....And let's see what kinda mileage I get out of em too.... If the tire mileage gets better, the Metzlers stay. If worse, the Dunlops go back on....
Hey, Hoist!
ME880's are a softer compound than the Dunlops. This makes them stickier in the corners and when braking, but they tend to wear out a bit faster.
Also, did you put Metzeler radials on the bike? There is a lot of discussion in the motorcycling world about bias-ply vs. radials. From what I understand, it boils down to a design issue. If the bike was designed for a bias-ply tire, don't put radials on it. Has to do with how the bike is designed to handle and radical differences in the handling characteristics between radials and bias-ply tires.
I had an experience with the SERG that reinforced this for me.
The original front D407 on my SERG was so badly cupped after 5000 miles that I didn't feel safe any more. The dealer didn't have another D407 and the D408 was back-ordered. "Besides," they said, "Harley is not w-tying that tire anyway."
So, I ordered a set of Avon Cobras in the appropriate size. The Cobras are a steel-belted radial. The rear was a 180/55-18 79V and the front was a 130/70-18 63H. So, the load rating (963 lbs rear; 600 lbs front) should have been up to two-up touring and the speed rating (V=149 mph rear; H=130 mph front) should have been just fine.
When the tires arrived, I had them mounted and off I went. WOW!
MUCH quieter than the D407. Nice, soft ride, too! I put about 1600 miles on the tires before we left for Sturgis and was very, very happy up to the point.
The first day of our Sturgis trip, we traveled 680 miles from Middle Tennessee to St. Joseph, MO. Between the Traxxion Dynamics AK-20's, the Bitubo shocks and the new tires, my girlfriend was loving the nice, smooth, easy ride. No more bone-jarring bumps. However, as the day wore on, I noticed that the bike seemed to become less stable in corners on the highway. When we stopped for the night and I pulled the bike into the parking space -- still loaded down with luggage, bug sans the girl -- I noticed that the back of the bike wiggled a little as I brought it to a stop and got off.
Being that I was exhausted from 12+ hours of riding that day, I chalked it up to exhaustion-heightened senses and thought no more about it... until the next morning.
As I backed the SERG out of the parking space to leave for breakfast, another rider called from across the parking lot and pointed out that my rear tire was almost flat!
I eased the bike across the street (without the girl) and aired up the tire to 42 lbs, the max pressure for the Cobra. In 15 minutes, it had lost 1-2 lbs of pressure -- a slow leak. We decided to go straight to St. Joe H-D and get a mechanics opinion on what to do.
To make a short story long, the rear tire was beginning to disintegrate at the edges of the tread. Three were cracks 1.5" - 2" long running across the bead of the tire on the edge of the tread on both sides. These cracks were present around the entire perimeter of the tire tread. The air leakage was through these small cracks. The mechanic said we might make another 10 miles and we might make another 100 miles, but we weren't going to make the rest of our trip to Sturgis and back (2500 more miles).
I had the dealer mount a brand new D407 200/50-18 rear and 130/70-18 front and ship the Cobras back to my house.
We were in the right place at the right time. St. Joe Harley put us up front in the service line because we were traveling. The new 200-series D407 was delivered by UPS that morning. In fact, the UPS truck was backed up to the dealership when we arrived a few minutes before they opened.
I have spoken with Avon. They have asked me to have a professional mechanic examine the tire and call them with his findings. They have stated that they will most likely warranty the tire.
Since I have a brand new 130/70-18 front Cobra sitting in the garage, I guess I'll have a brand new set of Avon Cobra's for sale once I get this taken care of.
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Topic: Dunlop 408 Tires (Read 6212 times)