Mounting Issue with Bridgestone RE-71RS?

We mounted two 245/40's on 8" Porsche Cayman rims and it took hours for each wheel.  We couldn't get 1 on and had to send it back and get a replacement. The replacement went on but it still took hours.  The rears were 275/35's and we mounted on 9" Porsche Cayman wheels. They went on much easier but still took a lot longer than regular tires. 

Has anyone experienced mounting issues with the RE-71RS?  

Yep it's a thing. Make sure they're nice and hot. Do everything you can to keep the last of the front bead from tucking in on itself and hope you have enough air. There's no easy button for that size namely on that wheel. 

What about mounting the 255/35's on a 9" rim and 275/35's on a 10" wheel? 

If you drop a size, do they go on easier? 

I used to run 275/35r18 on the G35. I have had the tire machine snatch a wheel out of the clamps and try to throw it across the shop while mounting those stiff ass tires. 

They can be a nightmare even with helper arms and extra people.

The set I mounted on Miata wheels this weekend for a friend took two people working the machine plus the helper arms to make the bead drop into the wheel properly and not tear. Then it took 70 psi to get the beads to seat. 

It's the nature of the beast. 

35 series = the devils work.

Wheel design matters quite a bit too, but unless you have an easy wheel and a non-pinched fitment with a decent sized sidewall, they're a pain.

a few other tips/tricks:

- thick lube and lots of it to help seal the small leaks when seating the bead. Beadbuster tractor tire lube works. It can result in the tire moving on the rim, so rebalancing later might be required

- high flow fill straight from the compressor tank with a high flow air chuck. Obviously have to be careful you don't over inflate 

- mounting/dismounting the tire a couple times can also help it seat

Oh yeah Bridgestones are awful. Dave Whitworth at SPS charges an extra $20 per tire at events to mount them, and IMO he's being too kind.

as mentioned before, the best luck I've had is with heat (mounting them in a 90 degree shop in Florida in the summer after leaving them in the sun for a couple hours helps), obscene amount of thick lube (you want something that will stay in place and not evaporate quickly), and terrifying amounts of pressure. 

The good news is the second time around they mount like regular tires. So I recommend maybe mounting them the second time the first time you do it. Haven't quite worked out the logistics on that one yet, though.

In reply to JG Pasterjak :

So, basically this:

RE-71RS update: Today I had a tire shop fail to mount my 265/35-18 s on 9-inch Porsche OE wheels. The 225/40-18 fronts mounted up OK but the rears resisted. The shop eventually gave up, put my old tires back on the rims and sent me on my way, four hours later. I thought maybe it was just them, but it sounds like it really is something about the tires.  I have run a lot of stiff street and race tires from various brands over the years, including years of Bridgestones in the same sizes,  but I've never run into this before. 

Any additional tips?

Can add me on this list. Three shops failed, all of them experienced with sports car tires. Tires were 265/35-18 (mid-2022 builds) and rims were Work Meister S1 2P in 8.5 width. The last shop test mounted a 255/35-18 Nankang CR-S and it went on with no issue. Have ordered the RE-71RS in 255/35-18 and will hope for the best. 

Having said that, none of them tried some of the suggestions such as heating, massive amounts of lube and extreme pressures.

Pro tip: buy your RE71RS from Tire Rack and have them heat cycled.  That means they were already mounted/dismounted once.  Second mounts are normal with these tires.

Use a shop that has a leverless/touchless machine.  They can do amazing things.  Mount stiff low profile tires like it was nothing.  They can even grab the tire and spin it on the rim to get it lined up with the valve stem where you want it. 

These machines are expensive as all hell, though ($30k+) so you might have to call around, and expect to pay more per tire to have them mounted.

I've had to run 140+ psi to get beads to seat, after sanding the lips of the beads down a little.  70 is nothin'

arthurc604 said:

Having said that, none of them tried some of the suggestions such as heating, massive amounts of lube and extreme pressures.

In that size combination they probably can't get the tires to seal well enough to hold pressure, so there's no "using extreme pressure" in that case.

In reply to dps214 :

Doesn't help if you can't physically get the tire on the rim.  Wide low profile tires on wheels with large diameter bells is a horrible combination. 

This is only the second time I've heard of a touchless tire machine. It's a machine with a different set of tools that can install or remove a tire with none of the tools touching the wheel, don't think I've seen one before:

I watched Discount Tire mount a set of RE-71RS tires, and they used something similar–or maybe the same setup. The tire machine had that vertical arm. It looked quick and easy. 

I've had the Tire Rack mobile installation (guy in a van) come to my house and do my last couple sets of these. I have not heard any complains or issues from the tech. They seemed to get the job done pretty quickly. 205-50-15 on 8" wheels. 

At the school I taught we had a pretty up to date machine, but we couldn't do anything shorter than a 45, when we got our new touchless machine it would do pretty much any tire easily, much like the one in the video. 50 series are easy by comparison......

I run 175/50-13's on my minis, easy peasy to change.

I had to use fire to set the bead with my set.  They're awful for mounting.

A 50 series is about like an all season. Easy. 

A 35 series is painful. 275/35R18s on a 9" wheel is work. Doable, but work. 

I wonder if the new version of the tire is stiffer than the older version. 

Found a picture of the machine used to mount the Bridgestones (not a great pic, but the best that I took). 

With a traditional tire machine, 265/35/18 on a 9.5" wheel went on reasonably fine and took only a little bit of extra effort to get to take air and seated around 70psi. It felt like that combo was the limit of "reasonable". 255/35/19 on an 8.5" apparently took several hours and was only able to hold air by the tires sitting in the sun for a while and using a LOT of lube. Our first attempt at it with used tires just didn't work, but that was a few weeks ago when it was colder and not sunny. We're not doing that size combination again (we normally would have avoided it in the first place but we bought used wheels with tires already mounted and they worked *really* well and didn't want to risk messing that up). FWIW 285/35/19 on an 11" wheel and 295/35/18 also on an 11" went totally fine, relatively easy to mount and like 40psi to seat. So if you're doing "sane" tire sizes it's really not much worse than anything else, it's the stupid majorly pinched tire setups that are impossible to do...maybe it's the universe trying to teach us the error of our ways.

arthurc604 said:

Can add me on this list. Three shops failed, all of them experienced with sports car tires. Tires were 265/35-18 (mid-2022 builds) and rims were Work Meister S1 2P in 8.5 width. The last shop test mounted a 255/35-18 Nankang CR-S and it went on with no issue. Have ordered the RE-71RS in 255/35-18 and will hope for the best.

To follow up on this, the 255 also wouldn't mount and the shop was using a touchless machine. Thanks Andy for the excellent suggestion about having them heat cycled. I watched them mount a set for another customer - I think it was a 255 on a 9-1/2 rim. Was a bit more work but it did bead after about 5 minutes extra fiddling.

I've bought my most recent set of RE71rs from Costco, didn't hear any complaints about mounting them, but a 225/50-16 on a 7 inch wheel probably wasn't too bad. 
 

I'm apprehensive about the next set, which will be 205/50-15 (wider than they sound) on my super rare and irreplaceable six inch SSR type C wheels. Wheel damage is the big concern.

I've had all of my tires mounted at a performance tire shop owned by a former racer, but Costco sells them cheaper than Tire Rack and includes mounting. 

Floating Doc (Forum Supporter) said:

I've bought my most recent set of RE71rs from Costco, didn't hear any complaints about mounting them, but a 225/50-16 on a 7 inch wheel probably wasn't too bad. 
 

I'm apprehensive about the next set, which will be 205/50-15 (wider than they sound) on my super rare and irreplaceable six inch SSR type C wheels. Wheel damage is the big concern.

I've had all of my tires mounted at a performance tire shop owned by a former racer, but Costco sells them cheaper than Tire Rack and includes mounting. 

15s don't seem to be as hard to mount as the lower profile Bridgestones. All the friends that have mounted by 15s including older RE71r never had issues with the 15s and were for the most part quick and easy jobs. Looking at some of the RE71rs run on 15x8s, they seem closer to size than some of the other 205/50/15s that run a lot wider, looking at you RT660 lol