Wheels, tyres and pre-mounted sets for RC cars, trucks, buggies and truggies.
RC Car Wheels & Tyres
Tyres do more for how a car drives than almost any upgrade you can buy. The right compound and tread on the surface you actually run on will transform a car that feels vague or skittish - and the wrong ones will waste a good chassis. This is usually the cheapest meaningful improvement available to you.
The main types
- Slicks - smooth and treadless, for tarmac and smooth indoor surfaces. Maximum contact patch, useless on grass.
- Knobbly off-road - deep aggressive tread that digs into dirt, grass and loose ground. Noisy and vague on tarmac.
- Foam - racing tyres for carpet and smooth astro. Enormous grip, short life, and they need truing as they wear.
- Monster truck - large diameter with deep tread, for rough ground and general bashing.
- Crawler tyres - soft compound with foam inserts, designed to deform around rock rather than grip through tread.
Choosing
Surface first. Decide where the car actually runs most of the time, not where you imagine running it. Then compound. Softer gives more grip and wears faster; harder lasts but slides. On a bashing car, harder is usually the sensible choice.
Then fitment. This is where orders go wrong. Check the hex size (12mm is standard on 1/10, 17mm on 1/8), the wheel diameter and width, and whether you need them pre-mounted on wheels or as tyres alone. A 1/10 tyre will not fit a 1/8 car, and tyre sizes are not interchangeable between scales.
Pre-mounted or unmounted?
Pre-mounted comes glued to the wheel and ready to bolt on - simpler, and what most people want. Unmounted tyres let you choose your own wheels and inserts, which matters for racing, but you will need tyre glue and some patience.
When to replace
When the tread is rounded off, when the foam insert has collapsed and the tyre feels soft and rolls under cornering, or when a tyre is coming unglued from the rim. A tyre that has ballooned at speed is finished - do not run it again.
Related
See RC car spares, RC tools, or browse by type: monster trucks, drift cars, rock crawlers.
Why buy from AT Models
We run these ourselves and only sell what we would drive. Free UK shipping on orders over £99, fully tracked delivery, 30-day money-back guarantee (terms apply), and a phone number that a person answers if you are not sure what fits.
