Kawasaki Concours Forum

The C-14, aka Kawasaki Concours-14, the new one :) => The Bike - C14/GTR 1400 => Topic started by: Conrad on March 27, 2012, 09:15:52 AM

Title: My TPMS saved me this morning
Post by: Conrad on March 27, 2012, 09:15:52 AM
I hop on the bike and head out for work. I'm keeping an eye on the readouts because the batteries are way low and they've been acting up quite a bit. (I have an appointment to have both the front and rear changed out tomorrow under warranty.) The front readout pops on, 42, perfect. I'm waiting for the rear to come up. About 5 mins later it comes on. 20? WTF? No way! The red warning light didn't even come on yet, and then it does. I pull over and hit the flashers. The tire looks fine, hmmmm. Since I'm not far from home I decide that I'd rather mess with it in my garage instead of on the side of the road in 35 mph winds. I turn around and head for home. I get into the garage and put her up on the center stand (from the left side  lol)

SOB! There it is, a wood screw smack dab in the middle of the tire. After a few more choice words I get out my sticky rope Slime kit and go to work. This is the first time that I've had to repair a tire on my C14. 5 mins later, I'm done. The Slime kit worked perfectly.   :thumbs:

So the question is, since the tire will be taken off tomorrow anyways, should I have an internal patch put on or leave it as is?
Title: Re: My TPMS saved me this morning
Post by: Pokey on March 27, 2012, 09:43:29 AM
Good deal...........mine are acting up a bit too "especially the rear", but they still work good enough to display the psi eventually. Glad you made it home safely! 8)
Title: Re: My TPMS saved me this morning
Post by: Conrad on March 27, 2012, 09:53:39 AM
Thanks Poke! I was really glad the battery didn't die completely this morn. Who knows what might have happened?
Title: Re: My TPMS saved me this morning
Post by: Pokey on March 27, 2012, 09:55:42 AM
Thanks Poke! I was really glad the battery didn't die completely this morn. Who knows what might have happened?

Did you notice any ill handling at all?
Title: Re: My TPMS saved me this morning
Post by: wipfel on March 27, 2012, 09:57:45 AM
I hop on the bike and head out for work. I'm keeping an eye on the readouts because the batteries are way low and they've been acting up quite a bit. (I have an appointment to have both the front and rear changed out tomorrow under warranty.) The front readout pops on, 42, perfect. I'm waiting for the rear to come up. About 5 mins later it comes on. 20? WTF? No way! The red warning light didn't even come on yet, and then it does. I pull over and hit the flashers. The tire looks fine, hmmmm. Since I'm not far from home I decide that I'd rather mess with it in my garage instead of on the side of the road in 35 mph winds. I turn around and head for home. I get into the garage and put her up on the center stand (from the left side  lol)

SOB! There it is, a wood screw smack dab in the middle of the tire. After a few more choice words I get out my sticky rope Slime kit and go to work. This is the first time that I've had to repair a tire on my C14. 5 mins later, I'm done. The Slime kit worked perfectly.   :thumbs:

So the question is, since the tire will be taken off tomorrow anyways, should I have an internal patch put on or leave it as is?

Do you normally leave the display on the tire pressure option or did it switch to it to notify you?

Title: Re: My TPMS saved me this morning
Post by: Conrad on March 27, 2012, 10:00:39 AM
Did you notice any ill handling at all?

Thinking back on that after the fact, I did. At the time I thought that it was the wind messing with me. The wind was right out of the south gusting to 45 and blowing at a nice clip of 30 to 35 and I was riding due east. I was leaned over going straight down the road and I thought the wobbly feeling was all from the wind. Not so it seems.
Title: Re: My TPMS saved me this morning
Post by: Conrad on March 27, 2012, 10:03:13 AM
Do you normally leave the display on the tire pressure option or did it switch to it to notify you?

I always ride with the tire pressure displayed. The red warning LED would have alerted me if I didn't have the pressure shown though.
Title: Re: My TPMS saved me this morning
Post by: Jeremy Mitchell on March 27, 2012, 10:19:43 AM
If you are having the sensors replaced tomorrow I would ask them if they could do a plug/patch for you, or if the tire is nearing the end of it's useful life go ahead and slap another one on there without having to pay mounting fees.  My dealer was cool like that, hopefully your's is too.
Title: Re: My TPMS saved me this morning
Post by: Mister Tee on March 27, 2012, 10:19:52 AM
I've never had an issue with leaving rope plugs in the tire for the rest of its life, and I've plugged quite a few.

There was one single exception - and it was a case of where TPMS alerted me to the condition and the ability to monitor the pressure allowed me to get safely to a place where I could fix it.  I picked up a curved piece of metal that put a half inch gash in the tire.  It was just too big.  I tried plugging it but the plug blew out a couple miles down the road.  I ended up getting a very $pensive tow home (this was on a Friday evening after all the tire shops were closed.)
Title: Re: My TPMS saved me this morning
Post by: Conrad on March 27, 2012, 10:24:43 AM
If you are having the sensors replaced tomorrow I would ask them if they could do a plug/patch for you, or if the tire is nearing the end of it's useful life go ahead and slap another one on there without having to pay mounting fees.  My dealer was cool like that, hopefully your's is too.

My dealer's tech is pretty cool and I'm sure that he'd slap a new tire on for me while he was at it. The tire is a PR2 that I put on last year, it has about 4.5k miles on it and still looks pretty good. I think that I'll go ahead and have him put a patch on the inside, might as well as long as the tire is off anyway. 
Title: Re: My TPMS saved me this morning
Post by: gPink on March 27, 2012, 10:29:22 AM
Definitely inside patch since it's already off.
Title: Re: My TPMS saved me this morning
Post by: Jeremy Mitchell on March 27, 2012, 10:29:44 AM
Unfortunately for my wallet (or fortunately when it comes to having fun  ;D )  my rear tire would be ready for changing at 4,500 miles.
Title: Re: My TPMS saved me this morning
Post by: Conrad on March 27, 2012, 10:33:45 AM
Unfortunately for my wallet (or fortunately when it comes to having fun  ;D )  my rear tire would be ready for changing at 4,500 miles.

I just walked out to my bike and took a hard look at the rear tire. Crap, I really should put a new one on.
Title: Re: My TPMS saved me this morning
Post by: CRocker on March 27, 2012, 10:50:19 AM
Around here many shops won't plug a motorcycle tire...no matter what...good luck!
Title: Re: My TPMS saved me this morning
Post by: Conrad on March 27, 2012, 11:05:26 AM
Around here many shops won't plug a motorcycle tire...no matter what...good luck!

I'll bet those shops would MUCH rather sell a new tire than plug the old. Who can blame them though?
Title: Re: My TPMS saved me this morning
Post by: ZG on March 27, 2012, 12:20:42 PM
That sux C...  :(
 
Glad you made it home safe and sound though, beats a tow!
Title: Re: My TPMS saved me this morning
Post by: Conrad on March 27, 2012, 01:17:24 PM
That sux C...  :(
 
Glad you made it home safe and sound though, beats a tow!

Thanks J.

I did have my Slime kit and compressor with me in the bags J. If I'd been a bit further away from home I'd have been doing the repair on the side of the road instead of the comfort of my garage. I just checked the tire and it's still right at 43 lbs, right where it was when I left the house after the fix.
Title: Re: My TPMS saved me this morning
Post by: 556ALPHA on March 27, 2012, 02:27:40 PM
I try to keep my slime compressor and string plugs on board since picking up a screw last year.  Glad it all worked out safely. 
Title: Re: My TPMS saved me this morning
Post by: VirginiaJim on March 27, 2012, 04:04:04 PM
Glad it all worked out. :)
Title: Re: My TPMS saved me this morning
Post by: maxtog on March 27, 2012, 04:51:46 PM
Definitely inside patch since it's already off.

If it were my bike, I would put a patch on the inside too, if the tire were coming off anyway.  But if it were already coming off and even 2/3 worn, I would probably sneak a new tire into it.

Thanks to this board, I did buy a Slime kit and keep that on the bike, although I have no compressor.

Conrad- glad you were safe and monitoring.  I always change the display to tire pressures when I first start the bike.  Once I get readings, I usually change it to temp.  As said in other threads, I really wish I could see several things on the screen at once- at least temp, and tires.
Title: Re: My TPMS saved me this morning
Post by: Breaker19 on March 27, 2012, 07:17:52 PM
I hop on the bike and head out for work. I'm keeping an eye on the readouts because the batteries are way low and they've been acting up quite a bit. (I have an appointment to have both the front and rear changed out tomorrow under warranty.) The front readout pops on, 42, perfect. I'm waiting for the rear to come up. About 5 mins later it comes on. 20? WTF? No way! The red warning light didn't even come on yet, and then it does. I pull over and hit the flashers. The tire looks fine, hmmmm. Since I'm not far from home I decide that I'd rather mess with it in my garage instead of on the side of the road in 35 mph winds. I turn around and head for home. I get into the garage and put her up on the center stand (from the left side  lol)

SOB! There it is, a wood screw smack dab in the middle of the tire. After a few more choice words I get out my sticky rope Slime kit and go to work. This is the first time that I've had to repair a tire on my C14. 5 mins later, I'm done. The Slime kit worked perfectly.   :thumbs:

So the question is, since the tire will be taken off tomorrow anyways, should I have an internal patch put on or leave it as is?

Wow, great catch! Glad it worked out for you. I just picked mine up for the dealer yesterday and they apparently didn't check the tire pressures; this morning I too went to take off and 200 feet from my house the red light came on and the front tire showed low pressure (32, I think). Both tires needed air, no problems with them though. But the system changed over to the tire pressure screen automatically as I had it on the "range" screen at that time.
Title: Re: My TPMS saved me this morning
Post by: Breaker19 on March 27, 2012, 07:22:02 PM
I hop on the bike and head out for work. I'm keeping an eye on the readouts because the batteries are way low and they've been acting up quite a bit. (I have an appointment to have both the front and rear changed out tomorrow under warranty.) The front readout pops on, 42, perfect. I'm waiting for the rear to come up. About 5 mins later it comes on. 20? WTF? No way! The red warning light didn't even come on yet, and then it does. I pull over and hit the flashers. The tire looks fine, hmmmm. Since I'm not far from home I decide that I'd rather mess with it in my garage instead of on the side of the road in 35 mph winds. I turn around and head for home. I get into the garage and put her up on the center stand (from the left side  lol)

SOB! There it is, a wood screw smack dab in the middle of the tire. After a few more choice words I get out my sticky rope Slime kit and go to work. This is the first time that I've had to repair a tire on my C14. 5 mins later, I'm done. The Slime kit worked perfectly.   :thumbs:

So the question is, since the tire will be taken off tomorrow anyways, should I have an internal patch put on or leave it as is?

Oh, and good luck getting anyone to patch that tire, I don't know of anyone or any dealer that does that anymore for liability reasons and, perhaps possible because they want to sell a tire... ;)
Title: Re: My TPMS saved me this morning
Post by: maxtog on March 27, 2012, 09:35:12 PM
Wow, great catch! Glad it worked out for you. I just picked mine up for the dealer yesterday and they apparently didn't check the tire pressures; this morning I too went to take off and 200 feet from my house the red light came on and the front tire showed low pressure (32, I think).

My dealer ended up delivering mine to my house.  I could not ride it yet because it had to be lowered first.  Once it was, I checked the pressures before even riding... the dealer had inflated my tires to about 54psi!  Yeesh
Title: Re: My TPMS saved me this morning
Post by: gPink on March 28, 2012, 03:58:45 AM
Made sure the tpms was activated didn't they.
Title: Re: My TPMS saved me this morning
Post by: Conrad on March 28, 2012, 05:15:04 AM
I e'ed my dealer's tech and asked him about putting an inside patch on the tire today while he had it off. He said that he can't do that but he'd understand if I wanted to wait to get the TPMs changed out till either they got a new tire for me or that I bought one. Crap.

I asked him if he could still swap out the TPMs and balance the tire even though it was plugged, no reply yet. 
Title: Re: My TPMS saved me this morning
Post by: Conrad on March 28, 2012, 05:17:42 AM
My dealer ended up delivering mine to my house.  I could not ride it yet because it had to be lowered first.  Once it was, I checked the pressures before even riding... the dealer had inflated my tires to about 54psi!  Yeesh

When I brought my bike home the front tire had 35psi and the rear 80.    :o

I called the dealer and complained about it, he said that their machine must have malfunctioned and thanked me for bringing it to his attention. Yeah right.

I think that the malfunction was elsewhere...
Title: Re: My TPMS saved me this morning
Post by: gPink on March 28, 2012, 05:22:59 AM
I e'ed my dealer's tech and asked him about putting an inside patch on the tire today while he had it off. He said that he can't do that but he'd understand if I wanted to wait to get the TPMs changed out till either they got a new tire for me or that I bought one. Crap.

I asked him if he could still swap out the TPMs and balance the tire even though it was plugged, no reply yet.
When they have the tire off take it over to Bubba's Tire and Muffler and have them patch it.
Title: Re: My TPMS saved me this morning
Post by: Conrad on March 28, 2012, 05:26:58 AM
When they have the tire off take it over to Bubba's Tire and Muffler and have them patch it.

There's an idea! Bubba's is right across the street. They do radiators too.
Title: Re: My TPMS saved me this morning
Post by: reesedp on March 28, 2012, 10:42:19 AM
Mine saved me last year.  Left work and got about two miles up the interstate before the alarm started screaming (visually).  Watched the pressure drop rapidly along with the quality of handling.  Made me feel better about having it as it notified me before stability became that big of an issue.
Title: Re: My TPMS saved me this morning
Post by: ZG on March 28, 2012, 10:50:18 AM
When I brought my bike home the front tire had 35psi and the rear 80.    :o

I called the dealer and complained about it, he said that their machine must have malfunctioned and thanked me for bringing it to his attention. Yeah right.

I think that the malfunction was elsewhere...

 :yikes:
 
80??
Title: Re: My TPMS saved me this morning
Post by: JamminJere on March 28, 2012, 11:41:02 AM
I just walked out to my bike and took a hard look at the rear tire. Crap, I really should put a new one on.

Good Idea..  Oh,  and also to..........totally redeem yourself! (in Jim Carrey voice)

:)
Title: Re: My TPMS saved me this morning
Post by: Conrad on March 28, 2012, 12:34:55 PM

 :yikes:
 
80??

That was my reaction too!
Title: Re: My TPMS saved me this morning
Post by: Conrad on March 29, 2012, 05:09:53 AM
 :'(

I removed my bags before I took the bike in to have the TPMs replaced, you know, so there's no chance of a 'mishap' at the dealer. I left them in my office at work. So what does my dumbass do on the way out after work? Bumped one of the bags against the door frame on the loading dock and put a nice scratch in it.  >:(
Title: Re: My TPMS saved me this morning
Post by: VirginiaJim on March 29, 2012, 05:16:00 AM
No good deed goes unpunished.  I hate it when stuff like that happens.
Title: Re: My TPMS saved me this morning
Post by: Conrad on March 29, 2012, 05:18:02 AM
I was so mad at myself! I could have screamed!
Title: Re: My TPMS saved me this morning
Post by: ZG on March 29, 2012, 11:06:17 AM
:'(

I removed my bags before I took the bike in to have the TPMs replaced, you know, so there's no chance of a 'mishap' at the dealer. I left them in my office at work. So what does my dumbass do on the way out after work? Bumped one of the bags against the door frame on the loading dock and put a nice scratch in it.  >:(

 :yikes:   :banghead:
 
That really sux C, sorry bro...  :'(
Title: Re: My TPMS saved me this morning
Post by: Conrad on March 29, 2012, 12:02:34 PM

 :yikes:   :banghead:
 
That really sux C, sorry bro...  :'(

Thanks J, I was just so stupid.  >:(   Oh well. I guess I need to get some touch up paint. 
Title: Re: My TPMS saved me this morning
Post by: ZG on March 29, 2012, 01:23:09 PM
Thanks J, I was just so stupid.  >:(   Oh well. I guess I need to get some touch up paint.

Which side is it C? I'm kind of an ebay slut so if I see one pop up I could let you know bro...
Title: Re: My TPMS saved me this morning
Post by: VirginiaJim on March 29, 2012, 01:34:19 PM
Thanks J, I was just so stupid.  >:(   Oh well. I guess I need to get some touch up paint.

Black?
Title: Re: My TPMS saved me this morning
Post by: Conrad on March 29, 2012, 01:38:07 PM

Which side is it C? I'm kind of an ebay slut so if I see one pop up I could let you know bro...

That's mighty nice of you man! Thanks, it's the left side.
Title: Re: My TPMS saved me this morning
Post by: ZG on March 29, 2012, 01:38:43 PM
Black?

Now we're talking!  :thumbs:
 
That's what Jeremy did and he gained 5 hp...  8)
Title: Re: My TPMS saved me this morning
Post by: Conrad on March 29, 2012, 01:39:02 PM
Black?

Is that the color you'd like your eye to be Jim?    :-*
Title: Re: My TPMS saved me this morning
Post by: VirginiaJim on March 29, 2012, 01:39:34 PM
 :rotflmao:
Title: Re: My TPMS saved me this morning
Post by: ZG on March 29, 2012, 01:42:49 PM
That's mighty nice of you man! Thanks, it's the left side.

Will do and no worries man, I'll add it to my daily troling list...  :grouphug:
Title: Re: My TPMS saved me this morning
Post by: Conrad on March 29, 2012, 01:44:36 PM
You're all right J, despite what Jim said about you...
Title: Re: My TPMS saved me this morning
Post by: ZG on March 29, 2012, 01:48:03 PM
You're all right J, despite what Jim said about you...

 :chugbeer:
 
 
Ya, I'm not falling for Jim's old change your email name trick ever again...  >:(
Title: Re: My TPMS saved me this morning
Post by: VirginiaJim on March 29, 2012, 04:12:56 PM
 :rotflmao:
Title: Re: My TPMS saved me this morning
Post by: Jeremy Mitchell on March 29, 2012, 05:16:42 PM

Now we're talking!  :thumbs:
 
That's what Jeremy did and he gained 5 hp...  8)

I actually lost horsepower with the black out job on my bike.  But I added a couple cool stickers and got back to normal silverdammit hp levels.   ;D
Title: Re: My TPMS saved me this morning
Post by: ZG on March 29, 2012, 06:03:51 PM
I actually lost horsepower with the black out job on my bike.  But I added a couple cool stickers and got back to normal silverdammit hp levels.   ;D

No Christmas card with ZG tinted hand wings in it for you this year Jeremy...  :'(
 
Title: Re: My TPMS saved me this morning
Post by: Jeremy Mitchell on March 29, 2012, 07:51:22 PM
No Christmas card with ZG tinted hand wings in it for you this year Jeremy...  :'(

Ouch!  That stung.  Maybe I can figure out a way to get back in your good graces.
Title: Re: My TPMS saved me this morning
Post by: ZG on March 29, 2012, 09:11:10 PM
Ouch!  That stung.  Maybe I can figure out a way to get back in your good graces.

 :grouphug:   :chugbeer: 
 
All good bro, now hurry up and paint more parts black on that Connie...  ;) ;D