Back in March of 2023 I purchased these exclusive Salomon Forces XA Pro 3D V8 Ignite shoes from USELITE, for retail price. Shoes are always one of those purchases that matter for work and recreation. Getting the wrong shoes can definitely lead to issues, especially if you didn’t do your research. Having owned many variations of Salomon products I can say that these are about average in terms of performance, but above average in terms of appearance. This review will detail observations from use and some recommendations based on requirements.

The overall appearance of these shoes were always really well maintained. While I never actually did anything to clean them, like washing or wiping them off, I could see that they appeared very clean, at least on the outside.

The toe was very rigid and the mesh helped a little bit with ventilation. I do not recall ever stepping in a puddle or getting stuck out in heavy rain so I cannot speak to their water resistant functions.

The lace system is the typical Salomon styled quick lace that hides in the tongue of the shoe.

The rear has a pull tab for when you’re trying to get the shoe on. One thing that I noticed is that if you try to put it on without using the pull tab, if you just stuffed your foot in there and wiggled your heel around the rear of the shoe, that sits just above the ankle would fold down, getting stuck.

The inner foot pad is extremely thin, or at least it was when I removed it to take a photo of it.

I started to realize that these shoes were on their last leg when I started having knee and lower back pain from standing too long, something that I have not had before with these shoes, but that usually is a tell tell sign that shoes are completely worn out, regardless of appearance.

As you can see the tread was actually held up well but clearly had wear.

Even though the tread of the shoe had a decent bit of wear I was still wearing them.

You can see the stress cracks in the sole.

Clearly visible on both sides.

So would I recommend these?

If you’ve worn summer versions of Salomon shoes they are decent for warm weather. I only wore these shoes during warm weather months and wore Salomon Mid GTX during the winter months. So these shoes actually didn’t see much wear during colder months. I think I actually wore them a total of 8-9 full months before having pain. That’s about average with other Salomon shoes I’ve had like the Speedcross series or other XA’s low cut versions. If you are looking for a shoe to last you several years, this probably isn’t it. If you are looking for a high performance shoe for a single season or year of warm weather then that might actually work out. I did a bit of running and rucking with these shoes, and they held up fine for those activities. The gray really stands out and matches most daily clothing.

I will say that if you are looking for a better overall shoe in the same criteria with slightly better tread that’ll last longer, definitely look at the Adidas Terrex shoes. They have their limitations (color and laces) but they have held up vastly better than these Salomon’s.