Rear tire worn out at 3600 miles: underinflation or something else?

[L.B.S.]

Next post; Fratermus shows a broken bolt sticking out of swingarm contacting tire, and asks if this could have done it. lol

LBS weeps

 

[fratermus]

Sorry .......I only see very poor picture with lack of focus and no close ups or side views of the area in question.

I was standing in a dark parking lot. I was lucky to get as good a pic as I did.

Looks like it could be a mod gone wrong and something grooved the tire.........need way more info, to start talking defects.

In person it doesn't look like interference did it. It looks like a strip of tire jerky peeled off exposing the steel belts and what appears to be stitching. The stitching is not frayed, which makes me think again this happened very close to the end of my commute; there are no left hand turns in the last 10 miles or so.

Here is a close-up from that dark parking lot:



It's at the dealer now. The service manager said he'd never seen that before. Common thing for them to say, but if it looked like obvious owner-induced or debris-induced damage I figure he'd have said so immediately to head off any warranty service requests. He added it was "bulls___ that a tire would do that" but didn't seem eager to make things right.

I ordered a Conti Motion for it (I think OCR mentioned them) which should come in Thursday. I'll pick up the bike Friday.

 

[fratermus]

Hey, I just noticed something.

Check out that pic from last month in the first post and compare it to the pic immediately above in #22. There appears to be a light-colored strip along the right edge of where the tire would later peel/gouge/whatever. At first I thought it was a lighting or dirt thing. Now I wonder if the shape of the tire was already changing for whatever reason and I didn't catch it.

If it's not obvious what I'm talking about I'll mspaint up some arrows.

 

[maxwellian]

Yeah, that photo shows a flatter profile, looks more peeled off than lathed.

 

[showkey]

Much better picture, thanks.
Can you tell us what the three marked areas are.......... Are those pieces of rubber hanging ? Lower one appears to have a cut at the base ?

 

[Deleted member 1183]

Is there a hugger on this bike ?

From the pics, I am absolutely convinced that such tyre damage is totally friction related, as in something pressed hard against it while it is spinning. Personally I would not disagree with the dealer. I have had rubber let go on the rear tyre of my scooter. The pattern was nowhere like what has happened on your tyre. On my tyre, flaps of rubber were intermittently coming away from the carcass, but there was nothing symmetrical about this pattern. The tyre was replaced by Bridgestone without argument. It is clear that the pattern on your tyre is a symmetrical groove that has been cut from the tyre. Furthermore I do not believe it would happen over one journey if it was wear related. Mine occurred over a long period of time where I noticed small flaps of rubber breaking loose from the tyre that gradually got worse over a long period.

 

[fratermus]

Much better picture, thanks.
Can you tell us what the three marked areas are.......... Are those pieces of rubber hanging ? Lower one appears to have a cut at the base ?

View attachment 20977

It's the end of the rain groove of the original tread design. You can follow the angle across the missing bit and see the other end of the rain groove.

 

[fratermus]

Is there a hugger on this bike ?

No hugger or any other mod of the undercarriage. Mods on the back half of the bike are footpegs and slip-on muffler.

From the pics, I am absolutely convinced that such tyre damage is totally friction related, as in something pressed hard against it while it is spinning. Personally I would not disagree with the dealer. I have had rubber let go on the rear tyre of my scooter. The pattern was nowhere like what has happened on your tyre. On my tyre, flaps of rubber were intermittently coming away from the carcass, but there was nothing symmetrical about this pattern.

Could be; I don't have a way of knowing. IMO the arguments against friction are:

* a description of identical damage with this same tire on a bike on our platform: "a work associate noticed that the steel cord was showing on the chain side of the tire, about 1 inch wide, all the way around" from the ctx forum.

* the rubber is removed down to what appear to be stitching but there is no damage to the stitching. It would be interesting if the friction stopped at that exact point.

 

[houssam2]

My vote is defective tire. If this was caused by a user modification, whatever did it would be obvious if it grooved that tire so severely. The only other possibility I can think of is a long sharp piece of road debris that somehow reached up to the side of the tire and sliced it. But I think the OP would have noticed hitting something like that.

 

[docwells7]

I posted this in another thread, but this is the worst OEM tire I've ever had on a motorcycle. I got just over 3,000 miles on the rear and 3,500 on the front. I had very similar, yet not catastrophic wear on the side rather than the center. I since put Shinko 705 tires on the front and back, and I have around 3,000 miles on both and they look practically new. I don't check pressure any differently and my riding style is exactly the same. Only difference is I've done a couple hundred miles on forest service roads with the new tires.
Until I saw several similar reports of terrible mileage on OEM tires with the NCx, I seriously thought the dealer put some used tires on my new bike...that's how bad the wear was.

 

[showkey]

I posted this in another thread, but this is the worst OEM tire I've ever had on a motorcycle. I got just over 3,000 miles on the rear and 3,500 on the front. I had very similar, yet not catastrophic wear on the side rather than the center. I since put Shinko 705 tires on the front and back, and I have around 3,000 miles on both and they look practically new. I don't check pressure any differently and my riding style is exactly the same. .

Not to send this thread off topic Shinko have a few too many problems of their own.......

Shinko Failure - Page 11 - ADVrider

 

[Jguarfn28]

I got my NC in September 2012 and have about 12k miles on the OEM's with slight flattening in the middle of the back tire. I am about 5'8" and weigh about 230 with gear on. I will probably go with the Conti's everyone else likes.

 

[hojo]

Not to send this thread off topic Shinko have a few too many problems of their own.......

Shinko Failure - Page 11 - ADVrider

I had a Shinko failure many years ago and can't see myself EVER putting another Shinko tire under me.

 

[gharshman]

My OEM tires will be lucky to make it 3,000 miles, but...

(1) We have rough roads in Alabama,
(2) I ride fairly aggressively,
(3) the stock suspension is crappy, and
(4) Dunlop D609 tires are crappy.

I can't/won't do anything about (1) and (2), but I can fix (3) and (4).

 

[fratermus]

Update: the Conti Motion on the rear that replaced the stocker has gone for 2000 miles since then. It has very slight wear and no odd tread amputation. I will go to Conti for the front when it is due.