Only 6500 Miles On Rear Tire?

I have 6500 mile and when I took it in the other day to balance the tires the guy said my rear tire needs replacement soon. Is it common for tires to wear out this soon?
Would any one be able to direct me where I could purchase dual purpose tires for this bike.

6500 miles is early for a tire replacement but then again needing to re-balance your tires is not good at all and should not need to be done. Why the rebalance?

DennisB

I had them place Dyna Beads. It's suppose to maintain the balance better than weights and they last the life of the tire.

I only got about 6500 on my rear Swing tire, and only about 7000 on my previous smaller scoot tires (rears). I don't think this is unusual at all, based on what I've read from others. This is the main reason I decided to go over to "the darkside" and put the Sumitomo car tire on the rear of my swing. I'm expecting anywhere from 30,000 to 50,000 miles out of it (am I being too optimistic? I don't know. It's my first darkside tire, which is rated at 75,000 on a car.)

robavi wrote:

I have 6500 mile and when I took it in the other day to balance the tires the guy said my rear tire needs replacement soon. Is it common for tires to wear out this soon?
Would any one be able to direct me where I could purchase dual purpose tires for this bike.

What brand tire?
What air pressure did you use?
How often did you check the air pressure?

I have about 6645 on my '08 and it looks like I might get 8,000 out of rear tire.

The harley's I owned in the past got about 10,000 to 12,000 on a rear.

It's just the size of our tires OD over the same distance as a tire with a larger OD.

DennisB

My 07 wing has 9000 on the clock and I think still running on original IRC tyres.

My 02 Burgman 400 would only get around 7500 miles on the Bridgestone rear tyre and around 9000 on the front.

How you ride the bike will also make a difference.

robavi,

Tire life is a very subjective thing. There are so many variables that all contribute to the outcome. The following is NOT a complete list of possible variables contributing to tire wear:

Tire air pressure
Road surface composition
Tire composition
Rider weight
Bike gross weight (good reason to not carry everything all the time)
Tire and road surface temperature
Riding style & speed
Suspension settings

6,500 miles does seem a bit early, but may be 'normal'.

I contend that checking tire pressure at least weekly if not daily will help contribute to longer tire life. Our bikes weigh so little that it is hard to just give a visual check, the tires don't squat unless they are dangerously low. You really need to get down there with the tire pressure gauge and check it regularly.

As for dual purpose tires - are you looking for off road? touring? daily use? sport? Dual use in terms of compound or tread style? The darkside is an option if all you are looking for is longevity.

Motorcycle Superstore, www.motorcycle-superstore.com/5/32/DV/Scooter-Tires.aspx is a good place to start.

Replaced both my front and rear Hoops on Monday with new Perelli Diablo's. Rear tire was down to the wear bars and the front tire was cupped causing a steering vibration. Odometer read 9900 kilometers or 6000 miles.
Put 300 km on the Scoot yesterday. I like the Diablo's.

For those who may be wondering:

Darkside (or Dark Side) is a reference to using a car tire (in the rear generally or almost exclusively) in place of the standard motorcycle tire. The Darkside tire obviously has a different or flatter tread (contact surface) profile. The sidewalls of the Darkside tire react differnetly as well. Both of those characteristics make the Darkside tire a dubious choice for the front tire location of a motorcycle.

I'm not sure of the size used (search for Dark Side on this forum). Most who switch have used a Sumitomo (brand) which is the parent company of Dunlop. There are other manufacturers.

There is a slight handling characteristic, that most will not really notice. The bike when pushed hard in a curve (not a turn) tends to want to come out of the lean. This is overcome with more, or more accurately firmer or active, rider input at the bars.

jdeereanton wrote:

I'm not sure of the size used (search for Dark Side on this forum).

Sumitomo 165/70TR13
http://silverwing.org/cgi-bin/topic_show.pl?pid=17998#pid17998

The two videos are from the same motorcycle with the two different tires ... plus you can gauge the lean on the one side.

Motorcycle tire:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hIfrFch- ... re=related

Same bike with a darkside tire:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwSSXHan ... onse_watch

I get about 11,000 on my tires and I have the Diablos on front and back. The front last longer for me but I always just replace both when the back needs it. I have to say that 6,500 is way too early unless you aren't keeping proper pressure or are riding it really hard. But that is only my opinion. What type of tires do you have? I hear the Dunlops might wear faster.

My SW has IRCs that just turned 6000 miles. The front tire looks good for another two or three thousand but the rear is pretty well cupped. Lots of tread left but visible cupping when you look at the tire from the right angle. Not too noisy on the curves yet. My Goldwing will get more miles out of it's tires than the SW but it's not to surprising since the SW's tires are much smaller so they rotate a lot more per mile. Also their contact patch is a lot smaller than that on the GW so the PSI at ground contact is probably a bit higher than on the big bike.

I'll throw this into the mix: My scoot is at 16,189 miles, on what I believe are the original Bridgestones. I know for sure that I've put 10,000 miles on them.

I'm pretty careful about the tire pressure, and will admit that the chicken strips on the sides are still mostly intact, which speaks to the way I drive. I park in the space outside my house, with a waterproof cover on her. She has seldom, if ever, been driven two-up.

My swing is in the shop today for her 16,000 mile check-up. All the belts and whistles will be replaced, but the tires still look good according to my husband the car guy. Can someone explain what I think they called a 'prime oil change'? It's very expensive, in labor charges.

Mandy

Changed my rear tire today at 7600+ miles. Installed another hoop. I could have went another 1000 miles (guessing) but had to get the annual inspection and did not want to take an almost worn out tire to the shop. Also changed the rear tire on my sons Suzuki Voulasa and it was actually easier to break down and change than the Swing. His Voulasa still uses a tube and is a spoked steel wheel chromed and did not have to be as concerned with scratching/gouging the soft cast wheels like the Swing and Gwing. Would like to say that the wheel is really easy to remove but pay attention to which way the spacer gets installed. It will go either way and naturally I found out pretty fast that only one way is correct. After a quick look at the shop manual and Jeffr's incredible pictures I chalked one up for dummy me. My son figured it out while I was looking at the manual so he had a great deal of getting one up on ole Dad. We used the coates 220 tire changer on both. A good satisfying way to spend the morning with one of my boys. Another item of interest (to me) was the Swing rear wheel would not fit on my wheel balancer. My cones that attach to the wheel bumps together before they snug up on the wheel. It looks like I will have to obtain or make another set and remove a portion of the cone to work properly. It works on the GW and many other wheels before so this kinda was a surprise. I will run this tire unbalanced and will make modifications prior to installing the next one. Dick

robavi wrote:

I had them place Dyna Beads. It's suppose to maintain the balance better than weights and they last the life of the tire.

The dyna beads did NOT work for me. I had to have them removed and a traditional balancing done. When I installed my new Diablos, the dealer that did the mounting could not balance the rear Silverwing wheel, so I decided to use the Dyna Beads. Before installing them, the ride was not bad even without the rear balanced, but after I put the recommended weight of Dyna Beads in, I could hardly stay on the bike for the vibration. They might work in some instances, but they did not work for me.