Ride on in tires after 1 year

[Capt John]

I put ride on in my tires last year before Gatlinburg. I did not remove the wheel weights. I've never had the smoothest of rides and I was wondering...if I remove the wheel weights now? How do you think it would work out? Any advice and opinions appreciated.

 

[bjt]

Someone else posted a few days back about marking where your weights are on the wheel now and then removing them. That way, if it isn't an improvement, it's easy to get back to where you were.

 

[bone crusher]

I put ride on in my tires last year before Gatlinburg. I did not remove the wheel weights. I've never had the smoothest of rides and I was wondering...if I remove the wheel weights now? How do you think it would work out? Any advice and opinions appreciated.

I spoke with Mr. Burns about this the other day...he recommended leaving the weights on (which you did), but if the ride isn't smooth, to remove them as the Ride-On should help to balance things out...

 

[Rando]

I had a lot of trouble with my stock rims and what I thought was the Ride-On. It was recommended to take the weights off.

The problem ended up being that both of my stock rims were bent/out of round! The tire shop that discovered the problem said it common with small rims especially rims made in China! It was probably that way since I purchased the Spyder. Since most of my ryding was on side roads, I never noticed a problem until the Chicago trip.

My wife has stock rims, Ride-On, no weights and it's smooth as glass.

I now have the custom rims, Ride-On, no weights and it is also smooth as glass!

 

[pierrelogic]

I burned the right inside tire and bought two new OEM's. Had very bad vibration on right tire with 5 weights on it. Dealer suggested taking off the weights gradually, as each outside weight was taken off vibration went away. Took all weights off and it's pretty smooth sailing.

I'm putting Ride-on in tomorrow and have plans for a nice long 500 mile trip Saturday with some other Spyder ryders. I'll have a good idea if the Ride-on made any difference by then. :thumbup:

Since the vibration is gone, I don't expect to feel much difference with the Ride on. But when I asked about why the balancer didn't get rocked when putting the new tires on I was told the balancer only ramps up to city speed and my vibration was only felt between 60-65 mph. Makes sense to me and taking the weights off like they said seemed to fix the problem. :dontknow:

 

[SpyderWolf]

I burned the right inside tire and bought two new OEM's. Had very bad vibration on right tire with 5 weights on it. Dealer suggested taking off the weights gradually, as each outside weight was taken off vibration went away. Took all weights off and it's pretty smooth sailing.

I'm putting Ride-on in tomorrow and have plans for a nice long 500 mile trip Saturday with some other Spyder ryders. I'll have a good idea if the Ride-on made any difference by then. :thumbup:

Since the vibration is gone, I don't expect to feel much difference with the Ride on. But when I asked about why the balancer didn't get rocked when putting the new tires on I was told the balancer only ramps up to city speed and my vibration was only felt between 60-65 mph. Makes sense to me and taking the weights off like they said seemed to fix the problem. :dontknow:

Sounds good. Please let us know how it does after your 500 mile ryde. I just recently put Ride-On in the front tires on my wife's Spyder, and am thinking the weights may need to come off now as well.

 

[Capt John]

Someone else posted a few days back about marking where your weights are on the wheel now and then removing them. That way, if it isn't an improvement, it's easy to get back to where you were.

I remember reading that post. I think I'll follow their advice. Thanks everyone for your input.

 

[BajaRon]

It is possible that if you were running with a bad balance before adding Ride-On you could have gotten uneven wear on that tire. If that is the case, no amount of balancing (weights or Ride-On) will cure it.

The other possibility of bad rim or rims may also be the problem. You can check this at home.

Jack the front up to where the wheels spin free.
Set up some kind of stable, stationary pointer that can be adjusted close to the rim near the outer edge. Most people have enough junk laying around the garage to put something together.
Spin the wheel and see if there is any wobble or out of round with the pointer as reference.

A tiny bit of variation is probably ok. If it's bad it will be noticable.

I don't see where taking the weights off will hurt any. If it's worse, just put them back on.

 

[Capt John]

It is possible that if you were running with a bad balance before adding Ride-On you could have gotten uneven wear on that tire. If that is the case, no amount of balancing (weights or Ride-On) will cure it.

The other possibility of bad rim or rims may also be the problem. You can check this at home.

Jack the front up to where the wheels spin free.
Set up some kind of stable, stationary pointer that can be adjusted close to the rim near the outer edge. Most people have enough junk laying around the garage to put something together.
Spin the wheel and see if there is any wobble or out of round with the pointer as reference.

A tiny bit of variation is probably ok. If it's bad it will be noticable.

I don't see where taking the weights off will hurt any. If it's worse, just put them back on.

Checked the wear on the tires and they look fine. Thanks for the idea on checking the rims. I'll get to it in the morning, when I get off work.

 

[Capt John]

I took BajaRon's advice and checked to see if I had a bad rim. Found one or my daughters musical stands from old high school band days. I didn't have to look very far. It was sitting right against the wall next to where I park the spyder. Jacked up the spyder. Set up the stand and gave the wheels a spin. Every thing looked great. No wobble. No excessive wear on the tires. I did noticed that my left tire has no wheel weights at all. The right side has the weights. One thing I did hear when I spun the right wheel. I could hear the brake pad rubbing, but only when the wheel weights came around inline with the caliper (if this makes sense) You could only hear the rubbing of the pads when the weights made the revolutions inline with caliper and stopped rubbing once the weights had passed by the caliper and pads. I'm going to remove the weights on the ride tire as soon as the rains stops and I can get a ryde in to check things out.

 

[rineer4635]

I took BajaRon's advice and checked to see if I had a bad rim. Found one or my daughters musical stands from old high school band days. I didn't have to look very far. It was sitting right against the wall next to where I park the spyder. Jacked up the spyder. Set up the stand and gave the wheels a spin. Every thing looked great. No wobble. No excessive wear on the tires. I did noticed that my left tire has no wheel weights at all. The right side has the weights. One thing I did hear when I spun the right wheel. I could hear the brake pad rubbing, but only when the wheel weights came around inline with the caliper (if this makes sense) You could only hear the rubbing of the pads when the weights made the revolutions inline with caliper and stopped rubbing once the weights had passed by the caliper and pads. I'm going to remove the weights on the ride tire as soon as the rains stops and I can get a ryde in to check things out.

I have the same issue, took weights off of the front and I have a wobble at 46-50 mph, took weights off of back wheel today and it is better but still a slight but noticeable wobble at 46-50 mph. Not sure what to do now. I am sure that I am more aware of anything now, but with Ride-On it is NOT totally smooth as I was led to believe would be the case.