Air pressure VS. Tire wear

[Thomas L]

I notice, many folks suggest, and are - running 22lbs (or so) of air pressure in the rear wheel - to make it a "better" ride. I'm sue it would soften out the bumps, but what about the tire wear on the rear. I am certain, if the correct pressure is not maintained - cupping, side, or middle tire wear comes as a result. Thoughts?

 

[MDO]

My thoughts are how about updating the thread you started about the car with the 6 bad coils!:gah:

 

[rhino 2]

I notice, many folks suggest, and are - running 22lbs (or so) of air pessure in the rear wheel - to make it a "better" ride. I'm sue it would soften out the bumps, but what about the tire wear on the rear. I am certain, if the correct pressue is not maintained - cupping, side, or middle tire wear comes as a result. Thoughts?

With my 2011 Tri-Glide stock tires [rear] i had them at 22/23 PSI And when i traded it in at 45 thousand miles they still had plenty of thread left....And the thread ware was even across the whole tire..The stock tires are Mud and snow rated and basically car tires..Over kill for a 13 hundred+- pound trike...

 

[paws]

Dunno Thomas... I run 24# in the rear on my GL1800 MotorTrike IRS. That is the recommended cold-start pressure for this trike. Ride is fine and tires are fine. Maybe its the difference in the Harley solid axle that people are dealing with or maybe other solid axle kits. The GL 1800 Lehman Monarch II we had was a solid axle trike and we ran 24# in the rears on it too - no problem with ride or tire wear.

 

[Jack Klarich]

With a solid rear axle both tires travel in the same plane

If your shocks are good you should not see cupping

Nor center tread wear, that is common with Over Inflation

Heat is a bigger factor along with rolling resistance

The tires may heat up being lower PSI, along with more rolling resistance

Your Ride, you decide JMO

 

[Capt.Bob]

Lest we forget, the recommended tire inflation of 26 pounds was an arbitrary decision by some tire safety council when they amended their charts. Previous to that, I think the recommended max tire pressure was something like 22 pounds. Just the changing of a chart caused manufacturers to have to follow guidelines that made no sense for trikes or our particular application. I run 21 most of the time with no passenger and the ride is vastly improved in concert with my DK Custom Custom Lift Kit on my 2017 TGU.

If you want to know the sordid history of the tire pressure debacle, go to Lehman's PDF:

http://www.lehmantrikes.com/assets/docs/uploads/Manuals/techbook-master.pdf

 

[rchays57]

The rear tires are basically car tires expecting a weight of 1500 to 2000 pounds. At that weight yes you would get the tire wear you would expect, low press outside edge wear high press center wear. The trike has 500-750 on the rears? There is really no weight on the tires compared to a car so all the expectations go out the window because there is no stress on the tires. Maybe high pressure would wear out the center but the rest doesn't happen. At least that's the way I see it.

 

[Thomas L]

Re - Pressure and Daughters car.

Good answeres. I'm going with the 24/24 lbs. pressure. Daughters car. Seems when the main ECM/PCM goes out - it can often "fry" all six coils, at once. Going to pull the ECM, and have it "re-ferbished". ($375 VS $900 ) Plus 6 coils -- Oh Well.

All of that makes "Tire Pressure" seem so easy.

 

[Sunman]

I run 21 psi in my Freewheeler rear tires when riding solo and 23 psi when riding 2 up. At 24,000 miles I still have a lot of tread left and there is no uneven wear, cupping etc.

Sunman

 

[MDO]

I dropped to 24 psi on the rear tires & 15 psi in the air shocks.

I set the front at 34 psi because after almost 4,500 miles with 36 psi in it, it just seemed to me to be over inflated and getting excessive wear in the middle. After 500 miles at the new pressure, I am much happier.

 

[vito]

I notice, many folks suggest, and are - running 22lbs (or so) of air pressure in the rear wheel - to make it a "better" ride. I'm sue it would soften out the bumps, but what about the tire wear on the rear. I am certain, if the correct pressure is not maintained - cupping, side, or middle tire wear comes as a result. Thoughts?

As others have said, the back tires are so under-loaded that I doubt you can wear them out from lower pressure short of running them flat. Has anybody here ever wore out a back tire on a Tri-glide???

 

[ISP-FL]

I don't mind running the rear tires on my TG under recommended pressures. The only issue could probably be overheating and due to the light load that isn't going to happen. I still playing around with my new front tire because it was completely worn out before 15,000 miles.

 

[1dn5up]

Tire ware in the rear is not the concern , it’s DryRot you will be concerned of.

 

[Jack Klarich]

Good answeres. I'm going with the 24/24 lbs. pressure. Daughters car. Seems when the main ECM/PCM goes out - it can often "fry" all six coils, at once. Going to pull the ECM, and have it "re-ferbished". ($375 VS $900 ) Plus 6 coils -- Oh Well.

All of that makes "Tire Pressure" seem so easy.

Very strange a ECM could fry all the coils, HMMMM

Guess it could happen, have the coils been tested?

Possible a bad ECM cannot signal the coils could save some bucks

 

[DK Custom Products]

I run 21-22 psi in my rear tires. At this psi I get the best ride quality out of the stock tires, and it gives them about a 60K-65K mile life.

I have noticed two counter-intuitive things-

1. I have let my psi get low a couple of times (16-17 psi) and the ride quality was WORSE. My guess is that the sidewalls had so much flex that it made it "bouncier" than with the 21-22 psi

2. My rear tires wear a bit more in the center than the outside edges...something I would expect to see from over-inflated tires. Only thing I can think of is that when I spin the rear tires (which I do a lot of...cause it's fun) they "grow" and that is the reason for the extra center wear.

Kevin

 

[Jack Klarich]

I run 21-22 psi in my rear tires. At this psi I get the best ride quality out of the stock tires, and it gives them about a 60K-65K mile life.

I have noticed two counter-intuitive things-

1. I have let my psi get low a couple of times (16-17 psi) and the ride quality was WORSE. My guess is that the sidewalls had so much flex that it made it "bouncier" than with the 21-22 psi

2. My rear tires wear a bit more in the center than the outside edges...something I would expect to see from over-inflated tires. Only thing I can think of is that when I spin the rear tires (which I do a lot of...cause it's fun) they "grow" and that is the reason for the extra center wear.

Kevin

#2 makes sense to me

 

[rhino 2]

I run 21-22 psi in my rear tires. At this psi I get the best ride quality out of the stock tires, and it gives them about a 60K-65K mile life.

1. I have let my psi get low a couple of times (16-17 psi) and the ride quality was WORSE. My guess is that the sidewalls had so much flex that it made it "bouncier" than with the 21-22 psi



Kevin

I tried around 15 psi on my 2011 T/G Once and only once, Like you said sidewall flex,

I came around a sharp curve at a good clip and it felt like the tire was going to come off the rim [Bead] :cxtv:

 

[Peter A.]

Tires

As others have said, the back tires are so under-loaded that I doubt you can wear them out from lower pressure short of running them flat. Has anybody here ever wore out a back tire on a Tri-glide???

I just recently swapped out mt stock rear tires witn 80 thou. miles on them / still had

some tread left but being born in 2010 I figured it was time for a a NEW SET. Happy

with stock Dunlops

 

[jjvw]

I'm running 14 in the LR and 16 in the RR because of our crown of the road. They have 30 K on them and still look good, very even and lots of miles left. I worried about flex and tires rolling off and asked several folks to watch for it in the twisties but they couldn't keep up enough to look. I use the rear brakes in tight corners and notice some minor sliding but no rolling.

 

[njtrike]

I ran the recommended tire pressure on a 2010 triglide. Around the 20K mark I noticed the center of the tires were wearing faster then the rest of the tire so I dropped the pressure to 24. I replaced the tires at 40K because the centers had less than 2/32 tread left and were starting to slip on sandy/wet road surfaces. When I traded this trike in on a 2018 triglide it had 82K and the tires still had plenty of tread. Lesson learned. epsi:

 

[hogcowboy]

I'm still on a bike so have no idea if this would help on the car tires of a trike, but since I started using Ride-On tire sealant and balancer, my tire wear is better. I don't add air nearly as often and when I do it's because I checked so many times I let enough out to need air again. I got to where I'd only check every other month unless something didn't feel right. Since I got a Indian I now have TPMS so can watch that way. Still I only add air just a couple times a year. Like right now I might add and because we are going into the warmer weather, I probably wont add any more until the weather begins to cool off in the fall. Point is, keeping good air pressure has got to help you with tire wear. Yes the stuff is a little expensive but that expense comes with a lot of benefit. Something to consider. We do use the stuff in my wife's Spyder and see similar benefits although not nearly as much as I see on my bike. Those car tires just have a lot more surface to leak air from. If they made a spray can of the stuff that you could coat the entire sidewall area inside first and it not migrate to the outer surface with centrifugal force, I'm certain we all could go until we need new tires and never check air pressure again. I really like the stuff that much. Pain in the butt to get inside the tire but boy is it worth the effort. I have noticed certain tires will leak air more than others. The tire compound must play into this I'm guessing.

 

[DakotaTG]

I had 34K on my rear tires when I replaced them on my 2011 TG. I run them at 24 psi all the time. One thing I noticed was that the right rear tire was actually wearing more than the left rear. The right rear was almost to the wear bar but I was going on a long trip so decided to change them. Two other trike owners with about the same amount of miles on their trikes also changed theirs as well and had the same problem with the right worn more than the left. The wear was in the center on all of them. As for the front tire I got 24K on them before changing and maybe could have gotten a couple more thousand miles on them but again was taking a trip and didn't want a problem out in the middle of western North Dakota, Montana and Idaho. I didn't put the HD tires on but rather went to Quick Lane and purchased the Dunlop Signature Sport II tire that is almost exactly the same as the HD tire except a slightly different tread pattern (supposed to be better on wet roads) and doesn't have HD on the sidewall. They were about half the price of the HD tires including labor. Dealer was $162. a tire (with 10% discount due to being a HOG member) and labor was $170. (two hours labor at $85. per hour) for a total of $494. Quick Lane was $125. a tire mounted and balanced. The only thing was I had to take the tires and rim into them as they would not remove them from the trike. Now I have a 2016 TG with 16K on it and so far the both the front and rear tires look good. Be interesting to see how long these last as now living in ID and have a lot more twisties here so may have a lot more wear on the front tire.

2016 Deep Jade Green and Black TG

 

[Rooster57]

reply to Hogcowboy

Hey Hogcowboy!

....I have a 2016 HD TriGlide......a couple of weeks ago I put this Ride on Tire sealer/balancer juice in all 3 wheels.......At first, trike road ruff for 5-6 miles or so.....then it mellowed out sweetly! ......Tires were already balanced before I juiced'em.............now I've ridden another 300 miles or so and I wouldnt know the stuff is even in the tires.....Just a nice smooth balanced tire ride...............I would definately use this Ride On stuff again!

.......just hope I never to actually find out how well it works with a potential flat tire.

Cheers!

 

[hogcowboy]

Hey Hogcowboy!

....I have a 2016 HD TriGlide......a couple of weeks ago I put this Ride on Tire sealer/balancer juice in all 3 wheels.......At first, trike road ruff for 5-6 miles or so.....then it mellowed out sweetly! ......Tires were already balanced before I juiced'em.............now I've ridden another 300 miles or so and I wouldnt know the stuff is even in the tires.....Just a nice smooth balanced tire ride...............I would definately use this Ride On stuff again!

.......just hope I never to actually find out how well it works with a potential flat tire.

Cheers!

Well it does have it's limits. I got a half in bolt in the rear tire of the bike and it naturally didn't seal. They say quarter inch is the limit. It did slow the escaping air down so I didn't have an immediate total loss of air. So It did save me from getting a tank slapper. Got it to a shop for replacement of tire and Ride-On and was on my way again. Just a lot lighter in the wallet. Just general little punctures you may never even know you have them. It seals quickly with very little loss of air. But I do wish there was a way to coat the entire inner surface. It's just that narrow outer band on a bike tire. A car tire gets a little more coverage but you do have to use more of course. I will aways have it in my tires.