“Despite that although all tyres are round, most still seem to ‘bounce’ once we transition to the road. The AGRI STAR II tyres deliver a much smoother and comfortable ride – thus virtually eliminating any bouncing, bumping, vibration and resulting discomfort on roads”, highlights Wouter Vijfvinkel.
The other 30-40% of time the tractor spends on the beach unloading the sand. The whole operation is performed on a reduced tyre pressure in order to achieve a bigger footprint, whilst maintaining good traction simultaneously.
Vijfvinkel explains,“During the land reclamation and cleaning operations, we have to tow heavy loads on sandy surfaces. That is why a large footprint is also important. Reducing the tyre pressure down to 0.8 or 1.0 bar further adds to the already impressive traction of the tyres.”
The downside of on-road operations is that their higher intensity than the in- field agricultural operations wear the tyres quicker. Despite that, the wear numbers for the AGRI STAR are really promising.
Following almost 1,000 working hours, the wear of the front tyre (710/70R42 173D) was 125 hrs/mm and 119 hrs/mm for the rear tyre respectively (600/70R30 152D).
During the inspection of Mr. Vijfvinkel’s tractor, Jeroen Reedijk a Sales representatives of Alliance in the Netherlands stated, “In light of the mixed agricultural and on-road operations, the expected lifetime of the tyres at 95% wear is ± 6,100 hours for the front wheels and even up to 7,000 hours for the rear wheels, which is a superb result.”