green dot, yellow dot

[Walt]

Just put new tires on my bike, went with Dunlap d205 sport touring radials hoping to get some extra miles. Bought tires from MAW, Motorcycle Accessory Warehouse. They had best price and have bought tires from them before for my goldwing. Any way tires had a pale green dot on them. Guy at tire shop told me when tires have a green dot instead of yellow dot they have a defect. Does anyone know about this? Tires seem fine and ride fine even at speed above 100.

 

[Geezer]

I don't know anything about the dots, but I have bought a lot of tires (MEZ tires for my '83 Maxim) from MAW over the years without getting a bad one.

 

[TheAxeman]

I don't know about the dots either but it would seem to me that no wholesaler in their right mind would sell a motorcycle tire that had any sort of defect in it, be it cosmetic or otherwise. In this day and age the liability issue for them would be huge should the bike go down.

 

[vectervp1]

I think the guy at the shop is just trying to scare you out of buying your tires online. He's probably upset that you didnt pay his marked up price.

 

[skyway]

After pointing this out to you, did your tire guy try to sell you some his brand XYZ tires?

I would call the manufacturer of the tire and get the straight scoop.

 

[FJRottie]

I am not a wheel man, but I have family in the OEM car business.

To the best of my knowledge, there are red dots, yellows dots, green dots etc depending on the manufacturer.

Color was just based on the manufacturer. Look up the brand for dot color.

The dot usually indicates the, "maximum force-variation". It should be aligned with the point on the wheel that is physically lowest.

Usually wheel manufacturers will drill the valve-stem hole at the lowest point on the wheel. The dots were used as a point to line up the tire to the valve stem.

Maybe someone else can add to this?

 

[Ignacio]

The dot usually indicates the, "maximum force-variation". It should be aligned with the point on the wheel that is physically lowest.

You provided a much more Googlable term! Here's one I found that backs up FJRottie's illumination.

On a new set of tires, you'll probably observe various things, including a sticker on the tread and various dots painted on the sidewall. You may ask yourself, what are those dots on the sidewall for? The number and color of the dots may vary by manufacturer, but here is what Yokohama uses, as an example:
The RED dot indicates the high spot on the tire and is to be used as the location for measuring tread wear. "When the indicators show, tires must be replaced."

The YELLOW dot indicates the lightest part of the tire, also known as "maximum force variation." This should be lined up with the heaviest part of the wheel - the valve stem. They call this "phase aligning" the tire.

Actually there are two options for mounting a tire on a wheel:

* One is that the yellow spot (light) should be mounted on the heavy spot (valve stem) on the wheel. In which case the red dot would be the high point on the tire, and wear the fastest, indicating the need for replacement sooner that other places on the tread.

* The other option is to place the red spot (high) should be mounted on the low spot (valve stem) on the wheel, or if the wheel has a separate low spot mark from the valve stem, then trying to match the red high spot with the dimpled low spot and the yellow light spot with the heavy valve stem should produce the best results.

Yeah, yeah, not specific mention of green dot, but they apparently do vary by manufacturer. And the dots likely are related to tire weight characteristics. A green dot as a defect? Your tireshop is trying to feed you some soylant green.

 

[ponyfool]

Well, before all of this technical stuff was brought up, I was happy to assume that the dots were just the "inspected by #34" dots...

I'm going to go back to being ignorantly blissful now!

Oh, never believe what someone is saying when that same person is trying to sell you the same thing without first verifying it with another, reliable source.

Ok, back to blissfulness.....

 

[Inlaw1]

Been buying tires off the net for the last 10 years and mounting my own. If they come with any dots, it's yellow ones. Never seen green, that's not to say a particular manufacturer doesn't use green. I know the yellow dot indicates, as already stated, the low point and should be mounted adjacent to the valve stem.

As for it being defective, I doubt anyone would be selling a defective motorcycle tire and expect to stay in business long. Sounds like that tech didn't know what he was talking about. Maybe send an email to the manufacturer of the tire and ask just to clarify though.

 

[Scab]

Red-dot, Yellow-dot, Green-dot. The only dot I know is O-dot. And I better not find him on my tire.

 

[Geezer]

Soylent Green, yummmm.