Whats with Avon front tires for 1st gens!?

[sarges46]

Noddy...a irregular member here bought a set of avons for his 91 from southwest moto a month or so ago. At my recommendation mind you. He got the typical great service, prompt delivery, good price.

 

He noticed the other day that the front tire is "checking", or otherwords, cracking all around the rim area. Mine did that a couple years ago from a set I bought at Sturgis.

 

Now, Gord has to take off the tire and send it back to SWM and they will send him a new one....great..but he cannot ride without a tire very well...so may be stuck. He was hoping to get them to send him a new one and then he would send the old one back just to cut time off the road. They can't/won't do that.

 

This tire is a great one and he is pleased with the performance but I am hearing more of the issue with the cracks. Not on the 2nd gens just the 1st gens. His tire was made fall last year judging by the date code.

[Marcarl]

If I were SWM I wouldn't send him a new one either, but maybe if he paid for the new one they would give him credit when he sent the other one back.?.?.?

[Condor]

The same thing happened to me with 2 front AVONs 2 years ago. Looks like weather checking in the side walls. Happened twice. I think there might still be pics of the 1st tire on the board somewhere?? The 3rd tire has 5,000 miles on it and it's perfect. AVON's policy is they will quickly send a replacement tire to a dealer , and the dealer will send the bad tire back to AVON. I guess they don't trust the rider to follow thru with the return...maybe from experience?? Anyway, the second tire they sent me was built just a couple of weeks after the first. Very shortly it started checking too, although not as bad, so they replaced that one. I took the tire off both times, but I could have rode the bike to the dealer and let the dealer take it off in the shop. Here's the deal. AVON will pay for the entire dealer service as well as replace the tire. So your buddy shouldn't have any down time other than the ride to your local shop, and it doesn't need to be a major brand store, an independant shop will be OK.