What in the world, Cubby is out of retirement? That’s right folks, I’ve pulled my lazy rear end out of my Lazy-Boy to do a special review for you guys! What makes this review special enough to get me out of retirement? Well, that would be Method RC! Method RC is coming at the tire/wheel market in a big way and have a bunch of good people working behind the scenes to do so. With highly innovative people and a fresh slate of paper to design whatever they wanted to, Method RC is about to become a major player in the rc market.
For the last few weeks I’ve been abusing a set of Method RC’s new Terraform All-Terrain Belted Monster Truck Tires. Sized to fit most 1/8th monster trucks, the Terraforms are a belted design to eliminate tire expansion at speed. So here go folks, keep scrolling for the good stuff!
From: Method RC
Direct Link: Terraform Monster Truck Tires
Review By: Cubby
Pictures By: Cubby
Specs-
* Comes with tires, foam inserts, and wheels
* Not glued from the factory
* Tire Diameter – 6.8″ (Measured by BSRC)
* Tire Width – 3.2″ (Measured by BSRC)
* Hand laid belt-equipped
* Injection molded one piece wheels
* Wheel Hex Size – 17mm
* Changeable Hex – Yes
* Weight – 14.7 oz (Measured by BSRC – one tire/wheel glued)
* Part Number – MTDLT1025
* Street Price Per Pair – $49
Set-up Notes- For this review I ended up using one of my favorite bash trucks, the old school ARRMA Nero Big Rock. This 8th scale beast has big brushless power, to go along with its massive suspension. We geared the mighty Nero for about 65 mph on 6S, bolted up the Method’s, then went to work.
Driving Performance- The biggest question we got while doing our review was “How do they drive?”. Of course we let several bystanders have a chance at getting in some wheel time and they all seemed pretty stoked on their performance. Here is the lowdown.
Pavement – As the Terraforms use more of a hard surface tread layout, we drove them a lot of pavement. What did we learn? First off, the rubber compound used isn’t super soft. This keeps the tires from being too hooked up on hard surfaces, which also helped to keep our Nero from traction rolling when turning at speed. While the stock tires did allow our Nero to traction roll, the Methods eliminated it nearly completely. With “medium” hardness rubber and the belted carcass, we could slam the steering at speed, without a huge rollover afterwards.
As with any of the belted tires that we’ve driven so far, the internal belts do keep the tires from expanding. This helps tremendously when doing high speed runs, or for general high speed bashing. But, on the downside, just like other belted tires we’ve driven, they do not get quite as much grip in corners, or under hard acceleration, as a non-belted design. Everything in life is a trade-off, just as belts are inside our rc tires. Now, they aren’t far off for traction and feel, but any tire carcass with a belt, just isn’t as soft as a carcass without.
With all that said, the Terraforms have become our new favorite for on-road monster truck basher tires. They drive like they are quite lightweight (but the scale says they do have some weight to them), had a great tread pattern for general use, and with their “medium” rubber compound, they showed relatively low wear when our test was done.
Grass – We absolutely loved the Terraforms in grass. Their tread pattern did a fantastic job, giving us insane amounts of grip while driving on the green stuff. Bump handling might not have been quite as good as a non-belted design, but we loved being able to mash the throttle on 6S without fear of the tires exploding.
Dirt – Oh yes, we did do a limited amount of testing in sand and mud, but the tread pattern on the Terraforms worked better on harder packed dirt. On the hard packed dirt of one of our local tracks, the Terraforms had decent mechanical grip and worked extremely well in the corners. The Terraforms might not be the best overall pick for loamy conditions, but they are among the top of the food chain on hard pack.
Durability Testing- Ya know, the older I get, the lazier I get, so no, I did not bolt on a huge pinion and explode the belts in the tires. Instead, I went for more of a “Pretend to one of our readers that actually pays for their stuff and doesn’t want to destroy them on the first trigger pull” method of testing. Yes, I held our Nero absolutely WFO over jumps, through tall grass, etc, and the belts still live to this day. Our test Nero was not geared to the moon, but it was geared tall enough for big power around 65 mph, and we were stoked to see the Terraforms live, even after all the WFO action.
Misc Notes-
Oh ya, part of the reason why I used our old ARRMA Nero was because the Method RC wheels/tires looked good on it! The old Big Rock has a bit of a scale look, as do the Methods, they just seemed meant for each other.
The new Method tires come with a sticker sheet, but they aren’t quite dark/bright enough to be seen when applied on a body.
The Terraforms come with soft black foam inserts. Their softness helps to get more grip on soft surfaces, and they rarely traction rolled, but we would liked to have been some higher tech (and somewhat firmer) closed cell inserts for greater longevity.
So, the pre-mounts from Method RC need to be glued. Have I mentioned just how lazy I’ve become in my old age? As they come not glued, this does allow for a few upsides. 1. It helps make them a bit more affordable at the check out counter. 2. This allows you to easily drop in upgrade foam before you drive them. 3. You can glue them yourself to make sure they are done right. However, I’m just so lazy that I still would have preferred that they came pre-glued (and most, but not all, of our other staff agree with me on this one).
We were big fans of the changeable hubs on the Array wheels. This feature makes it super easy to change out a damage hex, or to go to a different hex size completely.
If you are wondering what trucks they will fit, these will fit the ARRMA Kraton Gen2 or Notorious. Corally Punisher, Dementor, Kronos XTR and a few others.
If you use the Method RC Aluminum Hex Adaptor (6mm x 32mm 25mm Offset) Part MTDHA10251BLK then you can use them on the Corally Jamba, HPI Savage, and Arrma Fireteam.
SUMMARY-
The Method RC Terraforms are no joke. We found the Terraforms to be excellent “all-around” performers. Using the Terraforms we were quite happy when going from pavement, to grass, to gravel, to hard packed dirt, as they simply performed well nearly everywhere. While not the best performer on any one terrain, the Terraforms have become our favorite monster truck tire for general use. Yes, they are worth the cash and the BigSquidRC Bash Crew can highly recommend the Method RC Terraforms to you!
