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I went down to the local tire shop yesterday to address the vibration I have been feeling on the freeway between 65-70mph for the past few months. The tires were rotated and balanced. as I do after a repair on any of my vehicles, i test drove it on the freeway and everything was smooth running until I hit about 72mph at which time my dash board almost vibrated out of my van and out the window on the pass side. I have a feeling that the tire shop moved my problem tire/wheel over from the drivers side rear to the pass side front... wouldn't they have noticed if it was out of round, rim bent or not seated correctly??? Guess my only other option is to ask them to replace it with my full size spare?
I had a problem with a out of round tire/wheel on my pickumup truck with over size steel wheels and tires. The fix was to rotate the tire 180 deg. on the wheel. Two outs cancled themselfs. Cheap fix.
Also make sure your wheels don't have a crap load of dirt built up on the inside. My jeep was shaking like a dog crapping a logging chain when I got above 70mph and that is what it turned out to be. It was only one wheel, the rest were fine.
Remember the deep dish wheel days? I friend told me a trick that was played on him that all most took out the fillings in his teeth. The joker stuck a bean burrito on the deep dish of the front wheel of his car. Don't get any ideas kids.
We had a very similar vibration at those speeds (2003 15Pax E350) on the stock tires.
Had them balanced, rotated, and had drive shaft balanced.
On a trip between San Francisco and Los Angeles I noticed two of the tires with 30K miles had sidewall cracking going on which can be indicator of tread separation. I replaced the tires in LA and no more vibration.
So, have a look at your sidewalls and see if there are any bulges, or cracking. Tread Sep could be the culprit.
Well I went back to the tire shop and advised them that there is still a problem. so they decided to spin the front tires again to see if they were ballanced incorrectly. wouldn't you know it, they were way off. They reballanced the fronts and on my way I went. But guess what?... There is still a vibration starting slightly at 65mph and ges worse as I progressively increase the speed. I am going back Friday afternoon and demanding that they "ride match" the fronts and then put them on the rear. then reballance the rears and place them on the front. Then I am headed to the dealer for them to check the front suspension. It amazing, it only has 32k miles on it and the tires look like they are in excellent shape. Why they cant get it right is puzzling to me.
All I can say is that I was going through EXACTLY the same thing for over a year. Same speeds, same symptoms as you are mentioning. It was driving me nuts. The tires looked fine, lots of tread, 30K miles on the van and the tires. The tire shop was able to give me 50% credit on the tires that were bad.
Changed the tires and the problem went away for me.
Quad Van, yes I am somewhat in the bay area. San Jose to be exact. Well I went back to the tire shop this afternoon and asked them to spin all 4 again on the machine. and once again all 4 were off ballance. I asked them to reballance and move the fronts to the rear and the rears back to the front. I still have a little vibration but nothing like it was. in my opinion there is a problem with the two rear tires. after a little inspection afterwards I noticed that they have worn a little odd from what appears to be bad ballance over time. the tires will probably never ride correctly again. Looks like I am going to have to buy 1 new tire and replace the other with the spare... what is it with these vans and tires?
I have two good E350 stock tires with good tread on stock 8 lug rims and I'm in San Francisco. Let me know if you have any interest in seeing them or just trying them out to see if that solves your vibration problem completely.
Everyone else has already said it, but I too had for brand new, expensive Firestone tires on a car I had a couple years ago. Took it back 4 or five times for rebalancing. Finally the shop replaced two of them, and it got a little better. Not until I replaced the other two due to premature wear did the shake go away. It was the new, expensive tires all along, and there was no way to tell it visually or mechanically.
I have two good E350 stock tires with good tread on stock 8 lug rims and I'm in San Francisco. Let me know if you have any interest in seeing them or just trying them out to see if that solves your vibration problem completely.
Ray
If your willing to ship them across the country let me know how much you want for them. Also, are they 245's? I know some vans come with 225's.
Let me know.
Thanks, Dan
I am definately interested. what is the brand and size? can you send me a private message with your e-mail / phone number? I would like to replace the two bad tires.