing somewhere in the middle of the pack.

The Super H has mis-matched 45 deg lug tires with maybe 50% tread left. It seems to do a bit better when the track is harder. However it may be as much due to the worn condition of the tires as to the 45 deg lug angle.

Incidentally both my tractors scale within about 75# of their class limits. Consequently I cannot shift weight around in a quest for more traction – I gotta take what I have. This just adds more uncertainty to my “which is better” tire comparison.

I did point this out quite clearly to the horse and ox teamsters that evening. So did the anouncer at the fairgrounds. Since the ox teamsters had goaded me into this they did walk away a bit red faced.

In my opinion, the 16 lug tire would perform better on surfaces that are loose and or soft. I'm thinking that a lower number lugged tire would behave as if you had attached tire chains. Tire chain 'cross-bars' are spaced rather far apart and in part get their traction from having to 'lift' the tractor slightly every time the cross-bar contacts the traction surface. Additionally, the less lugs there are means that the tractor's weight is supported by less rubber contact area (more PSI) and therefore the lug is more apt to be forced into the ground.

On the other hand, a tire with more lugs would probably afford more traction on a hard, packed surface. Probably that's why slicks are used in drag racing.

Don't those new tractor dealers realize we will never give up our old iron?

Just my 2-bits' worth.