Pirelli Superbike Pro Slick sidewall cracks?

[chaveezy]

Has anyone ever experienced any cracks in the sidewalls of your Pirelli Track Day Slicks? I got a set used at the last track day and upon install I noticed these cracks. I thought maybe it was from the tire machine at first but after looking at them closely, it doesn't seem a tire machine would cause cracks like this..

Just wondering if anyone else has seen this issue before. Another guy at my track said his were like that to and he ran them anyways.

Pics..

 

[bodell]

Those are freeze cracks. The tires were not stored properly. (Too cold)

 

[j_fuggin_t]

^^ what he said, i had on cold crack on me earlier in the year (dot diablo sc2) they gotta be kept in good climate and not thrown around etc..

 

[jettech1]

if those were my tires, i would be calling the regional pirelli rep monday mornin

 

[j_fuggin_t]

All they would do is ask what type of conditions they were stored in, pressures ran, temp outside and then when its not known ANY tire manufacturer will tell you tough

 

[jettech1]

i have seen tires stored outside in covered shed for years and never saw that before.
but yea

 

[fitz]

Out of curiously I ran down and looked at my used and abused TD slicks that were used for a season and a half, no warmers, stored in a coldish basement over the winter..... but besides being worn out still look great, no cracks.

Those tires you have were stored poorly, I would talk to the person you bought them from.

fitz

 

[chaveezy]

I'll hit him up tomorrow, he crashed at South last week so I'm sure he's still recovering. I should have taken a better look at them before buying but I figured another A group rider would have known better. Must have been an honest mistake.

 

[bodell]

Hows this?

Here is a Pirelli Supercorsa in 20 degree weather.

 

[BigBird]

I think I've noticed this occur to more Pirelli's than the other brands.

Note: This is just recollection from previous forum posts, and not from actual data collected. So please don't flame me...

 

[Matt]

It happens with other brands as well... I had a front that looked worse then the one bodell posted up.

I've run several pirelli's with minor sidewall cracking and they were fine. But you have one somewhat big crack there, not sure what I'd do if I noticed that. how deep is it vs the overall tire thickness there?

 

[chaveezy]

Turns out this tire was purchased a month ago from Cornerspeed, and with a date code of Sept/2010, it looks like it was stored improperly prior to sale? This is getting interesting!

Weird thing is, the front, which was purchased with it, is perfectly fine. It does, however, have a build date of 0511.

 

[Yank 521]

i have been running the sc's for a couple years now. i wish i could actually tell you how many of them cracked. talked to the rep and he told me to ride on them. now if i see them i dont even get excited. found no issues with them feeling different.

 

[Boostenmkiv]

A friend pointed me to this thread. I was really excited to try these tires out, but had a similar problem and have been quite disappointed with support.

 

[j_fuggin_t]

It happens unfortunately but what can you do? Pirelli is pretty good about stuff, they had an issue with the 180/60 so instead of continuing to sell the they pulled them. I had one crack on me earlier in the season but anything else has been fine.

 

[Boostenmkiv]

j_fuggin_t;210900 wrote: It happens unfortunately but what can you do? Pirelli is pretty good about stuff, they had an issue with the 180/60 so instead of continuing to sell the they pulled them. I had one crack on me earlier in the season but anything else has been fine.

Agreed that it happens...hopefully YOUR vendor will be good with getting you back up and running.

 

[j_fuggin_t]

Boostenmkiv;210966 wrote: Agreed that it happens...hopefully YOUR vendor will be good with getting you back up and running.

Yea he's a good guy, I asked him about it but I also threw them in my garage all winter and my first td was 61 degrees, its tough to find a good dealer

 

[chaveezy]

Update: Contact has talked to Cornerspeed and Aaron is going to get with the tire rep to see if there is anything we can do. (crossing fingers)

It's funny that just since I posted this, the amount of similar experiences people have had, makes you wonder how many actually have experienced it. If there were a way to poll the entire motorcycle community and bring the results to Pirelli if something would get done on a larger scale. I worked in the automotive industry for a long time (service) and when there was issues that would happen that were similar to others we would tell them to submit a formal complaint so that it may turn into a recall, but I believe that major corporations would rather just ignore it (hoping it didn't affect them), or if anything file a "Technical Service Bulletin", which doesn't do crap except admit the fault. Customer is still charged full price for diagnosis and repair. LAME..

It's all part of the game...

 

[lbsaxman]

I just sent my rear back to sportbiketrackgear for that exact same thing , apparently it is a manufacturing problem .. I wouldnt ride them like that . they had no problem exchanging it for another

 

[Redlining52]

lbsaxman;211214 wrote: I just sent my rear back to sportbiketrackgear for that exact same thing , apparently it is a manufacturing problem .. I wouldnt ride them like that . they had no problem exchanging it for another

How long did your exchange process take once you sent the tire back? Did STG just send you another tire back as soon as they got the defected one from you?