Check Your Tyres....

A mate of mine at work today asked me to look at the tyres on his 17 plate Tiger. He told me that he had experienced the bike 'jumping' on a flat road on the way in this morning. When I looked I was horrified to find at least 3, yes 3, bulges in the central tread area. Quite rightly he wasn't about to ride it anywhere and has ordered a new tyre. Now interestingly although the bike was new last year when I checked the date of manufacture of the tyre it was January 2016, at least 14 months before the bike was registered and, as far as he knew, it was not an 'old stock' bike. The tyres are Metzeler, have done about 6-7k and I have no doubt that the butyl liner has failed allowed pressurised air to get between it and the carcass producing the bulges - I advised him that Metzeler may well be interested in examining them to see what has happened as I know Michelin do this. Triumph via the dealer may well be interested too. I know he looks after his bike and does not abuse it or even, god forbid, take his adventure bike off road!
What I am trying to say is... if you have Metzelers on your Tiger and the little 4 numbers in an oval on the sidewall have 16 at the end then get them checked in case there is a faulty batch out there.

 

He did 2 miles on it like that only because he did't know why the bike was jumping as he was on a dual carriageway. It was only when he got to work he found the bulges and the consequences do not bear thinking about. He has done about 7k and checks them regularly. It is an internal fault but I just wanted to highlight a potential issue.