Finally executed on this tire upgrade project. Not sure if the newer trucks have larger tires but the 29 inch tires were not big enough to cover the front tires. It seemed that the tires I bought off amazon were stiffer than the ones shown in the video. I’d say to be safe buy 31 inch tires of those are available. I doubt they would be too much more expensive. But overall the project was a huge success. My kids can now drive all over my hilly property without hardly any slippage at all! Pretty amazing! Thanks again for the fantastic video!
@@DynamicDaddio I'd recommend getting the biggest you can find. I had to buy an extra 29 inch tire to get around all 4 tires. But the final result is amazing. My property has all sort of hills and the gator can make it up all of them with the tire upgrade. Get the best cutters you can as the metal plies are very difficult to cut through.
I've never seen a 31" bike tire. If you need extra length, use a heat gun or hair dryer, or leave the tires in the sun for a few hours to soften them up to get the stretch.
Awesome upgrade. We have the tractor and I’ve put a 12v 12ah under the hood and two 12v 20ah batteries under the tractor all in parallel. The 3 year old grandson get over 12 hours of run time this way. Gonna do the tire upgrade soon. Thanks for the idea.
I want to give a shoutout to Winfield over there... Did this and my son was rocking and rolling up our steep driveway on the first try. I have the newer model XUV and bought 2 29" tires. They were only big enough to do 1 each. Should have bought 4 smaller tires. Either way, I am excited for my 3 year old to cruise around our mean streets.
Thank you so much for filming this! My three year old has the pedal version of the JD front loader and couldn't go anywhere unless he was on concrete. I found a couple of old mountain bike tires in the attic and screwed to the tires using your technique. Very effective! God bless!
Awesome. Glad to see people still getting use out of the video. The boys have since outgrown the Gator, but it's found a new home down the street and continues to operate.
I did just the rears but was able to cut a 29” tire in half and stretch it to wrap both rear tires. Turned out really nice. With the tight pull it really conforms to the plastic tire.
Excellent fix 👏 Thanks for sharing this information. My son's gator would just spin the tires on pavement turf and dirt. Definitely need to do both rear tires because there's 2 motors in the rear (posi traction) wish they had these when we were kids. 👍
Yes, I'm sure it does put the motor and gears under a bigger workload. It was not catastrophic though to our boys' regular usage of it. It was still running and operating when we gave it away to another family when our boys outgrew it. We weren't seeing more fuses blown or anything like that with the traction upgrade either.
The tires that come on the car are the tires it was designed to run. Changing tire diameter changes the gear ratio and can burn out motors. Ride-ons don't have a clutch in their gearboxes. They use the spinning tire as a clutch. Adding more traction with rubber or spikes removes the clutch and almost always overheats motors and breaks gears. Picking the right vehicle for your kid includes matching the tires it comes with to the terrain it will be used in. Monster Traction tires on the F150 are really bumpy on pavement. Mustang tires will not get traction easily in dirt. Tires are not interchangeable between vehicles so before you spend your time and money modifying make sure you've got the right foundation. You can't get no action if you ain't got no traction!
The gearbox/motors blow out from shifting from forward to reverse while moving. That's the most common problem with the gearboxes. Are they made to slip, yes, but the shifting while moving is a lot harder on the gearbox/motor than the no slipping after tire mod is. I was a powerwheel certified tech long long ago.
All of the Power Wheels brands have hard-plastic tires with the same basic design, and almost all the same treads. They are likely designed to be cheap to blow-mold, without consideration of wear on the gear-box. Adding treads to the front tires doesn't affect the gear-box at all, but will make steering much more responsive, possibly making it safer (rather than skidding straight forward when trying to avoid an obstacle). Adding to the back will add the more-instantaneous grip, so that can add wear to the unmodified gear-box, but the stock tires can catch instantly on some surfaces as well. As is, my kid wore the stock tires completely out before the gear-boxes (front and back, driving on the rims by the end). I think the other point that the reversing while still moving forward is definitely the worse wear and tear on the gear box. (Good luck training a 3 or 4 year old to not do that.) Various traction upgrades usually end up in tires that will out-last the life of the vehicle. In the end, if the terrain is leading to a lot of slipping, there is a trade-off. The kid gets more use from the tires if they are upgraded, along with less frustration and more fun. If that does reduce the life of the gearboxes, you can get stronger replacements for as cheap as $70 for two. Replacing all four tires, as I have had to do, cost me $60. I wish I had known I needed to add some protection to the tires. I think we only got six months out of them on our terrain.
@@grandwizardnoticer8975 I agree,the ride-on we have is 6 years old, has discoloured and is beaten up and just recently the kids broke the steering wheel off. Like anything made of plastic these days most have a short life. So mod away and enjoy them while they last.
There is no direct replacement. The absolute easiest upgrade is something like what is shown in this video. A 14" trike tire can be slipped directly on with some soapy water, rather than screwing a cut length on.
