I have a problem with vibration mainly at high speed. Feels like I would envision an out of balance tire but here is where I'm at with it. New tires from Sears twice! Rebalanced many times. I put new shocks on rear last night. No help. U joints seem good. It can be felt around 40 MPH in city and then fades till on highway and getting up to 60 - 65 mph. worsens as you go higher. Not always the same feel. Depending on road surface. I find tar roads to be worse. Frustrating to say the least. It's not something you cant live with but certainly not desireable. I never remember the problem until I had new tires put on in mid 2008. Finally got Sears/Goodyear to replace tires about 3 months ago since 2 went bad anyhow. It didn't change the problem at all so we have ruled out tires. Doesn't seem to be felt in the steering. I don't know if vibration describes it. Might be more of a thumping type vibration. Does anyone know if there should be a little play in the driveshaft (yoke?)where it goes into the tranny? Not major but I could move it side to side slightly. Noticed it when I was checking U joints. HELP!!

 

My experience with vans is that they are hyper sensitive to out of round wheels. any up and down movement (occilation) will torment you. I wouldn't look too deep for other things until you jack that sucker up and spin each wheel on the vehicle and see if you have a bent rim. My wife hit a curb once with ours and the steel wheel warped enough to where I had to throw that one away to get the van smooth again. The guys balancing my wheels were sloppy about gettting them centered on the balancer and most balancers you find in most shops have not been calibrated recently. I took the same wheels and tires to several different shops and had no success, but found one shop that did it right and the van was as smooth as silk. The vans can give you fits on this.
Andrew.

 

Thanks for the response. I will try your suggestion this weekend. Sears had moved the wheels front to back and there was no change. One would think that would allow you to feel something in the steering wheel if bent rim were moving front to back. I'll check all the rims and also look for up and down movement. If that checks out, I'll find another company to balance them. Someone recommended I go to a high performance shop and have them spun at higher speeds.

 

What about a bad motor mount, or tranny mount?

 

You are not looking for a lot of movement like really bent. If the tire is not mounted properly or the rim is bent slightly you might end up with 1/2 inch up and down oscillation and at speed it will make that van shake a lot.
Andrew

 

Got the same problem on my 06 E-350 6.0 Diesel. Starts at 40mph, worst at 50mph, but then tapers off by 60mph. New Michelin LTX M/S balanced three times and checked and double checked for bent or out of round. Ford has checked all front end parts for wear and realigned it twice. New premium Monroe shocks all around.
Still no luck.

 

I put new alloy rims, Michelin LTX on mine and they still shook. The balancer must be calibrated on a regular basis and the wheel must be centered properly on the machine or you will have trouble.
I jack up each wheel and have my son spin the front ones as fast as he can and then let them rotate and you can see if there is an up and down movement in the tire, or the rim.
I jack up the back on one side, (as long as you don't have a limited slip diff) and spin the wheel at idle in drive and check the back that way.
If you have LS you will need to get both of those wheels off the ground. Be careful, I have two floor jacks.
The mechanics are not going to take the time to do this.
I have watched them do the balance and its been off centered and I have said to them, it doesn't look right, and they tell me its fine!
The suspension is too strong on these to absorb wheel out of roundness so it transmits into the body and shakes.
I have driven ford econolines 700,000 miles since 1993, this issue can drive you nuts, but when its right, its right.
Andrew.

 

fortunately I found a God send, a shop about 40 minutes from me that really takes their time and has a good machine and they believe that if you have to put more than one weight on each side of the tire then its not going to be balanced properly. They will take the time to move the weight a bit and get it 00 out. Many wheels you see that they have one weight and then a little one to zero it out on the machine, that wheel will not be balanced at speed.
Andrew.

 

Not all wheel balancing is equal. As others have mentioned, finding a shop that has good equipment and employees that know what they are doing is your best bet. Some places will have something called a high-speed balance, you just have to call and ask. I had the annoying cruise-speed vibration (65-70 mph) on my van. I found a shop that could do a high-speed balance and it took care of it.

Something else that a good wheel shop will do is move tire around on the rim if it starts out really unbalanced. Both tires and rims have heavy spots, and rather than having a huge pile of weights, moving the tire in relation to the rim can usually get the wheel much closer to balanced before even installing weights. Finding a shop that is willing to take this extra step might be difficult, but you just have to ask.

Dave

 

Do it this way"

Make sure rims are perfectly straight and true round.

Sometimes, it is true on the center hole, but when bolted on it is not.

Only sure way is to bolt on the rim on the hub without tire, and then rotate and measure run out with dial gauge at the bead (inside) of the rim.

Check factory specs, but runout should not be more than 1mm by my thumbnail both for roundness (measured on both rim bead), and also ditto for lateral runout on both sides.


Then, Tire.

Many shops do not use a lubricant to lubricate the bead before mounting.

Make sure they do on both sides of the tire.

Mount it, see how much weight is needed to balance it.

If it is more than 1 oz anywhere, remove tire, rotate tire 180 degrees, and see if the weight increased or decreased.

If it decrease, great. Then rotate it (eg clockwise) 90 degrees and see if weight reduces further. If not, try other way (eg counter-clockwise) 90 degrees.

Work this until you are at 45 degree or smaller increments to find the minimum weight point.

MARK the tire / rim mounting spot with the lowest weight on both the rim and tire.

Photograph it with marks, clearly showing which tire it is.


Now, inflate tire to normal pressure.

Check for tire runout (both diameter and lateral) at 2 points on tread, and on both sides.

Should be within 1.5mm (or factory spec) on all this.

Recheck this after 100 miles on the tire after it has a chance to seat.

--------------------------


Mount tire on vehicle.

There is an "on vehicle balancer" that balance the whole system (tire/wheel/brake disk / drum/ hub)

If you really smell a rat, get it balanced on vehicle and see how much extra weights it takes.

Consider rotating tire as above on hub to minimize the balance weight.

Then MARK which additional weights are needed to balance the brake disk/drum hub combo.


When you are doing this, check for a bent axle, or drive shaft or hub.


Then... check for bad bearings, loose hub, differential bearings, etc.

Check for bad ball joints, any loose suspension component.

Check for bad / bent shocks.

Then do a wheel alignment.

Check for bad U-joints, hanger bearings, etc.

Grease everything while you are at it.

Check for steering box play -- adjust if needed.


All this work is not going to be cheap...

 

I experienced the exact thing years ago, wound up being a broken belt inside the tire, was quite evident after a 1200 mile trip, wasn't round anymore, but was totally invisable before it finally slung it out of round.

 

Thanks for bringing this up....

The most frequent cause of broken belts:

- severe impact (eg pothole).

- overload

- then there are rare manufacturing defects...

 

Well, like his, mine is an E-350 with load E tires, that's 10 plies, just takes one under it all, will go totally unnoticed.

 

Thanks for all the responses. A lot of good information out there with you people. After shocks, u joints and rear rotors and brakes (which it needed anyhow) I decided to do what I should have done long ago. Took the spare down (which had never been used so it was original factory balanced) and started with changing out one wheel at a time. Turns out I have one that made a major difference in the ride. It happens to have about 3 large weights on the outside and similar on the inside that are pretty much on the same side of the tire. I raised the rear of the vehicle off the ground with a forklift so the rear tires hung on the suspension and ran them at different speeds. The bad one takes the suspension and shakes it up and down while turning. Tells me there is a problem with that tire. The spare spins without causing the suspension to move at all. I have another tire that I feel is somewhat out also. I took a long distance trip with the spare on in place of the out of balance wheel and it is 95% improved. It is very livable especially in spite of what I've put up with for a year and a half. One side of me wants to go back to Sears and give them an opportunity to correct the problem so I don't have to leave others I come in contact with a bad impression of Sears. Other side says, if they can't get it right after balancing them several times, why would they be able to now. So, I guess I'll try and find a local company that has Roadforce or high speed balancing machine and try them.
Doug

 

Well the 10 ply tires are heavy, have a lot of material to them, not all can be balanced, all their make up leave room for a problem during the manufacturing process, tire shops should not sell these tires, if they won't balance they need to go back o the manufacture.