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Excessive tire weights

RBS66

New member
I had my bike laser alignment and a Ron bar installed last Friday. You can definitely tell the difference with the Ron bar installed. But as far as the alignment the dealer I was at has only done six alignments and I don't feel the results are how others are saying there's are. My handlebars are slightly cocked to the left and now my left turn signal does not cancel on it's own. Even at highway speeds my bike still feels kind of Squirrley rear tire even seems a little Squirrley and lots of vibrations. I am taking it back in on Tuesday. I was just looking at my front tires. The left has 18 weights The right has eight weights. Does the 18 weights sound excessive? As far as a touring bike goes I would definitely not tour on this bike yet.
 
I can't vouch for your alignment but it sounds like they did not do something right. My RT/S has a lot of weights on the front tires as well (cheap Kenda tires) When they wear out i'll be going back with Kumho's. Funny.... I can't find not one weight on the back wheel? Beads inside maybe??
 
:shocked: Wow!! That sounds like a whole lot more, than just, "excessive"...
I've always heard that there are indicators on a tire, to show where the heavy spot is. Supposedly; you put that spot opposite the valve stem (Or something like that!)
Perhaps your tire just needs to be spun on the rim a little bit.
 
I had the same issue, excessive tire weights and still had a wobble in the front end. A local tire store checked out the tires and said they were both defective! I ended up replacing the tires with another set of OEM's. It fixed my problem!
 
Anytime you have to put more than just a small amount of weight on a tire the tech should try rotating the tire 90-180 on the rim. The reason you have so many weights on the rim is you have the heavy part of the rim matched up with the heavy part of the tire. Rotate the tire 180 on the rim will then work much better. Any good tech will do it this way. :pray:
 
I had this many on the back of my RT. I replaced the factory tire with a Falken 920 and was able to remove every gram of weight and it was perfect.


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This bike not handling right at all. Just trying to go threw a process of elimination. Already did the Ron bar and alignment. Highway speeds seem scary. At 80 miles an hour in fifth gear bike feels like it wants to be put back in 4 th gear lots of vibration
 
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THE PROCESS

This bike not handling right at all. Just trying to go threw a process of elimination. Already did the Ron bar and alignment. Highway speeds seem scary. At 80 miles an hour in fifth gear bike feels like it wants to be put back in 4 th gear lots of vibration

IMHO...the process of elimination should start at your DEALER....with what you are experiencing I don't think whoever is working on your Spyder is COMPETANT and this is a re-curring problem at a lot of dealers........They sell them but can't service them.........as far as your front tires go .....Any auto tire shop can high speed balance your front wheels ( spyders are very similar to Honda cars ) ......Yes this will be on your dime ...Buuuuuuuuuut they are NOT going to charge you $100 + an hour labor rate that the STEALER is.!!!!!!.............and you should also consider taking your Spyder to WINDBER for an $ 85 LAZAR ALIGNMENT.......because they do it PERFECT......good luck ..Mike :thumbup:
 
Good tire makers put a red dot on the tire indicating "valve stem location" and the yellow dot marks the "high spot" of the carcass. If you find any white dots on your rims match them up with the red dots for near neutral balance. Never seem but a few white dots on rims, mostly german made cars.
 
I got my wife's front tires done at a garage I park at during the day. They put on both tires and balanced them for $25 total. Each rim has about 4 or 5 weights on them and she has Kendas on.
 
Most tires and wheels have heavy and light sides/spots. If the tire is mounted properly on the wheel; the tech will try and get the heavy sides/spots on both.................opposite each other. This helps minimize the number of wheel weights necessary to balance the tire/wheel combination. Needless to say, some people/shops don't always do that. The shop that mounted and balanced your wheels likely is one of them; you got lucky with one tire and not so much with the other. Another possibility, as noted above, is a bad tire (belts coming loose inside the carcass, etc) can cause an incurable imbalance that if the shop ignores it, or doesn't catch it will result in excessive wheel weight placement too. Hope you get your issues squared away OK!
 
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Take it back to them, explain what you're feeling and seeing and hearing from other Spyder owners. If they hear you, they'll make it right. If not, might need to shop around. At this point I would give them the benefit of the doubt.

Since your dealer is doing the laser alignments I would say they're as concerned as the rest of us for getting it right.

This is assuming they're doing a ROLO 3 wheel laser alignment and haven't created their own way of doing it. My dealer tried coming up with a better, faster, more accurate alignment method... successfully but not anywhere near as good as a 3 wheel ROLO alignment.

If they're new at it, give them another shot. Remind them they can always call for advice from the alignment tool manufacturer.

Remount and rebalance all three tires and recheck/rezero the steering position/angle sensor and steering shaft torque sensor (really cool magnetic field reading sensor...).

Check tire pressure. The fronts should be even or you'll feel funny stuff on the road. Experiment with lower and higher pressures (only a little at a time, it can make a big difference.)

Have your tires inspected by a tire shop. They're pretty good at spotting flaws. Tell them upfront that you're not likely to be buying tires from them as the OEM's are only available through BRP, they're more likely to give you an honest answer if you start with an honest story. If they are bad, you might consider non-OEM tires or see if the dealer can get them replaced under warranty (if your mileage is low enough.)

Spyders are a complicated ride. It's not that they're not stable, they just give a lot of feedback to the rider so it makes people uncomfortable, nervous, or outright scared if they're off in any way. A perfectionist would see this as a good thing, but you have to really drive your dealer (and yourself... your spouse, your friends, random strangers) nuts to get things back to perfect.
 
Take it back to them, explain what you're feeling and seeing and hearing from other Spyder owners. If they hear you, they'll make it right. If not, might need to shop around. At this point I would give them the benefit of the doubt.

Since your dealer is doing the laser alignments I would say they're as concerned as the rest of us for getting it right.

This is assuming they're doing a ROLO 3 wheel laser alignment and haven't created their own way of doing it. My dealer tried coming up with a better, faster, more accurate alignment method... successfully but not anywhere near as good as a 3 wheel ROLO alignment.

If they're new at it, give them another shot. Remind them they can always call for advice from the alignment tool manufacturer.

Remount and rebalance all three tires and recheck/rezero the steering position/angle sensor and steering shaft torque sensor (really cool magnetic field reading sensor...).

Check tire pressure. The fronts should be even or you'll feel funny stuff on the road. Experiment with lower and higher pressures (only a little at a time, it can make a big difference.)

Have your tires inspected by a tire shop. They're pretty good at spotting flaws. Tell them upfront that you're not likely to be buying tires from them as the OEM's are only available through BRP, they're more likely to give you an honest answer if you start with an honest story. If they are bad, you might consider non-OEM tires or see if the dealer can get them replaced under warranty (if your mileage is low enough.)

Spyders are a complicated ride. It's not that they're not stable, they just give a lot of feedback to the rider so it makes people uncomfortable, nervous, or outright scared if they're off in any way. A perfectionist would see this as a good thing, but you have to really drive your dealer (and yourself... your spouse, your friends, random strangers) nuts to get things back to perfect.

Yes I'm driving my spouse crazy with this Bike it is brand-new 2013 RT purchased August 23 have 1200 miles on it. The dealer where I bought it does not have the rolo system so I went to Blackmans they have the rolo system and they did the alignment. The bike was having serious side to side sway issues. The mechanic noticed it was working on the bike when he took it for a test ride. I believe he was doing his best to try figure out my issues.
 
I don't have a smile on my face when I'm riding this expensive toy. More of a look of worry I believe. Not my first Bike had my motorcycle license since 1987. First three wheeler though
 
Yep, it's a love hate relationship :) But the love is stronger than the hate.

Of course you'll have to get used to 3 wheels... it's going to move you around more. You'll get past that eventually.

But it does sound like you have some issues that need to be addressed. Keep at it, it's worth it in the long run.
 
Having worked in the wheel/tire room at a GM facility we had a 2.5oz maximum weight adjustment per side (we did inside outside probably what BRP should be doing too it is much more accurate). Not sure if there is a maximum on bike tires but worth asking. If it exceeded it the tire was considered "defective".
 
Excessive Tire Weights

There is lots of great advice already given you. At this point check your tires and wheels for any "dots" location. Then ask the dealer who balanced your tires if he can recheck and rebalance your tires.

As for the Laser Alignment, Definitely go back and have them check it again. There is still an existing problem if your having wondering issues at speed. If they need to, they can call for assistance, it is free and available to them as a ROLO Laser Alignment representative.

All the GREAT reports you have read about here concerning Laser Alignments is accurate. I for one being a ROLO Guy am very interested in all the details I can get my eyes on. It is for the good of our customers and Spyder owners to make a decision to get this done.

Laser Alignments definitely help most Roadsters handle better. HOW much is the question based on how far your Roadster is out of alignment either toe in or in most cases toe out. If your Roadster was say 1/2" to 3/4" out you will not notice as much change in handling as if it were 2" or 3" out of alignment.
 
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THIS IS A CORRECTION

IMHO...the process of elimination should start at your DEALER....with what you are experiencing I don't think whoever is working on your Spyder is COMPETANT and this is a re-curring problem at a lot of dealers........They sell them but can't service them.........as far as your front tires go .....Any auto tire shop can high speed balance your front wheels ( spyders are very similar to Honda cars ) ......Yes this will be on your dime ...Buuuuuuuuuut they are NOT going to charge you $100 + an hour labor rate that the STEALER is.!!!!!!.............and you should also consider taking your Spyder to WINDBER for an $ 85 LAZAR ALIGNMENT.......because they do it PERFECT......good luck ..Mike :thumbup:

I apologize for the remark above about the dealer and the alignment .......MOST BRP dealers do not have the the ROLO lazer system........But if you have 18 weights on one wheel I think that would add up to 4.5 ozs and that is a HUGH amount of weight to add to make a correction.........The people who do high speed balancing at TIRE SHOPS do tens of thousands of balance jobs I would trust their judgement VS. a dealer who MAY do 20 per year and probably does not have a high speed SPIN balancer..............PS I don't think you have an alignment issue ,unless they really don't know how to operate the ROLO system.
 
I apologize for the remark above about the dealer and the alignment .......MOST BRP dealers do not have the the ROLO lazer system........But if you have 18 weights on one wheel I think that would add up to 4.5 ozs and that is a HUGH amount of weight to add to make a correction.........The people who do high speed balancing at TIRE SHOPS do tens of thousands of balance jobs I would trust their judgement VS. a dealer who MAY do 20 per year and probably does not have a high speed SPIN balancer..............PS I don't think you have an alignment issue ,unless they really don't know how to operate the ROLO system.

This dealer has the rolo system. But they have only done around six at that point. The dealer where I bought it does not. So I went to this dealer and had the Ron bar and alignment done. The Ron bar makes a huge difference.
 
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