I have noticed that there are some very small crack in the sides of my motorcycle tires. Its a 2005 suzuki s40. Do i need to go and get new tires or are they ok. There is lots of tread left it just looks like these small lines on the sides of the tire. Also what is a good price on tires for this bike. The shop quoted me over 400 dollars for the same type of tires that are on there. Is this alot or is that about right.
Wow you pay a lot for your Tyre's over there. I can get a prefect set for just over half that price, fitted in the UK. I have no idea what type of bike you are talking about, they use different model numbers over here. I am guessing it is a road bike. where the Tyre's need to be good, as opposed to an off-road bike where you could run them till they burst. Hairline cracks usually come with time in the dry garage.and some soap or special tyre conditioner can keep them more supple and less hard and brittle. The bad news it once there is a crack it can't heal itself.it can only get worse quicker or slower.
Motorcycle tires are pretty much worthless after 4 years, so if the tires are original to the bike then you'd be doing yourself a favor to replace them. The cracks are from dry-rot, and they are an indication that the tires are old. From a safety standpoint, replacing the tires would be a good idea. Tread depth is only an indicating factor for tire wear/life when you ride enough to wear them out. As for replacements, you have 2 options. Buy from a dealer and pay their price but get their mounting and balancing, or order online and mount/balance them yourself. Dealers generally won't mount and balance mail-order tires (or, if they will, they charge more than what it would have cost to just buy the tires through them). Since I go through a LOT of tires every year, I do my own mount and balance. I'll have to hazard a guess that since you're asking, your best route would be to pay a dealer. Looks like OEM tires are IRC. I'm not a fan of IRC tires, but they're good enough. If you don't ride much (less than 5,000 miles a year), then opting for cheaper tires might be a good decision as you'll likely be replacing them before they are worn out. Shinko is a good, cheap, reliable tire company. A set of Shinko 712 tires lists for about $100 online, the IRC RS310 show up at about $200, Avon AM41/42's are about $250 (very high end tires), same for Metzeler ME880. If you drop off your bike, you can figure another $100 for having the tires installed, half that if you remove the wheels from the bike and walk them into the shop. You May do better on price to find a non-dealership (independent) shop, it doesn't matter if they work on Suzuki or not.
Replace them. As well as the cracks in the sidewall due to age, the tread will also have gone off. The rubber loses it's grip causing the tire to feel very wooden and it will let go easily.
