Where besides dealers do you get tires mounted and balanced?

[DickB]

Why do you say 'Needlessly'?

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[Mikey]

Why do you say 'Needlessly'? That is a Kenda tire. You're lucky it didn't need more weight to balance. And if the out of balance is due to being out of round, it will never be a smooth riding tire. You can't make a tire round by putting weights on the wheel.

I've been thinking about getting a tire shaver/truer. I could fix some customers Kenda's with one of those. But they want an outrageous amount of money for them. I'd never break even.

Would you have any tire left by the time it was balanced? :roflblack:

 

[BajaRon]

There's no denying that they are better than they used to be, but it's only a little better!! :banghead:

I've already seen a few on fairly recent brand new Spyders that've been instant throw-aways... And it seems that it pretty much takes a Supreme Court Action to get any warranty action from dealers on them, even when it's clear to blind freddy that they're really not great, if not outright unsafe!! :gaah:

Maybe it's different in Australia. Or maybe my dealer is just easy. When I purchased my 2019 Ryker, the right front tire was so out of round that Daniel, riding behind me, could see the right wheel hopping. I went right back to the dealer and they said they would get it re-balanced. Well, I could have done that at the shop but I knew it was out of round and you can't balance that out.

They called me later that day and I rode it a mile before turning around. They had another Ryker still in the crate and they said they'd swap out the right front tire with one from the other bike. It was quite a bit better, but only because the 1st one was so bad. I decided to live with it and so my right front is still shaking some. It's hard to promote a tire that seems to be a Russian Roulette proposition.

 

[Peter Aawen]

Maybe it's different in Australia. Or maybe my dealer is just easy. When I purchased my 2019 Ryker, the right front tire was so out of round that Daniel, riding behind me, could see the right wheel hopping. I went right back to the dealer and they said they would get it re-balanced. Well, I could have done that at the shop but I knew it was out of round and you can't balance that out.

They called me later that day and I rode it a mile before turning around. They had another Ryker still in the crate and they said they'd swap out the right front tire with one from the other bike. It was quite a bit better, but only because the 1st one was so bad. I decided to live with it and so my right front is still shaking some. It's hard to promote a tire that seems to be a Russian Roulette proposition.

Yeah, I do believe that there's a lot of the 'dealer cop-out' stuff going on in Australia atm - the same dealer network holds too much sway over BRP Sales & servicing and they're arguably abusing that position... and funnily enough, there's currently an inquiry at Federal level & numerous State level reviews/inquiries looking into just this sort of behaviour here with the aim of stamping it out - altho it is already technically illegal!

But you're right with this bit ^ - while the quality of the OEM Kenda tires across the board is generally a whole lot better than was just a few years back, it still really is a Russian Roulette proposition - only I don't think it's just ONE live round/dodgy tire out of every Six, I reckon it's AT LEAST TWO, maybe even more, even if some owners/riders might never realise &/or ride hard enough to recognise how bad their OEM tires are! Mind you, I will freely admit that I probably get to see/hear about more of the dodgy tires &/or have them drawn to my attention than most because of my recognised interest in them; but given the number of Spyders I do see/owners I interact with who are concerned about their dodgy Kendas, it seems to me like it's an even higher percentage!! nojoke

Just look at the ongoing results of your two recent polls - atm, about 40% of owners are reporting issues with their OEM tires, but only about 2% are reporting any issues/concerns with their aftermarket replacements... :shocked: Can you imagine the furor if any non-Kenda/mainstream tire manufacturer got that sort of dissatisfaction rate reported on their tires?! :banghead: IIRC, the eventual 'Firestone admitted' defect rate of the Firestone tires involved in the Firestone/Ford debacle was a single figure percentage (some 25,000 tires out of 400,000, or just a bit over 6%??) while the 'reported by owner' percentage of those tires with issues was somewhat lower again; and yet here we are, looking at about 40% of the Kenda's fitted to our Spyders being reported by owners as not being up to par.... so given that the example above may be the general situation, where many owners just don't even recognise that they have potentially problematic tires, possibly the real % of dodgy Kendas is something higher than that 'reported by owners' 40% your poll suggests?! :yikes:


Those stats suggest it's still likely more than one dodgy Kenda tire out of every three; and likely getting very close to if not actually passing TWO dodgy tires out of every three.... :shocked:

So it seems some Spyder/Ryker ryders/owners have been extremely lucky - others, and quite a few others at that, not so much! :banghead: :gaah:


Just Sayin'

 

[Leaping1]

My riding buddy just got 2 new Kenda Kanines for the front of his 2020 RT and one was really bad out of round. He does his own mounting and balancing. The tire dealer told him they would not refund on a used tire. He explained that it had not been on the ground that he had just mounted the tire and realized it to be out of round. They still would not do anything. He even called Kendra who referred him back to the dealer.

 

[EdMat]

My riding buddy just got 2 new Kenda Kanines for the front of his 2020 RT and one was really bad out of round. He does his own mounting and balancing. The tire dealer told him they would not refund on a used tire. He explained that it had not been on the ground that he had just mounted the tire and realized it to be out of round. They still would not do anything. He even called Kendra who referred him back to the dealer.

And some folks just can't understand why some of us don't like the tires that Kenda made for the Spyder. :banghead:

 

[BLUEKNIGHT911]

My riding buddy just got 2 new Kenda Kanines for the front of his 2020 RT and one was really bad out of round. He does his own mounting and balancing. The tire dealer told him they would not refund on a used tire. He explained that it had not been on the ground that he had just mounted the tire and realized it to be out of round. They still would not do anything. He even called Kendra who referred him back to the dealer.

I would contact you State Attorney General's office (probably Consumer Affairs Division) and see what they'll do for you. There is no one on the planet that can just look at a tire and determine if it's defective or not. .... Mike