Maxxis makes a huge range of tires for everything from motorcycles to mountain bikes. When it comes to off-road tires, Maxxis is probably best known for producing extremely aggressive tires like the Trepador, and Creepy Crawler. Built for all-out performance, they can be found on dedicated trail rigs, rock crawlers, and Ultra4 racers. But Maxxis also make more conventional tires like the Bighorn, and Bravo, built for those who use their 4x4s on the pavement, as well as in the dirt.
Now Maxxis has released a tire called the RAZR MT. Billed as its flagship mud-terrain, the RAZR MT is a deeply sculpted tire with big center blocks. It features, according to Maxxis, a new compound that maximizes tear- and chip-resistance, along with increasing tread life. A dual-cord casing ply uses intertwined reinforcement fibers for durability and toughness. The large void area is said to maximize mud traction, and self-cleaning performance.
Tweener tires seem to be all the rage nowadays. Many manufactures have released a tire to bridge the gap between a mud- and an all-terrain tire. One look at the RAZR MT and it’s easy to tell, with its aggressive looks and tread pattern, that it’s not a tweener tire in the conventional sense. It has no illusions of sitting between the two in performance on the highway, or in the dirt.
However, the RAZR MT can be thought of as an unconventional tweener. By now you might be asking, “What you talking ‘bout, Willis?” Well, hear us out. The RAZR MT is definitely more aggressive than most conventional mud-terrain tires. But it’s not as aggressive as a mostly trail orientated mud tire, like a Bogger, or a Trepador. It sits between the two in terms of performance. In its own way, it’s a tweener positioned between a pure trail tire, and a street-going conventional mud-terrain.
Curious to see if we were right about where this tire sits in the realm of performance, we acquired a set of RAZR MTs in the 37×12.50R17 size, and hit both the road and the trail. They were wrapped around KMC’s swanky new XD131 RG1s in the 17×9-inch flavor. Let’s see what we found out about the Maxxis RAZR MT.
The Maxxis RAZR MT is one mean-looking tire. Its aggressive tread pattern and sidewall treatment give off the impression that it’s not here to muck about. Wide, open voids are designed to shed mud and keep plenty of biting edges free of goop.
A close-up of the tread reveals a high void area centered around big blocks. With the higher void area, we did expect some road noise and there was some. While not deafening, like a super aggressive mud-tire such as a Bogger, the RAZR MTs do produce slightly more noise than a more conventional mud-terrain. However, the extra void area provides plenty of bite in the dirt. While we couldn’t find any mud, it should help the RAZR MTs shed mud, as well.
For a Load Range E tire, we were impressed with the flexibility of the RAZR’s carcass. Even at high 30 psi, the RAZRs exhibited a nice bulge, helping them conform to and wrap around terrain. We were surprised they produced a nicer ride on the highway than the Load Range D all-terrain tires we had on before, doing a better job of absorbing bumps, cracks, and other pavement irregularities.
This hill climb is not insanely steep, but definitely steeper than it looks. With its big opposing holes, and loose dirt over firm, hard pack, it was very slick, too. (We actually slipped and biffed it getting out of the truck to take this photo). This made for a great test of traction. We put our Dodge diesel in low range, engaged the rear ARB Air Locker, and began idling up the hill to have as little momentum as possible, to really test the tires. The RAZRs performed very well. Only a couple times, as we ran out of flex, did they run out of traction. Then, we just gave it slightly more throttle than idle, and the RAZRs propelled our Dodge to the top with just a bit of slip, and zero drama.
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