R1200RT, Tires

[Tcreek]

I bought RT in April, it came with Michelin tires, have 8000 miles on them. seem to be wearing good, the front has cuped a little bit. Some of the recent RT,s come with Bridgestone's. does any know how they are working out.

[gdouglas]

I got my 1200RT back in the spring too and I also have about 8k miles on the original Bridgestones. Mine show a little cupping on the front and the rear just does have a flat profile down the center. I can probably make it to about 10-11k miles before replacing, I think.

[Deans BMW]

You can not go wrong with Pilot Roads.

[HandyAndy]

I have 13,000 km on the bridgestone BT020's on my 12RT. The front is cupped and makes quite a bit of noise when leaning into a corner, and is about 1/2 worn. The rear is down to the wear bars in the center! The rear is also slightly cupped. It looks like the rear is wearing out more from engine braking than anything else. I'm gonna have to learn to pull in that clutch when decellerating.

[uk1200RT]

Why all the cupping? The last time I had cupping on my tires was riding on bias ply Metzelers back in the late 80's. Is the suspension on the RT that rough?

[HandyAndy]

Well maybe calling the rear tire cupped is not correct. Have a look at the attached picture of the rear tire. If you look you will see that the leading edge of each tread block ( I guess it is really the trailing edge where it touches the road)has the rubber turned up. Is this caused by brake forces or acceleration? I thought that it was due to engine braking but the more I look at it the more confused I get!

My bike was a dealer demo model that had 7,000km on it when I got it, I don't remember the tire looking like this at that time, although I figured that they were about half worn. So this has become more of a problem with the 6,000km that I have put on the bike. I would not say that I am an agressive rider, however I do ride whenever I can. I have only owned the RT since the end of Oct, and to put 6000km on during this time of the year in Ontario is a challange.

I had been riding a Kawasaki Concours for the last 4 years and have never seen this kind of rear tire wear, cupped front tires yes, but rears usually wear evenly.

Any theories or advise on how to avoid this with the new tires would be appriciated!

[eaglemike]

From what I can see in the photo, it does look like cupping. What inflation pressures are you running? In my imperfect and limited experience, cupping has been often caused by under-inflation. Sometimes caused by under-damping, too. Again - just my imperfect and limited experience......

 

all the best,

 

Mike

[HandyAndy]

Mike.

I had been running 41 PSI in the rear tire as I had done a couple of trips loaded up. In the last 1,000km or so I backed off to 38 PSI, I wanted a little wider contact patch to help grip the cold (and sometimes icy) pavement that I run across in the mornings.

 

Andy.

[eddiea]

Try 36psi front 42psi rear, loaded or not, hot or cold weather

Eddiea 05 R12RT (Betsy)

[jackflash]

Mine came with Bridgestones. The front cupped on the left side (when sitting on the bike). I never felt comfortable with these tires in the traction dept. My second set is Metzler Z6's which feel much better in the traction dept. and they seem to be wearing more uniformly across the tire. FWIW.

[JayW]

I had Dunlops as the OEM tire (not recommended). I now have Pilot Powers front and rear, and am very impressed with their grip. In spite of what feels like soft rubber, there is only negligible wear after >2000 miles, including some hard track miles.

 

Jay

[apm]

My experience has shown that if you stick with the BMW recommended tyre pressures of 33/37psi (rider only)the tyres will cup quite a lot by about 5,000kms. I have had to change my tyres by 10,000kms 3 times now, even though they were street legal, as I lost confidence in the tyres - their shape (profile)changed to be more acute on the sides. I should mention that I ride aggressively on winding roads.

The last set of tyres on the R12RT was Metzeler Z6 and prior to that I had 2 Michelin sets on my R1150GS.

I am now on Pirelli Diablo Stradas and I have upped the tyre pressures to 38/42 - what a difference.

After 5,000kms there is no sign of cupping at all and it looks like I should get at least 15,000kms out of these tyres - Grip is very good too.

If the tyres are already cupped it probably won't help too much by increasing the pressures now.

[St0nkingByte]

Now bearing in mind that I was as giddy as a school girl at the time, when I was taking delivery of my new RT earlier this month I'm fairly certain the head service guy at the dealership recommended the two-up air pressure of 42psi in the rear for all riding conditions. This would jive with what apm is seeing.