fretbender
Well-known member
I suppose this one may get booted over to the NEPRT section. . .but I'll let the admins make that call.
Last week I finally got around to pulling the front wheel off the FJR in order to have the old AVON AV45 replaced with a new one I ordered from FJRGoodies (way good job packaging the tire I might add). Since it was mid-week I asked my wife to drop off the tire at the shop for me. Usually I have the local KTM/GM dealership do the mount & balance for me because they charge $15 per tire vs. $25 per tire at the Yamaha shop, however I didn't make this clear and my wife ended up taking the tire into the Yamaha shop.
The previous 2 times I had the KTM dealership do the mount & balance, the tire came back with a 30g weight attached to it. Come to think of it, I'm not so sure that it wasn't the same 30g weight in exactly the same place between those two times. Also, both of those times, after putting the wheel back on the FJR, I found that I had a slight headshake while lightly decelerating through 55 - 50 mph, when taking my hands off the handlebars. Since this happened at my first tire change (after booting the stock MEZ4's down the road) I attributed the headshake effect to being an AVON characteristic.
Interestingly enough, when I got the tire back from the Yamaha shop, they said that the wheel/tire combo balanced out perfectly with no weights at all. After taking the bike out for about 40 miles of riding, I noticed the headshake is entirely gone. Dead stable steering at any speed (only tested up to 70mph so far), coasting down while in neutral or in gear. I guess you get what you pay for. Has anyone else had a wheel/tire combo balance out perfectly with no headshake resulting?
Last week I finally got around to pulling the front wheel off the FJR in order to have the old AVON AV45 replaced with a new one I ordered from FJRGoodies (way good job packaging the tire I might add). Since it was mid-week I asked my wife to drop off the tire at the shop for me. Usually I have the local KTM/GM dealership do the mount & balance for me because they charge $15 per tire vs. $25 per tire at the Yamaha shop, however I didn't make this clear and my wife ended up taking the tire into the Yamaha shop.
The previous 2 times I had the KTM dealership do the mount & balance, the tire came back with a 30g weight attached to it. Come to think of it, I'm not so sure that it wasn't the same 30g weight in exactly the same place between those two times. Also, both of those times, after putting the wheel back on the FJR, I found that I had a slight headshake while lightly decelerating through 55 - 50 mph, when taking my hands off the handlebars. Since this happened at my first tire change (after booting the stock MEZ4's down the road) I attributed the headshake effect to being an AVON characteristic.
Interestingly enough, when I got the tire back from the Yamaha shop, they said that the wheel/tire combo balanced out perfectly with no weights at all. After taking the bike out for about 40 miles of riding, I noticed the headshake is entirely gone. Dead stable steering at any speed (only tested up to 70mph so far), coasting down while in neutral or in gear. I guess you get what you pay for. Has anyone else had a wheel/tire combo balance out perfectly with no headshake resulting?