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Wheels and Tyres Creepy Crawlers - Rock Rubber from Maxxis By Kevin McNulty (4wd & Sport Utility Mag) Published: 12th Jun 2007 Original article: http://www.difflock.com/magazine/Wheels_and_Tyres/Creepy_Crawlers.shtml

 MAXXIS  www.maxxis.com  Price: from £150

A new tire from Maxxis International this year, and it's a tough one! The Creepy Crawler (M-8090) is the company's latest creation. It's an aggressive tire designed for extreme terrain, rugged durability, and sure-footed traction in the harshest four-wheeling conditions. Maxxis has been manufacturing performance tires for 30 years. It has taken its experience and advanced technologies to build this new off-road tire.

  The M-8090 was created to not only survive tough terrain but to take the serious four-wheel enthusiast and competitive rockcrawler places previous tire designs couldn't withstand. The Creepy Crawler is composed of a specially designed compound that is soft and flexible, resists gouging, is strong, and offers excellent gripping abilities. The staggered lug design enhances traction and the tires' self-cleaning capabilities. Each tread lug is horizontally siped to provide substantial water spin off, reduce hydroplaning, and making them excellent wet weather performers.

We tested the M-8090 in soft sand, hard packed dirt, and boulder- and rock-strewn trails. Our set of 35x12.5-15s were aired down and taken for a spin. The first thing we noticed was their ability to grip and pull themselves over large obstacles. The large lugs of the tire readily flexed to grab and conform to the surface of any trail obstruction we confronted, and its soft tread compound displayed excellent adhesion characteristics on slippery and angled obstacles. The large sidewall lugs provided additional traction, as well as excellent puncture-resistant protection on jagged and rocky trails.

After the trail runs with the M-8090s, we hit the highway to check their street-ability and road handling characteristics. We expected the aggressive tread pattern to project a deafening hum throughout the cab of the truck, yet, due to their computer design, the tire was surprisingly quiet compared to some mud-terrain-type tires. They handled very well on straight highway roads but were a little squirrely when cornering hard because of the tall tread lugs. For braking tests, the stopping distances were comparative to that of other aggressive tread designs.

The bias-ply tire is DOT-certified. Its construction consists of four-ply polyester and two-ply nylon under the tread, with four-ply polyester on the sidewall and a C-load rating. It comes in 10 sizes: 35X12.50-15, 35X12.50-16, 37X12.50-15, 37X12.50-16, 33X12.50-15, 33X12.50-16, 37X14.50-15, 37X14.50-16, 38.5X14.50-15, and 38.5X14.50-16.

Overall, we were very impressed with the performance of the new Creepy Crawler tire. Because of their durability and performance, we felt more than comfortable taking the M-8090s anywhere out on the trail.

We acknowledge 4WD & Sport Utility magazine for this article and thank them for permission to republish it here

Maxxis Creepy Crawlies are available from INNOVATION 4x4 in the uk priced around £150 per corner