Beware Of Nails

[Fz warrior]

The other day i came back from a ride and discovered a small nail in my back tire that resulted in a slow leak. I took it into the dealer to find that the tires could be neither plugged or replaced with a tube due to them being high speed rated tires. These were just the stock tires too but my grand total for one tire came to about $300.00. I probably could have gotten by with just a plug but the dealer refused to do it. So just a word of advice, watch out for those expensive little nails.

 

[pchbreeze]

bull****. i've gotten two rear tires plugged. NEVER ask a dealer a technical question!

Its a bitch...i've been getting a lot of nails lately.

 

[shaggystyle]

Just plug it yourself next time, especially if the tires are still in good shape. Unless you are running 100+ mph on it constantly, there's no way you'll sling the plug out. I know this doesn't help you now, but hopefully it'll help you avoid some cost the next time around.

 

[wrightme43]

I will have to second the dealers are lying crap heads maybe third or 15,000th it or something.

Cycle gear has the set front and rear for under 250 (actually has a set that fits dunlop on sale for 149 for both. You can change your own tires. Its easy.
When mine wear out, I am going to make a pictorial how to.

I am sorry you got treated unfairly. It never has to happen again.

 

[sportrider]

I'll never patch a tire again!!!

I had a set of michellin pilot powers that at 1800 miles I picked up a nail in the rear tire center tread. non of the local bike shops would patch it or plug it, so I decided to do it myself. I bought an umbrella patch, broke down the tire and patched it. I got another 400 miles on it. the last day I rode it home from work it picked up a slight vibration about 3 miles from my house. when I got home I checked the tires and I found two big bubbles in the rear. I broke down the tire and found no signs of damage inside the tire but I had two oval shaped bubbles in the tread. I knew I wasn't going to remount the tire so I got a knife and stabbed it in to the bubbles and they both had air trapped between the tread and the carcass, telling me that there was a potential blowout on the way. in my opinion, as much as it sucks, if you pick up a nail that punctures the tire replace the tire no matter how many miles they have on them.( the only exception is a plug just to get home or the bike shop.)
:Sport:

 

[v4rick]

Tire repair

I am also conflicted on the subject of repairing tires with "plugs". I've repaired many radial sportbike tires with no problems. Some were "plugged" within the first 100 miles of their lives and lasted through the life of the tread, usually 3500-4500 miles, with no failure or noticeable air loss. My concern is that I have never owned a bike capable of 140+ mph before the FZ and would like to know if these "usually reliable" plugs could fail catastrophically at high speeds? I have two in my 2005 and might, maybe, occasionally spin the tire up to 145+ on my dyno.....

 

[sportrider]

when I patched my tire, I used an umbrella patch. in my opinion that is the best type of patch to use. I can't say for sure if the plug patch caused the defect my tire had or not but, I hate to think how it would of been to be traveling at 140+ MPH and have a blow out. it was sketchy enough to be going 106 MPH when the tire originally went flat!!! so for me I won't be patching anymore motorcycle tires!!!

:Sport: