I seem to remember reading that some folks had concerns about the Brazilian made Metz tires. Does anyone have first hand experience regarding problems with the Brazilian tires?

And, on that note, I finally have a set of matching rubber on the bike. Had my new (made in Brazil) ME880 front mounted last week. What a difference! Of course, the Dunlop it replaced was just about bald. I now have a ME880 on both ends and the bike rides so much better now. It was a big improvement just replacing the rear (made in Germany), but now that both ends are clad in ME880s, it is fantastic.

 

I have no concerns yet ... but I only have 2K miles on the Metz ME880. I received a mixed made set ... the front MH/90-21 was made in Brazil, while the rear 160/80-16 was made in Germany. Both of the tires were purchased from Motorcycle Superstore.

 

Good to know, thanks. Time will tell, I guess.

 

If memory serves, it was only a problem for short time and has been corrected for a few years

 

A friend of mine had the Brazillian made Metz's on his VTX and the front and rear tire tread starts to lift or peel up...it looks like blisters peeling back.

 

Interesting. Any clue how old the tires were (when they were made)?

 

Over on a touring site I frequent, there have been several people that had the Brazilian Metz fail on them.

 

On all the Metz I've run on the Sporty (70,000 miles), the fronts came from Brazil and the rears have been from Germany.

No problems from either.

 

The original thread from the HD Forums is dated 25 September 2007.

https://www.hdforums.com/forum/gener...es-brazil.html

Here is a link to a thread from the XL Forum dated 16 June 2009 concerning the Brazilian Metz Factory.

http://xlforum.net/vbportal/forums/s...ghlight=brazil

A useful excerpt from a post:

The other nugget of information from Metzeler is that their tyres require 10% more pressure than stock tyres. So if people fit them and use stock Dunlop pressures as per their owners manual they are going to be running under-pressure.

Here's the full feedback from Metzeler via Drag Specialties on this issue:

1. They are producing almost twice the number of tires as they were 4 years ago, and they have almost the same amount of failures as they did 4 years ago, not the same per centage, the same number. They say this is due to upgrading their production facilities, equipment, etc.

2. They have pretty much the same number of failures from Germany as they do Brazil, so just cause your tire says Brazil on it, DO NOT be alarmed.

3. The MAJORITY of failures Metz sees is directly due to under inflation. Metz's take about 10% more inflation than due dunlops, and ALOT of shops and consumers have tires that are under inflated, which makes your tire heat up extremely quick, and causes the side wall problem.

4. Metz is by their own account, and Drag confirms, very good about taking care of the tires, even when it's not their fault.

5. They have seen failures (more than you would think) from rear tires being mounted on the front, and front's bein mounted on the rear, which leads to a severe torque and overweight situation.

6. They have a toll free number for questions, 800-747-3554 at the prompt press 2, if you do not get someone leave a voice mail, someone will call you back.


I am not going to worry about it ... the issue was a temporary one and resolved years ago as elPrez stated in his post.


Just remember to check your tire pressure.

 

Here's another article concerning a recall years ago which states that most of the tires were recovered. Again, this was in 2007, and refers to the HD Forums as a reference.

http://www.bikernewsonline.com/2007/...g-recalled.htm