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Gooday All,

Have been tripping around the last few months...some 30,000 klm.

Put new tyres (PR3's) on at Port Hedland Western Australia which replaced my pr2's.

I have just arrived back in Sydney staying at my kids house and have chalked up just about 10,200 klm on the new tyres.

I now have 48,000 klm on my bike and decided to take a ride over to see my mechanic M.A.S Motorcycles in Moorebank. Mark the mechanic booked me in to do the shims, throttle sinc etc. While I was there I was discussing parts of my trip and made a comment how quickly the new PR3 tyres squared off during my ride. By-the-way my average mileage was between 1,000-1,500 klm per day with 1-2 weeks layup between those distances.

Mark from M.A.S said he deals in Michelin and swears by the PR2's and rejected the reps sale pitch for him to sell the PR3's as he thought the new tread pattern was too busy with the extra sipes (cuts) put on the tyres. Anyway...Mark wandered over to my bike and looked at how much the tyres had squared off since I have only put on 10k + worth of kilometres on them.

He immediately said to me when looking at my back tyre in good sunlight that the tyre has failed and there were severe cracks in the main tread grooves of the tyre all the way around!

He then went to the front tyre and said that there were cracks in the tyre tread pattern too..and he told me not to ride on the tyres and to replace a.s.a.p.

Well blow me down..go figure..his trained eye picked up the cracks but I couldnt...due to poor eyesight and old age I suppose.

So I have booked the bike in for service and tyre replacement.


The PR3's tyres fitted to my bike in Port Hedland were supplied by Wayne Gardner Enterprises who are the main distributors for these tyres in Australia. I called them and they are sending a rep out to inspect the bike tyres and to make a decision if it is warranty..which Mark (my mechanic feels it is) in which case they can auth. a new set of tyres on the spot apparently.

I will NOT be putting PR3'S on that is for sure and instead will go back to PR2's as before 20k+.

Also, just a note about road noise from the PR3 front tyre...IT IS VERY NOISY...eminates as a drone/whirring noise which echoes up under the fairings. I took my helmet off to see just how noisy it was when on a long str8t road in W.A outback and man it was noisy. The PR2's I had on before were whisper quiet.

I will definitely try and get some of my own pictures cuz I am staying around all day during the Michelin reps visit in a couple of weeks to watch them take the tyres off and inspect as the rep and Mark will be taking some pictures too.

I will post them up on here for everyone to inspect.

Oh...btw..the tyre pressure was fastidiously maitained at 38 psi as I was carrying ventura rack luggage only (65 lb).

Yo!

I just put on a PR3 at the rear, I'll be monitoring it very carefully

How have either of you found them in the wet? A mate's just put one on his SV1000s is all, on the back, and was explaining the theory behind the little dimples and how they're meant to collect water and flick it off the tyre... I was skeptical, but am happy to be proven wrong. And are they as hard to get over as the PR2's? I've managed to scrub the Michelin man's head off on my tyres, but you have to push it alot harder to get the bike over I've found... Just curious is all, as if i keep doing burnouts at every conceivable oppurtunity, I'll be looking at a new rear tyre just after phillip island...

I don't push my bike to the limit.
We've had some wet days overhere, but I can't tell if the PR3 is better than the PR2.
Michelin is better than the stock tires, that's for sure !

Lol. The old Battle axes or whatever they were called. Those things were just... Awful! Slippery in the dry, slippery in the wet, about all they were good for was a smoke show lol. Mind you, i got about 10,000 k's out of them, and they were easy to laye over quickly. So i spose they were good to break the bike in on. Just, slippery. I'm thinking of going the power pure's or whatever the other Michelin tyre is for my next change. A mates got a pair on his Hyosung and he swears by them.

LOL dashy....I'm a bit old to worry about burn outs..but as for handling in the wet I found the tyres as good as the PR2's and tip in on corners (tight and with vanishing point) very good, also, the grip in corners is excellent!

Yo!

You're NEVER too old for burnouts! MY car hold is full of little black lines which i've been told "Michael, you're cleaning that up if we have a renting inspection". Pfft. I'll just park a car over it.

I was just interested to hear how they went when it comes to getting them over. Like i said, I've scrubbed the smufg look off the little Michelin man's face on my 2's, you just have to try harder. I'll probably just get a set of 3's anyway. I've never had any troubles with the Road 2's, so one can only assume the Road 3's will be just as good if not better. Seeing as my bike is the FU, if you guys on the full blown F's aren't having any troubles, then i'm sure i'll be fine with a set.

I found my PR3's to better in the wet than the stock Bridgestones. Little concern over this thread though. There is another one on the net showing a rear PR3 chunking http://www.fz6-forum.com/forum/fz6-gene ... ere-8.html
The problem with the post is that it says the tire had 10,000 miles on it...look at the tread, just doesn't look like 10K miles on the wear. It does say he was riding in 100 deg F weather (38 C), but doesn't say if he ran over anything.
So, keep watching this I suppose. Waiting to see what Michelin tells Yo!

i will stick with Metzler Z6 interact front rear after 4k of miles on them still nice and round no square.
and that is been in 90 to 100 deg f riding weather

Dash: any further than micky's head, and you scrape pegs, so you're on the money for it. Ask me how I know! heh..

OK. Here is the outcome of my tyre inspection by Wayne Gardner Enterprise's Rep Stewart yesterday. The inspection was held at my mechanics business address in Moorebank (M.A.S Motorcycles).

I received two photos from the rep Stewart via sms..but I could only load the rear tyre pic until I can figure out why the front tyre pic wont load.

Anyway you can see at the top of the pic and in the tread groove a prominant crack in the carcus. This type of crack appears right around the tyre in most of the tread grooves, although some more prominant than others.

Stewart sent the pics to Logistics / Warranty manager for WG Enterprises (Ryan) who O.K's the tyres on a goodwill warranty exchange then and there and fitted two new PR3 tyres for me (although I had to pay for the fitment).

At least the tyres will now go under the microscope to determine what caused the deterioration of the tread in the main grooves of the tyre. The front tyre displayed different characteristics of degradation. Very fine cracks appeared on top of the carcus and from what the rep and my mechanic could determine did not affect the tread grooves, although again, when Michelin put the tyre under a microscope they will probably find how extensive the degradation is and the possible causes.

I requested from Stewart a possible update from the findings from Michelin as I pointed out that there is quite some interest in this new tyre. Stewart said that the best person for me to keep in contact with as to the progress of the findings was Ryan the Logistics/Warranty manager for WG Enterprises.

So I will communicate with Ryan after a couple of months to see if there was an outcome as to the cause of this type of tyre degradation.

Yo!

Hey thanks for the good info Yo...
How religiously did you monitor pressure, and what did you run?

Mine's at SCM right now getting a PR2 on the rear so hopefully I'll avoid these troubles...