"Plugging" a scooter tire with a nail in it? [think]  By  floridagull (Read 7,559 times)

there is definitely differences between tires.
i noticed this with bicycle tires.
i swear, some seem to "roll easier" than others.
you don't notice this with cycle and auto tires because you aren't the one applying the power, the engine is.

as for hardness, all of my scoot tires seem pretty well able to handle my style of riding, and i've had a few people tell me i was going to ditch my ride.
there seemed to be a fire where ever i was going.
all of them were chinese to my knowledge.

Toyota was using extremely long wearing Yokahama tires for a while and while they could give you close to 100,000 miles of wear you would have trouble on damp roadways. My father took one look at them when my mother surprised him was a set on the family car and told her she should take them back as they were not safe and would be too slippery on even a damp road. The next morning she went out when it was damp out and had a sliding accident when the tires lost grip on the morning dew damp roadway almost totaling the car. She learned not to argue with an MIT trained engineer who worked for almost 50 years in the rubber industry and made sure he was there when selecting the replacement tires after they got the car out of the body shop. Actually the car went straight back to the tire shop from the body shop.

Tires get hard and slippery when they age and after they are 5 years old for car tires and 3 years old on motorcycle tires you are taking your chances. The guy I rode with that had the Boulevard 850 that kept sliding off the road at low speed had long wearing touring tires that were a bargain being new old stock and already over 3 years old when he put them on the bike. A reputable tire shop would have refused to mount them as they were unsafe. My Dad's explanation was that with all the deforestation there is not enough virgin high quality natural rubber available today so more and more synthetic blends are being used to make up for the lack with some makers using too hard a blend to cut costs/increase profits which is more common on the oriental brands.

A reputable tire shop sends their own tires that are 5 years or older out to be shredded and won't sell them. They will take the loss rather than endanger a customer. A small repair shop that did not really know tires may have installed a set that was past their useful life however if they had sold Kat a tire that was already 5 or more years old then they are responsible for the loss of the car. Count your blessings you did not have a tread separation on the highway and the all too usual roll over. A tire shop should also do at least a basic check for alignment before installing a new set of tires and if there are problems refuse to put the new tires on until the problems are corrected or if the customer insists that they be installed anyway then note the mechanical issues present on the car on the tire warranty paperwork and invoice along with the recommendation that repairs be made immediately.

Some may bring up the Michelin 10 year warranty however if you read the fine print you will find that one has to, starting at the fifth year, pay a Michelin trained tech to dismount inspect and remount the tires every year until the warranty ends to certify that they are still safe. Don't keep the inspection certificates or skip an inspection then all bets are off at 5 years.

My dad did design roadway tire rubber formulations for use by the Defense Departments/Military's of the world which had much more than a 5 year shelf life however those tires were extremely expensive and not practical for civilian use especially since their speed rating was most often just 45 mph. Farm/Heavy Equipment tires are totally different since most are low speed off road tires that will rarely see over 10/15 mph with a good many being solid or liquid filled.

Bottom line with the speeds involved and current understanding of safety issues regarding tires today (we cant live in the past) car/light truck tires are good for 5 years and motorcycle tires for 3 years. The average car driver puts on 15,000 miles per year so the average 50,000 mile car tire will be worn out in less than 5 years. The average biker puts on somewhere in the range of 3,000/4,000 miles a year so the more common 8,000 mile cruiser tire will be worn out in under 3 years. This matching the wear to the years of safe usage has greatly reduced the number of folks riding on old unsafe tires and the related accidents from that since the tires will usually wear our before age issues arise, that is aside from those sold by what one may consider criminals who take tires new tires that are past their date certs and were destined for the recycling center and funnel them back into the supply chain through used tire centers and internet/ebay discounters.

I have six bikes in the garage right now. Tossing tires every three years would be a big hit in the wallet.

Move over I'll take a couple myself don't get greedy

I'd rather be safe and follow the rules of the trade than be one of those sorry or dead folks who should know better but prove otherwise by their actions. Please stop the foolishness of encouraging the unknowing to engage in dangerous practices regarding old tires.

I will be very happy when the lawmakers stop listening to the special interest business groups selling used and out dated tires and make it a criminal offense to sell a tire that is over five years old be it sitting on a shelf unmounted or in place on a roadway vehicle. There should be mandated safety inspections to get the all to many old out of date tires off the roadways. And yes even Michelin agrees that tires need to be inspected inside and out by a certified professional using industry standard tools and procedures to ensure that they are safe if you do not toss them after 5 years however this costs more than the tire is worth over the next 5 years making it more cost effective to toss them and turn them into mulch or new roadways.

Enough of this putting saving an almighty buc above the value of a living soul.

See what has been going on here in Florida just over the past decade on this front:
www.wftv.com/news/local/tire-shelf-life-blamed-number-central-florida-cras/287758393.

www.litigationandtrial.com/2012/03/articles/attorney/automobile-accidents/tire-failures/
www.tirereview.com/florida-legislator-wants-used-tire-age-bill/

There should be mandated safety inspections to get the all to many old out of date tires off the roadways.



Seriously? I can't think of a bigger "Nanny State" maneuver. As previously noted I'm running a nine year old front tire on my 150cc with confidence. There are so many factors to tire degradation that age is just a single one. Take living in Florida as opposed to living in the Northeast. We're not battered with endless sunshine here. Maybe in Florida, Arizona or Southern California that nasty sun bakes tires to uselessness in a season. Here in upstate New York our tires spend half the year refrigerated and only thaw out in April. It's kept my Third World Chinese front tire fresh and ready to go annually.

Of course if repairing bikes is your life then the Government requiring annual tire changes would be an incredible boon to business. 

Why stop at 5 years? Why not require replacing tires every year, then? After all, a newer tire is "safer"!

My Burg has the original front tire (not quite six years old)-it is still pliable, shows zero cracking (stored inside when not ridden), and I will run it until it wears out!