Nope

Turns out my Ferris mechanic(my husband) also would like to put alcohol in the tube of the rear tire. The tube would stop the leak and the addition of alcohol could give me better traction on hillsides, so I wouldn't scoot coming down.

Ask him to explain further, please. Heard of lots of different things put in tires, windshield washer fluid, beet juice, RV antifreeze fluid, etc. and so forth but never alcohol.

You don't by chance smoke and have a large insurance policy?

:-) Just teasing.

Ev

He said "if you are not a farmer you would probably have never heard of this"
Many farmers put alcohol in the rear tires of their tractors for added traction.
He prefers to put the alcohol in a tube in the tire(to contain leaks).

Hmmm, Ask if he's not thinking of Calcium Chloride which on the farm we do use for tractor tires. I have 3 full size JD's which have the tires loaded that way. The smaller stuff, LT's, GT's, etc. we used winter windshield washer fluid. Calcium Chloride is used for the large tires as it's cheap, however it is a corrosive so containing in a tube is the preferred way.

However, am always interested in learning new stuff.

Be well,

Ev

Will answer tomorrow, mechanic has retired for the evening.

What sort of alcohol are we talking about here? Would that be like 70% isopropyl or Old #7?

The alcohol used is methanol alcohol.

Oh, OK, gotcha!

IMHO I'd just go with windshield washing fluid (winter depending on where you live and concern about freezing temps). The alcohol does present a fire hazard and if a tire (and tube) is punctured you'd have a "chemical spill" fiasco or at least a lot of dead grass.

Now comes the fun part, actually loading the tires with the fluid of your choice. Do a search here and you'll see there are about as many ways as there are posters....:-) I think I've put two up here myself. Then there's youtube, google, etc. Amazing how creative folks can be.

I've attached a link which will tell you (approximately how much you can put in your tires.

Good luck,

Ev

Here is a link that might be useful: tire capacity/gallons

might also consider potable antifreeze - such as used in RV's - a bit more costly, but presents no danger to pets who might drink leaking regular antifreeze (has that sweet taste)...

We have decided to put tubes in the tires and just have air in the tubes. It was a trade-off between having more traction coming down a slope and having more divits when turning, or the same amount of divits and same amount of traction. As it is, after three years of driving Ferris, I still have piles of gravel when I come off the lawn and turn on our gravel driveway. I do not do a tight turn, try to do a nice wide turn but somehow end up with piles I have to go back to and level off.
Thanks for the suggestions of other additions besides alcohol to the tire. We even thought of just adding Slime to the tire but then would have to remember to use an old pressure gauge when checking the air level and opted to not add Slime.

Nancy

just a question have you ever considered replacing your front dolley wheels with the hard rubber kind you dont have to inflate? I know it will make the ride firmer but since you have a ferris it is probably fairly plush now. After spending 4 hours to replace the 11x4 inch tire on the front of mine and then immediately getting another puncture I went the hard tire route... The snapper dealer quoted me 125 per tire but I found them for $38 each and have been extremely pleased. I realise this does not solve the back tire issue... but its just a thought.

I would put the slime in. Reason being if your getting leaks in the tires it because of punctures and if you put tubes in and run something over you will only have to take the tire off to patch the tube. I went thru this quite a few times with fixing the tires and not once since I slimed it. Just my 2 cents.

luke

Don't tubes come with slime in them? Put on in my bike tire last time I had to take the tube out due to leak (not form puncture but old tubes).