New Altimax RT45 225/60R-15 rubbing on belt on left turns

Stats: 2019 RTL, rear passenger (almost always) approx 125 lbs.

Replaced (by a former BRP tech who gets excellent reviews) OEM with General Altimax RT45 225/60R-15 per advice on this forum . He is an hour away, or I'd take it back to him, but I don't want to put that many miles on it with it in this condition.

Running it at 20.5 psi cold according to Fobo.

A couple of times I've notice a rubbing sound when turn left fairly agressively. When the site was down, the FB group helped me identify it as the belt rubbing against the tire. Attached are pics of the belt clearance and tire witness marks. The belt has about a business card of clearance on the wheel sprocket. I'm taking it to the dealer to see what they can do on Saturday. The service manager is aware of exactly what I put on, and says he should be able to help me out.

I want to be armed with as much information as possible, so I'm looking for those of you who have seen this tire on these bikes a lot (@BajaRon, etc) to help educate me, please.

You need to align your rear wheel by loosening your axle nuts and using the adjusters on the back of the swing arm to align the belt to a credit cards width (2-3 mm) off of the flange with the rear wheel jack up.

Only turn the adjusters about a 1/4 turn at a time to see where the belt rides on the sprocket.

Only use a forward motion on the rear wheel to see how the belt is riding.

Then use a crickit belt tensioner (you can get one from Baja Ron) to test your tension. BRP recommends about 230 ft/lbs with the wheel off of the ground, but that causes a belt vibration around 60-65 mph.

People here on the forum run anywhere between 160-230 I personally run 180-200 ft/lbs.

Update: I just read back through you post and saw the tire itself rubbing the belt, is the sprocket mounted correctly on that?

I don't know if it is old age but in that one photo without having a good tool to measure the distance it looks like the sprocket has a wider gap from the tire towards the back than in the front.

20.5 psi seems a little low to me for a rear tire w/passenger. Why not try around 26 and see if it still rubs on a corner? Also your belt does need adjusting..

Not possible unless the wheel spacer was left out or the wheel is grossly misaligned. Something is very wrong with that install. 225 is the OEM tire width so you're running the stock width tire. You need to get that addressed ASAP!

When I had an Altimax on my 2017 RT, I ran it at 26-28 PSI and it seemed fine. 20 PSI seems way low to me, and might cause the sidewall to bulge out more I'd think. Maybe try running it up to 26 PSI and see if that makes any difference in the rubbing anyway.

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Originally Posted by amusher

20.5 psi seems a little low to me for a rear tire w/passenger. Why not try around 26 and see if it still rubs on a corner? Also your belt does need adjusting..

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Originally Posted by jfischer

When I had an Altimax on my 2017 RT, I ran it at 26-28 PSI and it seemed fine. 20 PSI seems way low to me, and might cause the sidewall to bulge out more I'd think. Maybe try running it up to 26 PSI and see if that makes any difference in the rubbing anyway.

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You guys have got that the wrong way round!! :rolleyes: If it's anything to do with the tire's pressure (which I doubt) it's already too high, and just like adding more air to a party balloon, adding more pressure will only make any 'bulging out' worse!! :lecturef_smilie:

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Originally Posted by jfischer

When I had an Altimax on my 2017 RT, I ran it at 26-28 PSI and it seemed fine. 20 PSI seems way low to me, and might cause the sidewall to bulge out more I'd think. Maybe try running it up to 26 PSI and see if that makes any difference in the rubbing anyway.

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The sidewall only bulges where the tread contacts the road. It isn't going to bulge at the belt. That tire should have 1/2" clearance to the belt.

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Originally Posted by Allen42

Stats: 2019 RTL, rear passenger (almost always) approx 125 lbs.

Replaced (by a former BRP tech who gets excellent reviews) OEM with General Altimax RT45 225/60R-15 per advice on this forum . He is an hour away, or I'd take it back to him, but I don't want to put that many miles on it with it in this condition.

Running it at 20.5 psi cold according to Fobo.

A couple of times I've notice a rubbing sound when turn left fairly agressively. When the site was down, the FB group helped me identify it as the belt rubbing against the tire. Attached are pics of the belt clearance and tire witness marks. The belt has about a business card of clearance on the wheel sprocket. I'm taking it to the dealer to see what they can do on Saturday. The service manager is aware of exactly what I put on, and says he should be able to help me out.

I want to be armed with as much information as possible, so I'm looking for those of you who have seen this tire on these bikes a lot (@BajaRon, etc) to help educate me, please.

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I checked mine. I have an Altimax 215 and about 1/2-3/4” gap between the tire and belt.

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Originally Posted by TimKW

I checked mine. I have an Altimax 215 and about 1/2-3/4” gap between the tire and belt.

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:agree: Same here with the 215, :thumbup: Bill

from the writing, and tire size you installed is 225 wide, most have used the 215 wide. so thats a bit wider, but will run IF the belt is moved away from flange. the right side adjuster will move the tire to right some. it doesn't appear in pic that belt is actually riding against tire. you might be hearing a squeal from belt against flange

I went back to my tirerack.com history and confirmed I also used the 215/60R-15 Altimax, not the 225. I have since sold the bike so can't give you any measurements unfortunately but did know I had no trouble with it in the 4 years I had it on my 2017 RT.

According to an online tire size calculator, the 225 is 0.4" wider than the 215 or roughly 1/4 inch on each side? Should still clear I'd think even though it would be tight.

Thanks everyone. @BajaRon says it's a great tire for the bike, and that's good enough for me. The installer spent a lot of time messing with both sides of the aligner, and I think he simply got the tire too far left. Hopefully the dealer can get me fixed up in short order. While it's off, I may have the wheel balanced, since there's quite a bit of weights on the rim from the Kenda. Maybe some of those can come off.

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Originally Posted by Woodaddict

from the writing, and tire size you installed is 225 wide, most have used the 215 wide. so thats a bit wider, but will run IF the belt is moved away from flange. the right side adjuster will move the tire to right some. it doesn't appear in pic that belt is actually riding against tire. you might be hearing a squeal from belt against flange

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It's only doing it when hard cornering left. I assume that flexes the tire enough for the slight rub.

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Originally Posted by BajaRon

The sidewall only bulges where the tread contacts the road. It isn't going to bulge at the belt. That tire should have 1/2" clearance to the belt.

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Well right now it's like 1/8". I'll let the dealer tech know that's where you said to put it, lol. As always, thanks for the free advice! If I'm ever near you, I want to shake your hand and find something for you to do to the bike.

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Originally Posted by Allen42

Well right now it's like 1/8". I'll let the dealer tech know that's where you said to put it, lol. As always, thanks for the free advice! If I'm ever near you, I want to shake your hand and find something for you to do to the bike.

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You don't need to put the tire anywhere in relationship to the belt. I don't understand all the advise about a 215. The tire width is not the issue here. Even a 235 width tire should give you adequate clearance. Every Spyder ever made came stock with a 225 width tire. The tire you are using and the stock tire have the same width. Both will have 1/2" clearance at the belt.

Your wheel is mounted wrong. It's as simple as that. This is relatively easy to do on a Spyder. The 2 spacers (Red Circles) appear to be the same, but they are different widths. You want them to go back where they came from. And the rubber cushion set (Red Arrow) needs to go back exactly as it came out. If you just toss these components aside, you can easily put them back all wrong. We mark them at our shop so it's a simple and quick process to get this right the 1st time.

Then there is the matter of alignment. I'm not saying that they did this part wrong. But if you dismount the rear tire wrong, you have to realign it. A tedious and possibly time consuming process. If you do the wheel removal right, the alignment does not change, saving a lot of time and grief. I can't tell from the pictures what they did wrong. But your wheel/tire assembly is cocked to the left. Quite badly. I don't think even a really bad alignment would give you this much angle. But then again. I've never tried.

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Originally Posted by amusher

20.5 psi seems a little low to me for a rear tire w/passenger. Why not try around 26 and see if it still rubs on a corner? Also your belt does need adjusting..

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No No & No -..... An auto tire ( any brand ) only needs about 17-19 PSI to handle at it's optimum....This PSI has been discussed here over 100 times since 2013 .....Mike

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Originally Posted by BajaRon

Not possible unless the wheel spacer was left out or the wheel is grossly misaligned. Something is very wrong with that install. 225 is the OEM tire width so you're running the stock width tire. You need to get that addressed ASAP!

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:agree: .... it is Only slightly taller than OEM, not wider at all, something is wrong here .....Mike :thumbup:

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Originally Posted by Allen42

Thanks everyone. @BajaRon says it's a great tire for the bike, and that's good enough for me. The installer spent a lot of time messing with both sides of the aligner, and I think he simply got the tire too far left. Hopefully the dealer can get me fixed up in short order. While it's off, I may have the wheel balanced, since there's quite a bit of weights on the rim from the Kenda. Maybe some of those can come off.

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Get rid of the weights ..... The REAR wheel when using an Auto tire needs NO weights - period ...... I haven't had Rear tire weights for my last 7 tire changes and haven't had any issues .....Mike :thumbup:

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Originally Posted by jfischer

I went back to my tirerack.com history and confirmed I also used the 215/60R-15 Altimax, not the 225. I have since sold the bike so can't give you any measurements unfortunately but did know I had no trouble with it in the 4 years I had it on my 2017 RT.

According to an online tire size calculator, the 225 is 0.4" wider than the 215 or roughly 1/4 inch on each side? Should still clear I'd think even though it would be tight.

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Tire " calculators " are S.W.A.G. , , it's a mathematical formula ONLY ..... actual tire sizes can be quite a bit different form the Formula ....Mike :thumbup:

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Originally Posted by BLUEKNIGHT911

Get rid of the weights ..... The REAR wheel when using an Auto tire needs NO weights - period ...... I haven't had Rear tire weights for my last 7 tire changes and haven't had any issues .....Mike :thumbup:

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Shouldn't it have been re-balanced when the new tire was put on? They wouldn't have just left the old weights on there hopefully. And why would an auto tire not need balancing on a Spyder when auto tires definitely need balancing when mounted on cars? Just curious.

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Originally Posted by BLUEKNIGHT911

Tire " calculators " are S.W.A.G. , , it's a mathematical formula ONLY ..... actual tire sizes can be quite a bit different form the Formula ....Mike :thumbup:

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Yes, that is true. But since these bikes came with 225s standard, not 215s, it shouldn't generally be a problem I wouldn't think.

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Originally Posted by BajaRon

You don't need to put the tire anywhere in relationship to the belt. I don't understand all the advise about a 215. The tire width is not the issue here. Even a 235 width tire should give you adequate clearance. Every Spyder ever made came stock with a 225 width tire. The tire you are using and the stock tire have the same width. Both will have 1/2" clearance at the belt.

Your wheel is mounted wrong. It's as simple as that. This is relatively easy to do on a Spyder. The 2 spacers (Red Circles) appear to be the same, but they are different widths. You want them to go back where they came from. And the rubber cushion set (Red Arrow) needs to go back exactly as it came out. If you just toss these components aside, you can easily put them back all wrong. We mark them at our shop so it's a simple and quick process to get this right the 1st time.

Then there is the matter of alignment. I'm not saying that they did this part wrong. But if you dismount the rear tire wrong, you have to realign it. A tedious and possibly time consuming process. If you do the wheel removal right, the alignment does not change, saving a lot of time and grief. I can't tell from the pictures what they did wrong. But your wheel/tire assembly is cocked to the left. Quite badly. I don't think even a really bad alignment would give you this much angle. But then again. I've never tried.

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Looks like you identified the issue. Nothing in alignment would account to the large difference in spacing between the belt and tire.

It actually was about 2" taller. We had to jack the trike up that much more to get the new tire under the mudflap. I took pics, but will have to upload them from the phone.

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Quote Originally Posted by BajaRon View Post
You don't need to put the tire anywhere in relationship to the belt. I don't understand all the advise about a 215. The tire width is not the issue here. Even a 235 width tire should give you adequate clearance. Every Spyder ever made came stock with a 225 width tire. The tire you are using and the stock tire have the same width. Both will have 1/2" clearance at the belt.

Your wheel is mounted wrong. It's as simple as that. This is relatively easy to do on a Spyder. The 2 spacers (Red Circles) appear to be the same, but they are different widths. You want them to go back where they came from. And the rubber cushion set (Red Arrow) needs to go back exactly as it came out. If you just toss these components aside, you can easily put them back all wrong. We mark them at our shop so it's a simple and quick process to get this right the 1st time.

Then there is the matter of alignment. I'm not saying that they did this part wrong. But if you dismount the rear tire wrong, you have to realign it. A tedious and possibly time consuming process. If you do the wheel removal right, the alignment does not change, saving a lot of time and grief. I can't tell from the pictures what they did wrong. But your wheel/tire assembly is cocked to the left. Quite badly. I don't think even a really bad alignment would give you this much angle. But then again. I've never tried.

Click image for larger version.

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This sounds exactly like what happened. The guy swapping it out was puzzled why the alignment would ahve gotten off, and this would explain it. I'm guessing he swapped spacer sides, and I know he didn't track when rubber cushion went in which hole, and I'll bet there's no way to know now. I think I'm going to show this to the dealer and make them take it back apart to try to correct it. Sigh.

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Originally Posted by Allen42

This sounds exactly like what happened. The guy swapping it out was puzzled why the alignment would ahve gotten off, and this would explain it. I'm guessing he swapped spacer sides, and I know he didn't track when rubber cushion went in which hole, and I'll bet there's no way to know now. I think I'm going to show this to the dealer and make them take it back apart to try to correct it. Sigh.

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Your dealer might not want to play, cos it's not an OEM tire?! :dontknow: