Tire Replacement Pain & i3 Wish
 

Special Thanks to long time SegwayChat member TerryP for saving me from myself on a tire replacement job. I had fought with installing new tires for six hours with only Swiss cheese looking tubes to show for the effort. TerryP (with minor help from me) had two tires mounted without tube holes in 45 minutes!

So the one feature on my i3 wish-list is a different wheel design. Maybe the Michelin Airless Tweel or a simple 1940's truck bolt together split rim, I don't care but it shouldn't continue with the home repair nightmare i2 rims.

Segway has three good market growth areas; Police use, Tour Groups, and all us/those aging baby-boomers and we're getting too old and cranky to be fighting with tire irons, tubes, and bloody hands.

A few facts on this tire change:

Lost the center thread channel (time to replace indicator) at 3,500 miles.

Knowing the change would be difficult decided to delay to ~ 4,000 miles.

There is a difference in handling after the center thread is gone.
Tire squirm was very noticeable and a bit unsettling on rough surfaces.
Overall cornering also seemed less precise.

Noticed a big difference when the new tires were used yesterday, it is like a new SEG.

Final miles before tire replacement 4,125

Why don't you describe how it is done and perhaps give us some lessons learned so that the rest of us can benefit from your experience.

Do not feel bad in that you are hardly the only one with a problem replacing these tires. But not all things that are hard are difficult for all.

I, too, have been fortunate enough to be in a position to help out a person with a tire problem, and he too was thankful that I was able to help him. Part of it is the right tools and familiar with their use, and part is that some people simply find this project more difficult than others. My ability to change these tires does not mean much, as they are a fairly hard tire, relatively, if compared to a bike, but not so much if compared to a motorcycle or car.

Of course, some people find quantum physics easy too, and that is one that I might go to another for assistance. To each their own.

Key is, your glide is back on. Good for you.

Karl helped me changing a tube once, and I was very grateful. He made it easy and partly it was his tools, one home made.

I've done this a few times because I like to experiment with different tires for my i180 rims that were originally made for scooters or motorcycles. The changes also include putting the stock tire back on the rims too. Anyway, here's the steps:

1. Load Segway wheels and existing tires in the back of the van with the new tires and/or tubes.
2. Drop everything off at the local tire shop (Les Schwab, in my case).
3. Pick everything up an hour later.
4. Go home and mount the new setup on my Segway.

http://1footinthegrave.com/images/go...-tires07tn.jpg

My tire shop does this all for about $15.00. Once they did it for free. I've bought all my wheels and tires for my motor vehicles for the last 20+ years from the same shop and trust them implicitly. They damaged a full moon hubcap once. I ordered a new one and they paid for it. A good tire shop is a great benefit to anyone who drives and glides.

Jim

Wheel design, lol !

Let's see they have run out of totally inconvenient places to put the valve stem so I guess it's time to make it accesable again. Ya know like it was on the first Segways. Not to mention the overpriced tires that are stock. To INCs buyers go shopping there are far better, less expensive tires.

I have no other comments on things I'd like on a new model until they re-work the simple things.

Please back to basics no more form over function.

Be Big,
AMAC

:thumbsup:This!!!! Been using an i2 since 07, the stupid aesthetic over function choices still annoy me!

It could be worse
 

At least the stem is still on the outside of the tube :D

Long ago, I drilled a hole in the appropriate place, added a short extension, and mounted the tube the other direction. The result is that since 2007, the tube stem comes out the factory hole, but instead of bending toward the inside of the segway, mine bends toward the outside, goes thru the wheel, and is accessible outside the segway tire, just like almost every other inflated tire on the planet.

Did you really have good results with this? My authorized Segway dealer is a bit of a long trip for me, but there are tire places all over the place. I've been wondering if I could just buy Segway tires (when the time comes) and bring my Segway to a local tire place, but I wasn't sure if I would get a response along the lines of "I don't know what the heck that is, so get it outta here!"

I certainly don't mind paying them for their service, but I'm just not sure if they would even be willing to try.