Tires

[steve scott]

Need your thoughts. I have several xs11.s. Stored in a closed building in Ala away from sun and weather. All are ridden regularly. Some of the tires are 6-10 years old. Look great with plenty of tread left. No side wall cracking. When cracking starts I replace them. Are 10 year old good looking tires safe to ride? I am a cruiser, not a racer. Your input is appreciated.

[jwhughes3]

Personally I would ride old rear tires up to 50 mph so cruising around town is probably fine.

I feel confident in controlling a rear flat to a stop from up to that speed.

Front tires not so much.

YMMV.

I would not get far from civilization on old tires.

John

[BA80]

Old tires are a gamble no matter what conditions they are stored at. Just because you can't see the deterioraton dosen't mean it's not there.

That's your call my friend

[newc4]

The cost to put new rubber on all your XSs is probably less that the cost of one visit to the ER.

[jwhughes3]

The cost to put new rubber on all your XSs is probably less that the cost of one visit to the ER.

This is a good point....

John

[crazy steve]

I'll be the contrarian and say it depends...

Tire expiration dates came out of the Firestone/Ford Explorer debacle when the NHTSA and various manufacturers ran tests to see if tire aging degraded them. The generally-used six year number was arrived at by testing in Phoenix Arizona, the US city with the highest daily average temps; six years there would cause tire problems. Some manufacturers are recommending a ten-year replacement. The study noted that the rate of degradation was exponential and a reduction in temps sharply reduced it.

So, what's that mean? If you live in a sunbelt state, a six year old tire will show effects of this. Cooler climate, the tire should last longer.

Steve, living where you do, unless the storage is climate controlled to a lower-than-ambient temp, you'll probably have some degradation out past six years. So it's your call as to whether or not your tires are still 'safe'.

I will note that extensive checking of accident records by the NHTSA turned up no tire failures that could be attributed to only tire age, in all cases there was either a lack of info or they found another factor that could have also been the cause (usually underinflation).

[Bonz]

I've owned my 80 SG for 4 years now, and the rear Dunlop K491 had been on the bike for at least a couple years before I bought the bike, but not ridden as it was stored and covered in a shed, so the tire was new.

I have around 7000 miles on the bike since getting it, and the rear tire is as good as it gets still. Crap, I don't know if I will wear out that tire honestly.

The front tire on the bike was the original stock tire, and hard as a rock. I rode the bike home with that tire, then promptly put on a D404. The 404 is showing more wear than the 491.

In any case, Colorado climate is very dry, but the tire was exposed to hot and cold extremes in a shed for two years with the once a year around the block my the PO. Heck, the tire has had 4 more years of hot and cold extremes in my garage, plus 7000 miles of riding.

I have no hesitation in riding the tires, but each case is it's own study in tire life and such.

[GTXS1100]

I just replaced the tires on my bike. I baught some from bikebandit. Shinko tour masters I think, they were about 130 bucks for the pair. You can mount and balance them yourself, I thought it was pretty easy. There are a bunch of videos on youtube showing how to do it. It saved me about 100 bucks to have them done at a shop. So in my opinion its not a bad idea to get them changed.

[Bonz]

The little Nighthawk 550 I picked up in May came with Shinko 712's and has the same tire size as my 80 SG both front and rear by coincidence.

That little bike carves into turns so quick it wants to apex in the other lane, and has tons of lean and grip, so I'd put those on the XS as well from my experience with them on the 550.

I am running the Shinko 009's on my 2001 ZRX 1200, and have almost 9000 miles on the rear for mostly upright commuting miles, with some legit tread left to get me until the end of the riding season then change it out. The front has around 7000 miles and should last through another rear tire if it keeps wearing uniformly like it has thus far.

Shinko's in my experience are good tires and a good value.

[HobbyMan]

Depends on what riding you are doing. For the front, I have found that while letting a bike sit for a while, the tire will have a flat spot on it which hinders a proper balance. As for the rear, USE EM UP! Haven't you ever wanted to leave a 50' black smoke screen down the street? Just a suggestion.

Personally, I have changing tires. You just cant take the wheels down to the shop any more to have a tire put on and balanced. Everyone wants around $30 a wheel to mount and balance in the DFW metroplex. Such a pain to do it myself. If I were in your current condition and not doing any highway driving, I would probably use them if they weren't more than 4 years old.

[WSL91]

I worked in the tire industry for 24 years and part of my job was to look at failed tires off Heavy trucks, forklifts, and earth movers. Tires rarely suffer a catastrophic failure without warning. If they are out of sunlight, you have them inflated, you check for circumference cracking, you are fine. As mentioned by others and I personally had a Dunlop that was hard as a brick. It's unlikely that any of us have a duromenter handy so you are not going to actually know how hard your tire is. Obviously one sign of being too hard is lack of traction in lateral movement which would be a bad thing.

Tires fail catastrophically from getting too hot and air migrating into and between the body plies causing tread/ply separation, again usually not an immediate thing and usually seen as a lump on the tire long before they blow. Tires only run hot when they are under inflated or overloaded. Properly inflated tires on short runs do not get hot. The cracking you see on the sidewalls is because the rubber compound used on the sidewalls is not handling ozone and flexing well and isn't really a good indicator of with whats going on the inside. There can be 7 different compounds in a modern tire used in tread, sidewalls, bead, belts, etc.

Bottom line you can replace them and sleep well or run them and keep an eye on them. As far as running cross country I probably wouldn't but I wouldn't hesitate to run them. Everything we do has a certain amount of risk and I would say the risk you assume with them is less than the risk you assume riding down the street but the tire risk can be more easily mitigated.

[Bonz]

WSL91,

That's a great post, good info from someone who knows this stuff for a living.

Here's one for you: So the tire is "hard as a rock", if you run it normally and wear off that outer layer, will the rubber underneath be in better shape?

Or once a tire gets hard, is it through and through hard in terms of the rubber that meets the road, sidewalls, etc.

[steve scott]

tires

Thanks guys for the comments. I love living so I think 10 yrs is enough. Lets buy tires. As an aside, Bob Jones convinced me on Metzler lazer tech tires. Wow can you feel the difference! Not trying to skimp on safety just hate to part with a dollar. Steve

[WSL91]

WSL91,

That's a great post, good info from someone who knows this stuff for a living.

Here's one for you: So the tire is "hard as a rock", if you run it normally and wear off that outer layer, will the rubber underneath be in better shape?

Or once a tire gets hard, is it through and through hard in terms of the rubber that meets the road, sidewalls, etc.

Thats a good question but not something you run into in the truck world. The only application similar to ours were Beverage trailer tires like on the Bud or Coke trucks in local markets. As trucks they really don't travel far yearly and are way underloaded and basically rot off before wearing out.

My guess is that its on the surface from ozone, weather,etc. If you could grind off the outer layer it would probably be better but the problem with the bike tires is that you would have to go half way down the side too and no one here has the equipment to do that. I pulled a Dunlop off the front of my XJ as it looked fine when I bought the bike but once I started riding it cracked everywhere almost imediatley with more visible cracks each day. I was alarmed at the rate of deteriorization it was showing. When I pulled it off it was so stiff I had a heck of a time even getting it off the rim and at one point considered cutting it off.

Crawling under garbage trucks in Bakersfield in August doing a fleet tire inspection is something really special!