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Why do you guys think it is that so many people have problems with wheel balancing and vibrations? I've never had this issue on any of my vehicles. Is it poor quality control/defects with the tires? Maybe I'm just not as sensitive as some but it seems to be a common issue on forums...
A) tire shops are not good a balancing medium duty tires .
b) all the trucks I’ve had do fine at 55. Take them to 75 and sometimes it feels like your in a blender .
c) phantom vibrations do to play in various components seem to be less impacted if the tires have dynamic self correction devices .
A) tire shops are not good a balancing medium duty tires .
b) all the trucks I’ve had do fine at 55. Take them to 75 and sometimes it feels like your in a blender .
c) phantom vibrations do to play in various components seem to be less impacted if the tires have dynamic self correction devices .
Feel bad for you on your tires. My experience has been the opposite. Get the correct road force balance done there will be no vibration to speak of. I went to the ranch in NM earlier this week going back Sunday and much of that drive is at 85. My steering wheel does not move and there is very very little vibration in fact is more dependent on the pavement type and condition. Just so happened I had my tires re road forced (aftermarket wheels as well) and rotated (6k since new install) of my 325 60-20 BFG KM3's which are not the easiest nor the best balancing tire out there last Monday. I run Fox shocks with my BDS 2.5 leveling kit and dual Fox steering stabilizer as well so that could contribute.
Yep - $1400 for a set of "cheap" track tires (like Nitto NT-05s) that last only a few track days - and I was only doing HPDE (high performance drivers education) track. But fun to take a fast, capable car to a place like Spring Mountain Motor Ranch with its 3.2 mile, 19 turns of asphalt. I'm sure the monster C7 Z06 can go through tires even faster.
My Z06 just just north of Las Vegas
NICE CAR! Love the color! Guess we are the Z06 guys on the board. First start of mine after the engine work.
As a result of my CDO (also known as OCD), I end up watching the tire change teenagers like a hawk. I get my tires balanced every 10,000 miles or less and after 1 million driven miles, that means I've been in the bay of a tire shop at least 100 times. I try to go and be one of the first ones in the morning and ask if the machine has been calibrated for the day. While they always say yes, I sincerely doubt it most of the time. Without me watching, they seem content if they can get the tire within 1 oz. I expect to see a perfect balance of 0, but you also have to make sure the tire is round which is the other reason I watch them like a hawk. Many tire shops don't want you in the bay, but I make it clear that they won't get any business from me unless I can watch the tire balancing process. You need to closely watch the tire and make sure there is no significant high or low spots on the tire. A good road force balance should catch this, but if one is not available, any tire hop should be less than 1/16" or less.
With all this said, I've recently had the chance to access a mid-level tire machine at a military installation where I can do my own tire changes and balance. I did a test the other day and balanced a passenger car tire. I then loosened the tire on the balance shaft, rotated it 90 degrees and re-balanced it. While you would expect it to remain balanced, it now showed to be .75 oz. off. I repeated many times and discovered to my dismay, that the machine was not repeatable (well, it did give me a different result every time). I even tried lubing the centering cone to ensure a more consistent and repeatable mounting procedure. At least for this machine, even when you think you have a perfect balance, it's probably not as perfect as you'd expect it to be.
Also, if the tire calls for a ridiculous amount of balancing weight, I'll ask for the tire to be dismounted and rotated 90 degrees and try again. I like to have 3 oz or less weight on each of the tires. Lastly, even when I've had tires road forced balanced at the initial purchase, I've had tires fail a road force test less than 20,000 miles later. BFG was the worst for this and as such, I'd have a hard time buying another set of their tires again.
What is being "balanced" on a tire machine, even a Hunter 9700 Road Force Balancer (which I have tested) and perhaps even the Hunter Road Force Elite (which I have not tested)... is the relationship of the tire and wheel assembly to the machine, as defined by how the tire and wheel assembly was chucked up to the machine.
In my tests, with dually type wheels (balanced individually) in both the 16" and 19.5" sizes, each fitted with 225 tires (oem issue in both cases), every balance was repeatable on the Road Force balancer after being respun from a full stop following the previous balance of that tire and wheel assembly... if, and only if, the tire and wheel assembly remained on the machine.
As soon as the tire and wheel assembly was dechucked from the machine, set on the ground, and then immediately rechucked to the same machine, by the same operator, within the same minute, and even clocked in the same orientation (not even rotating 90 or 180 degrees prior to rechucking)... the balance was off.
Let me repeat: No balance was repeatable if the tire and wheel assembly was removed from the machine and remounted.
I paid for these tests, at two different tire shops, after first contacting Hunter to identify which tire shops in my area had a Road Force balancing machine.
The pronounced offset of dually wheels likely play a significant role in exacerbating the infinitesimally small idiosyncratic deviations from one chucking event to another, so the same (dismal and disappointing) results may not apply to SRW wheels, which I did not test.
Asking a tire technician to respin a freshly balanced tire and wheel assembly, without first asking the tire technician to REMOVE the tire and wheel assembly from the balancing machine, set it down on the ground (get it off of the machine spindle), and then remounting it to the machine (in any clock orientation, it doesn't matter) prior to testing for repeatability of previous balance.... is simply fooling oneself. Of course it will rebalance perfectly if the tire and wheel is never removed. But the tire and wheel doesn't get used on the machine... it gets used on the truck. It needs to be as balanced as possible when mounted to a hub that approximates that of the truck.
One size fits all centering cones that come standard on the balancing machines do not do this. And the application specific adapters are so expensive (hundreds of dollars each), it is highly unlikely that any given tire shop will have every application specific adapter on hand, and even if they did, it is unlikely that revolving door of entry level techs doing the work will be trained to make the changeover, and even if trained, will they be able to find the adapters in the shop, and even they know where the adapters are, and know which adapter to use for which application, with the backlog of customer vehicles filling their parking lot, and impatient eyes staring them down through the shop window, will they be able to take the time to deal with an adapter? So the universal centering cone gets used in a fast paced work environment where everyone is under pressure.
Even when tipping $20 or $100, ahead of time, for take all day if necessary balance treatment, unless or until the tire and wheel assembly is removed from the balancing machine altogether, and then rechucked onto the machine for the repeatability test, nothing has been proven in the way of true, repeatable balance for that tire and wheel assembly.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Yes Physics are what they are LOL! Very good read here folks. I might add that even testing a machine on the first run of the day or the last when it is at operating temperature will cause variations. This is not rocket science however, it can be done. Just takes a little due diligence on the part of the consumer. The days of the simple spin balance are gone along with nickel Cokes. Nothing like the machine calling to break the tire down and move 110 degrees on the wheel and then when rebalancing calls for 4 oz vs 15. Plus when rotating the tire did not wobble any longer when spinning on the machine.
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