I just put 17 inch wheels on my CL myself at a friends garage.. I balanced them as I have done before. Checked them and they checked out OK. I felt a slight vibration in the wheel so while in for my recall, I had them re-check the balance at the dealer.
First (which pisses me off) instead of taking the old tape weights off, the just put added what the machine said needed to be added. Wrong - but what ever.
Does anyone know if those machines get calibrated? Because even though it seems better, there is still a slight vibration at about 70 to 80.

 

Thats a good question.
I bought brand new rims and tires for my second car, I went to a shop for mounting and balancing, and a slight vibration was there. So my guess is that their machines required recalibration.

 

Did you get high speed balencing? Most tire places only balence to 55 mph unless you specify high speed.

 

There are a couple of other issues here too. Like has the tech using the balance machine been calibrated ? Many bad balance jobs are the result of sloppy workmanship.

They should have checked the balance with the weights on, then if needed, take off the old weights and re balance from scratch.

 

What is a "high speed balance". Most wheel balances in the area are the kind where you spin the tire by hand to about 15 to 20 mph I believe. I cant remember if I have ever seen one that spins to 55 mph?

 

yeah man, get high speed balancing.... sears can do it.

also, try getting an alignment... its always recommended to do so after a fresh pair or tires or new wheels....

 

Well there are other possibilities here .Are your tires in good shape? By that I mean is there a shifted belt or some sort of damage to the treads or sidewalls inside or out? Are the wheels round? I know it sounds silly to ask but in many cases these issues i just mentioned will not be readily apparent and will not show up as a wheel balance problem but will manifest themselves as a vibration on the road .

Jens

 

most states won't let it go any higher

 

Did you just put 17" aftermarket wheels on your car? If so, you need hub rings. You can get those from the manufacturer of your wheels. If that doesn't work, make sure you have wheel weights on both side of the rims. One weight on the inside lip and the other weight just behind the sporkes. Not all rims will need both weights but you should have at least one wheel with inner and outer weight. I had vibration problem with static balance(weights are only put on the inner lip of rims) and it was fixed with the inner and outer weight kind of balance.

 

Hey Jens, I have this same problem (vibrations around 70mph).... it didn't start happening until after I got a set of new tires. The place that installed the tires also did an alignment and I had them rebalance at least once.

I want to take it to my acura dealer to have them just diagnose the problem and fix it.

The shop that put on my tires said one of my rims was kinda out of shape, however I never had problems with my old tires on the rim.

What can I ask the dealer to do that would make them check the rims, tires and balance? Can I get this all checked out for 100 or less?

Also.. regarding sears doing "high speed balance" they are the ones that put my tires on and did the balancing... I watched them do it and the machine they use spins the tire really slowly then spits out a number. They put a weight on and go through the process until the number is 0 (from what I remembered) Is there a better type of machine out there?

 

And don't forget out of round tires. They'll do the same thing. Had a problem with out of round Dunlops a couple years ago.

 

Spin balancing alone is only half the job. If you really want to balance your tires correctly, find a shop that has a Hunter 9700 road force balancer. This machine has corrected problems no other can.

It applies an 800lb load to the tire while spinning. It can sense tire problems etc. the others can't. They can then match balance if needed.

I had a problem on my Miata (extremely sensitive to balance) that no one else could fix. I had read about this Hunter 9700 so I searched one out. They balance it with that, tape wieghts on the inside only, and the car is smooth.

The other plus with a Hunter is that you only have to balance once, not every time you rotate. It does such a good job. I balanced the 20" rims / tires on my F150 when it was new, I've rotated every 5k miles with my oil changes. I now have over 30k miles on that truck and the tires are absolutely perfect yet and smooth as new.

That Hunter is the only way to go.

 

Yeah, I got new 17 inch rims and new Falken Azenis tires. The vibration isnt bad, but it isnt smooth as stock. I keep wanting to tell myself that it is the road, but I know its not.
And yes, I have clip on wheights on the inside and take on weights just behind the spokes.

Someone told me that the Hunter machine mentioned above costs like 200 bucks to balance the tires.

Has anyone in the Lehigh Valley, PA had this done?

 

No way man! I had a place do a set for me for $9.99/wheel, so that was little over $40.

That Hunter can also tell you if the tire is out of round, & if the rims is to.
Here's the link to find one by you...

http://209.176.154.132/pub/search/FindGSP9700.cfm

 

That Hunter Road Pressure Balancer is the SH*T!

I had a similar problem as you with my old car for 5 freaking years. New tires, balance, rebalance, rebalance... over and over, through 4 or 5 sets of tires and I could NEVER get rid of that damn vibration.

Then I saw a story about that balancer on PBS's AutoWeek and decided to give it a try.


FIXED IT RIGHT THE HELL UP!

Seriously... go get this done.

 

Beestea , it may be you have an issue with the rim that only became apparent after the new tires .Are the new tires the same brand etc. as the old ones or are they better tires? We have a Hi speed balancer at PAA .However experienced eyes can see a tire problem just by the way the tire looks as it is spun by hand .

Jens

 

Thanks Ya'all. there are a few places near me. I am gonna have it done and see whats up.

I am so glad I found this web-site. I cant tell you all how much I enjoy reading everyones posts.!!!

 

Thanks for the info I think when my tires come in the mail Im going to get them balanced on a Hunter... 9.99? a tire? hmm lets see what those fucks at the dealers that have them around here have to say HAHA. Wish me luck

 

If those are aftermarket wheels which center on the lug bolts instead of the hub poor centering of the wheel might be the cause. If that's the case a hub centric ring or the right size lug nuts could cure the problem.

 

Cool... I finally got tired of feeling vibrations so I made an appointment to go get my tires rebalanced on a hunter machine.

I called a few places that had the Hunter balance... one of them quoted me $267 for some kind of run off test? and something else I can't remember.

I called a second place and they said $48 for all 4 wheels on the Hunter... much better deal

I hope this identifies my problem!

 

fawkin awesome site

 

I got my wheels rebalanced on the Hunter machine... all my problems are gone!!!

The dude that did the balancing said my problem was due to the fact that the last place that balanced my tires (Sears ) used the clip on weights on the inside edge of the tire.

The shop with the Hunter balancing machine used the stick on weights, which if I recall correctly, is what my car was balanced with when it was new.

So now im wondering if I should go back to Sears and ask for a refund on their crappy balancing job.

 

Yes you can try that.
You can always dispute the charge if it was a credit card transaction due to poor service.

 

What ZAMO said. Give im a piece of your mind, only take a few minutes, and even if they don't do anything you'll have some satisfaction that you were "mad as hell, and not gonna take it anymore"..

 

Do you guys think using the snap on weights (that normally are applied to an outer lip of a wheel) on the inside lip of our stock rims was what was causing the problem?

 

I know in CA they aren't allowed to go any higher because the DOT comes and checks the machines unexpectently.

 

OK, well I still got a shimmy in my car. I was told that since I have a multi-lug pattern, the hub circle might not be correct for the set of lug holes that i am using. And since my wheels center themselves on the lugnuts and not the hub centric, I dont know what to do.

Can I get a set of hub centrics for my car? Will that fix it? Are there different sizes? How do I know what size to get? Do different wheels makers require a different size hub centric?

 

They are called hub rings. I have a set on my SSR's.

 

wtf... everywhere I am calling it is at least 25 per tire!!

ACK!

well the lowest I found was $23 per tire how sad... well I'll keep looking but some guy said he was quoted $200 for 4... my highest estimate was $160... Damn whoever got $10 per tire ur one lucky guy.

 

That sucks... the first time I had it done it cost me $80 total.

But now I found a shop that will do it for $30.

That's jacked up.

Did you try going to the Hunter website and doing the "locate a GSP9700"?

http://128.242.141.111/pub/search/findgsp9700.cfm


At least then you'll know who to call.

 

Ha...Cool...I've got like 10 within 3 miles of my job!!!

This sounds like something I need to get done. My aftermarket wheels have had a slight shimmy since I put them on.