Mike Melton breaks down Nitto Mud Graps tires, which balance through lug holes to mimic hub-centric mounting. The tread blocks are inspired by dinosaur fossil scales, not snakeskin. A 1,200 lb force test showed only 8 lb imbalance, proving low vibration.
There's something special about the Nitto Mud Graps that a lot of people don't know about. Well, for one, we balance them by the lug holes. That's the best way, hub-centric or not hub-centric, you're balancing it like it's on the vehicle. Now, when I went to the Nitto plant the other day, I learned special features on this tire, why it was designed this way. So they got these claws on there, and that came from something. Now, a lot of people think that might be some snakeskin or something like that. That's not it. That's not what that is either. So these claws were actually inspired by dinosaur fossil, and this is basically the scales of the dinosaur. So that's some FYI knowledge about how they designed this mud crab. Now what y'all want to see is balancing the damn tire, how good these things balance out. First, what we're going to do, we're going to snatch a damn sticker off, son. All right, let's balance this thing out. Got it, got it rolling. Here in a second, that roller's gonna come down. That puts 1,200 pounds of force on top of the tire. Simulating it being driven on this truck right here. All right, so what it's going to do, it's going to diagnose anything that's going to cause a vibration in this wheel and tire assembly. Roller coming off. Here we are, where we at? Zero weight here, zero weight here, and only 8 lbs of force. That's why you buy Nitto. And after going to their plant, I understand why it takes so low weight. We'll go over that on another video. All right, here's that Chevrolet with the mud grabs on there. Everybody loves to see them tires on that truck. Here you go.
