Perfectly balanced tires????

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Gerald Pierce

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I had a set of Coopers that always were difficult to balance, so I took them back to Discount Tire and complained. They gave me a new set of Pathfinders for around 200.00 after credit for the others. Of course, I bought them in Jax FL and immediately drove back to where I live in VA....



any how, since day one, there has been a little vibration at 65 or so MPH. So I get to looking at them this weekend and the left side tires have various amounts of weight on them.... the right side has none on either wheel. :eek: I cant imagine 2 tires being perfect "right out of the box" so I have to assume they didn't balance them initially (or the weights came off)... so, now I am off to the tire shop to get them balanced.



Now let's hope I didn't screw up the tires in the 3k miles I have on them.



Really not happy about this.....
 
with tires you have to go with the brands you hear if you dont want any vibrations or imperfections. I had the same problem and everyone I know that has baught the pathfinders from discount tire. They dont like to give you the money back on those tires at all. It is there private label brand and they suck.
 
It was the same deal on the Dominators I had... they were made by Cooper for Discount Tire. They gave me a good "trade" on the old tires and I could have applied it to any tire there, but I honestly drive the ST very little anymore with the price of gas as it is, so I really just needed four tires, but I would expect they should be vibration free at first.



Most of it's mileage is around town, and the pathfinders work pretty good, I am sure they will be better once I get some balancing done on the 2 right side tires.
 
Could it be there are weights on the inside of the rim and just none on the outside?
Click to expand...



nothing there at all. I looked everywhere. They either fell off (stick on type), they didn't balance them, OR I have the only two perfectly balanced tire/wheel combinations I have ever seen. (Not likely) :)
 
When mounting tires at sears I had some especially the tire with a yellow dot on them, Those are factory balanced, and the dot is to be aligned up with the valve stem... 60% of the time they would be perfectly balanced. BUT even if they where I would take the "ROUNDING" off on the balancer and it would be calling for a .20 or .15 weight some where, AND I would place a .25 on any way...



I will say I NEVER had a customer come back with any tire I installed with a balancing issue, and I was the one who fixed them For the others...

Todd Z
 
I had a balance issue on my Audi A6, that kicked in around 80MPH.....which is typically where I drive it..........



After looking all over the front end and not finding anything wrong or worn anywhere, my Audi mechanic told me about "high speed balancing"....so I took my car into a tire shop and requested a high speed balance. Cost me about $25 if I recall, and the vibration was gone.....
 
Cruz...



I had a similar problem. I am on my second set of Bridgestone’s from a local Bridgestone/Firestone dealer. They gave me the best upfront price for the tires. Whenever they mounted and balanced the tires, they used weird weight combinations. It still had a vibration no matter what they did. I spoke with the manager and he said he was using his experienced guy, the machine was fine etc, etc.



Because of the wait times, and "lack of" customer service at the B/Firestone store, I would end up going back to my old failsafe location to have the balance checked, my local Sears service center. They were quick, and the technician acts like he gives a darn when he does the balance and alignment. They rebalanced my ST after the B/F store said they were done, and the Sears technician said that every tire was off. When Sears was done, the weights made more sense. I had purchased Sears lifetime balance for my ST, and they have continued to do it on my second set of tires. With my new Bridgestone Alenza’s, the ST is the smoothest and quietest it has ever been. Smooth as silk with no cupping. I hear zero road noise.



My conclusion: When getting a balance job done, it is a mixed bag of: how old the balance machine is, how often it is calibrated and maintained, and if the technician is good, or even if they give a s--- when they do the job. For me, the local Sears does a fantastic job. My two vehicles come out aligned correctly and run smooth as silk.



Unfortunately, it is probably a hit and miss proposition to find a place that can do it right. For me, the local Bridgestone/Firestone dealer was clueless and insisted that everything was okay.



If you are having vibration problems, your place might not have done the job correctly, and you will have to just move on and find a different place (assuming that there is no other mechanical issue in the vibration mix.)



Good luck.

 
There are different style wheel weights that should be used on alloy wheels than on steel wheels. If the wheel weights designed for steel wheels are used on alloy wheels, they will usually fly off the first time the vehcile hits about 50 MPH or less.



I learned this the hard way many years ago when I bought a set of alloy wheels for my new 1978 Buick Regal. I could never get the wheels balanced and noticed that I was always loosing the wheel weights. Finally I got someone at a tire store show me that the wheels had the wrong style weights and showed be the difference.



The steel wheels have a curved outer lip and use a curved back on the wheel weight. Alloy wheels have a flat beveled lip on the outer edge and the proper weights have an angled back on th wheel weight.



...Rich

 
There are over 7 different style of aluminum wheel weights because of the lip on all the different rims, There is a special plastic Gage that is used to properly identify the weight to be used, Unfortunately most places do not have the Gage nor all the proper weights...

Todd Z
 
Todd, not to go against you, but....I read an article in either PM or CR about balancing tires. The yellow dot is the heavy side of the tire. For the best ballance, spin the rim, find the heavy side. Then place the yellow dot oposite of that. The claim is that most of the time you will come out with minimal wieghts.

I have never been able to get a shop to take that much time. If the weight gets up to 2oz, I make them spin the tire on the rim and redo balance...
 
Fast, that may be the case, But the tire training classes we where taught held by Yokohama tire company told us differently, IT may have just been their brand of tire...

Todd Z
 
I just got a set of Yokohamas for the wife's car. Had my friend's tire shop install them (I wanted Yoko TRZ's and he does not sell Yokos). I asked them to put the yellow dot next to the valve stem and the tire tech said "Okay, but it really doesn't make a lot of difference". It didn't.
 
Having balanced hundreds (maybe thousands) of tires, they do occasionally balance without the need of weights. In fact, if you take your time and spin the tire on the rim you can usually get pretty close without weights. It is certainly possible that a weight fell off as well. Another possibility is that the tire is out of round just enough to feel it. Nearly all tires have a bit of a hop to them when you spin them on the balancer. If it was bad we always broke it down and spun the tire on the rim and that would generally correct it. I vaguely recall using the dots, but I don't recall whether it was the light area, heavy area or high spot. In fact, I think it was different for different manufacturers... Any case, spinning the tire on the rim and actually finding the sweet spot should be done if it is bouncing or too much weight is required regardless of dot position. For what it's worth the only tires that would consistently spin perfectly true were Michelins. Don't know what they did different than everybody else, but it worked. Bottom line, just get them rebalanced.
 

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