The ATV tire pressure chart, by size and terrain (not by brand)

The short answer: air pressure should track terrain, not tire size or brand. Run roughly 4–8 PSI in mud or deep sand so the tire’s footprint widens and floats instead of digging in, 10–12 PSI for everyday packed trail riding, and 14–18 PSI when you’re covering hard-pack, gravel, or road stretches at speed. Those are starting points, not gospel — the tire’s sidewall states a maximum, and your owner’s manual states a stock baseline. Neither one is the same thing as what you should actually run today.

Most ATV tire-pressure content online is a single number pulled from one machine’s manual and applied to every rider, every terrain, every load. That’s backwards. The tire doesn’t know what brand of quad it’s bolted to — it knows how soft the ground is and how much weight is pushing down on it. Here’s the chart organized the way it actually works.

Terrain sets the number, not your tire’s size or brand

Softer ground wants a wider, softer footprint, so the pressure goes down. Firmer ground wants a stiffer tire that resists squirm at speed, so the pressure goes up. That’s the whole logic behind every row below — memorize the pattern, not just the numbers.

Treat each row as a range to start in and adjust from, not a number to set once and forget. If you’re riding a mix of terrain in one afternoon — trail out, mud pit, trail back — the honest answer is to air down for the pit and air back up after, the same way you’d do it in a truck. It’s a two-minute job with a low-pressure gauge, and it’s the single biggest lever most riders never touch.

The number molded into your sidewall is a ceiling, not a target

Every ATV tire has a maximum pressure stamped or molded into the sidewall, and it gets confused for a recommendation constantly. It isn’t one. That number is the structural limit — the pressure the casing and bead can handle before you risk damage — not the pressure that gives you the best ride or traction. Running near max PSI on an ATV typically makes the tire harder, less compliant over roots and rock, and worse at exactly the job a low-pressure tire is built for.

Your running pressure should sit well below that ceiling, set by terrain the way the chart above lays out. The one time max PSI actually matters day-to-day is seating a bead after a tire change — a brief, higher-pressure pop to snap the bead onto the rim — after which you bleed it straight back down to a normal riding number. If you don’t know your tire’s max, it’s printed right on the sidewall; we don’t publish a universal figure here because it varies by tire, and guessing at a safety number is the one place we won’t do that.

GCT stocks three ATV tires, and all three are tubeless

We don’t try to out-stock the big powersports retailers on ATV tread — three tires, chosen for working quads, is the honest lineup. The Deestone D929 is a knobby all-terrain tread in 16x8-7, 4-ply, tubeless. The OTR 350 Mag is also a knobby pattern, stocked in four sizes — 18x8.50-8, 18x8.50-10, 22x11.00-10, and 23x10.50-12 — in 4-ply and 6-ply depending on size, all tubeless as well. The OTR TR32 22 Mag rounds out the lineup in 21x11.00-8, 4-ply, tubeless. All three are made to hold air on a clean rim without a tube, which matters for the terrain chart above: a tubeless tire seats and unseats more predictably at the low pressures mud and sand call for.

None of those three listings shows a maximum PSI figure, and we’d rather leave it blank than print a guess. Read the number off your own sidewall before you air up — it’s specific to the exact tire in your hands, not just the model name. All three tires and every size we shelve are on the ATV tires page, with sizes at the D929 product page, the 350 Mag in 22x11.00-10, and the TR32 22 Mag. If you’re still deciding between a knobby, an all-trail, or a mud pattern in the first place, the tread guide for working quads covers that choice — this page is only about what to put in the tire once you’ve picked it.

Check it cold, with a low-pressure gauge, before you ride

ATV pressures run low enough — single digits for mud, low teens for trail — that a standard automotive gauge isn’t precise enough to trust. A cheap low-pressure gauge made for ATVs or bikes reads those numbers accurately; a car gauge rounds a 6 to an 8 and you won’t know it. Check pressure cold, meaning before you’ve ridden, not after — air expands as the tire heats up on the trail, so a mid-ride reading will look higher than what you actually set that morning and lead you to bleed off air you need.

Small tires bleed pressure faster than car or truck tires do, simply because there’s less air volume inside them. A quad that sat all winter can lose several PSI before the season even starts. Make the check part of pulling the machine out, not an afterthought after something already feels off.

Loaded racks and two-up riding call for more air, not less

Weight changes the right pressure for a given terrain. A quad hauling a loaded front and rear rack, pulling a trailer, or carrying a passenger is pushing more load through the same footprint, and running the same PSI you’d use solo risks pinch flats and sidewall flex on the same terrain that was fine unloaded. Bump toward the top of the terrain range — or a couple PSI over it — when you’re working the machine, and come back down for a solo trail ride.

Greg’s version of this from the counter: “Air is free and tires aren’t. If you’re loaded down and unsure, go up two pounds — a slightly firm ride costs you nothing, a pinched sidewall costs you a tire.” It’s the same logic as the mud-versus-trail chart, just running in the other direction: more load, more air; softer ground, less air. Get those two rules straight and you’ve covered nearly every ATV pressure question that actually comes up.