Uninstalling the rear wheel, demounting the tire, removing a sensor, installing a sensor, syncing the sensor, remounting a tire, testing the sensor, re-balancing the wheel, and remounting the wheel is a pretty major operation.... and impossible without all the right tools, most of which are far outside the reach of normal people (Tire balancer? ECU programming?).
Well, you've just described the process for putting a new tire on a bike. Once you have done that, taking the sensor out is a piece of cake. I do understand the programming issue.
I certainly do not have to replace MY rear tire every rear, much less multiple times a year. Personally, I think the design is a bit insane. I keep thinking that, certainly, something could have been designed to charge the batteries (or use no batteries) from the available kinetic energy.
Okay, I can't argue that you don't have to replace your tire every year except to give you a good natured hard time about not riding the bike enough.
I'm not sure how you can say that the design is insane. The design itself is no different than what is being used in many, many millions of vehicles. The difference is that Kawasaki is obviously using an inferior battery. I've owned many cars with TPMS that use a similar design but have never had to be replaced. I also seldom see people post about them being a problem in the Goldwing forum, even though mine did require a replacement at a little over 2 years (replaced under warranty).
While I don't like the idea of replacing them, I understand that they are a "wear" component of the vehicle much like many other components are. Yes, it should last longer, but then again it does fall under the three year warranty.
