To Ultraseal or Not to Ultraseal – That is the Question!
Author Steve Moxey
I have to make a confession here: I have been an Ultraseal user for over 10 years and have used the tyre sealant in all of my bikes: K1600GT, RTs, GSAs, GSs with no problems at all. Well that is not quite true I did once try it in a tubed tyre on my R100RS and that was not successful as the nail ripped the tube apart by the time I had come to a stop on the M32 hard shoulder outside of Bristol at 17:00 on a Friday – not a pleasant experience waiting for recovery with HGVs hurtling past at 60mph+.
For more information see www.ultraseal.com or watch this Ultraseal commercial, a bit old but has lots of the useful information:
In fact the experience with the R100RS is a very good reason why it is worth considering Ultraseal if you have tubeless tyres on your bike: although in principle you can stop and repair a puncture in reality it is probably going to happen in the dark, in traffic when you are a long way from home and you really don’t want to stop and try to fix the problem, or worse wait an hour or so for recovery in the pouring rain.
I have experienced two punctures with Ultraseal, the first was on a 2006 RT, I noticed the tyre pressure had gone down slightly so I check the rear wheel, found a nail, removed it, re-inflated the tyre and rode another 2,000 miles until it was due to be replaced. My second experience was in Spain on an R1200GSLC two-up, fully loaded, on a motorway: again, the tyre pressure dropped suddenly so I pulled off into a service station. This time there was an M8 screw in the rear tyre which I removed and as the hole was large I decided to plug it with a Stop n’ Go kit, the Ultraseal might have sealed this hole in time but I wanted to be sure of a repair. I then completed the holiday and did another 3,000 miles on the tyre.
All the usual advice applies to tyres with Ultraseal: remember to inspect your tyres, check the pressures and carefully consider whether to use the Ultraseal as a get you home option and then get it professionally repaired or replaced.
I have used Ultraseal with BMW Tyre Press Sensors on five bikes with no problems at all, despite the old wives’ tales that do the rounds regularly. By the way you cannot feel Ultraseal in the tyres of a large touring bikes, it might be possible on a highly tuned sports bike?
A final claim for Ultraseal is that it extends tyre life by distributing the heat in the tyre to minimise wear. I only have my own experience to go on: I used Ultraseal in my Metzeler Tourance tyres on my GSA in the USA and got more than 10,000 miles from my tyres although the bikes was fully loaded and the temperature was 90-110F most days.
So if you would like to give Ultraseal a go, how do you do this? For UK supply my best advice would be to check out the Ultraseal web site for your nearest Ultraseal installer. If you want to do it yourself then there is www.bikeseal.co.uk who sell a similar product and have installation videos to help, there is also a discount for BMW Club members, see the discounts page in the Journal.
Hopefully this will be helpful to members in avoiding unwanted stops for punctures, as always owners should carefully evaluate products and make their own decisions on how to make use of them in accordance with the manufacturer’s instructions.
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Originally posted 2018-03-18 21:40:19.
