jtournas

The car's an 03 CLS 6M, I just shed the original rubber (at 40k no less), to install 4 new Kumho ECSTA ASXs. Bought them from tirerack.com, and had them installed at the local Wal-Mart tire center (probably bad decision, but very economical).

I had wheel balancing issues in the past (bent rim, now fixed), but there were no shakes/shimmies with the old tires just before replacement, bald as they were. After mounting and alignment, I took off with my new tires, and the car shook badly from 55-75 MPH on the highway (very characteristic for off-balance), so I take it back next day, rebalanced, little to no change. Since this is a lifetime free rebalancing deal, I decide to take it to a different Wal-Mart (probably bad decision #2), THEY balance them, again little change.

So, my question is this: is there something I'm missing here? Are the Wal-Mart people just not competent, or is there some sort of special technique for these wheels they don't know? I'd rather not just drop $30-50 at another store to balance AGAIN if it's something else.

Any help appreciated.

lokijibber

normally, i would say the machine hadn't been calibrated in a while, but if the second wal-mart had the same.

i wouldn't be surprised to learn that it's a training prob. w/ wal mart techs though. i'd ask, if they say they do it often (at MINIMUM once a week), try going somewhere else.

fuzzy02CLS

iTrader: (2)

What size tires, & what tire pressure are they set at?

jtournas

Stock replacement size (215/50-17), pressure was set to 32.

fuzzy02CLS

iTrader: (2)

Try swaping them front to back. Might be a bent rim. Find a hunter wheel balancer GSP9700 in your area www.hunter.com

jtournas

I hope it's not another bent rim - shouldn't be, since it was fine before the new tires, but who knows.

Will do on the Hunter balancer. I've heard there's a difference between regular and "speed" balancing, is this why you'd say to find someone using this equipment?

Luckily enough, I am heading to Performance Acura here in NC on Monday, and they also have the GSP9700. Wonder how much they charge...

Zippee

It is possible you have a bad tire.

I'd go to the service manager at the WalMart that did the installation and have them check balance and tire run out. If something is not straight it should show on the balancer.

TampaBayCLS

Low profile tires need to be "match mounted" on the wheels. This matches the high point on the tire with the low point on the wheel. The tire should have a colored dot on it. This colored dot should be aligned with the valve stem on the wheel. If not matched this will cause a out of round setup.

Are the techs at Wal-Mart using proper tightening procedure and torque ratings or just hitting it with the air wrench?

It also could simply be a out of round tire. As stated earlier, move it from front to rear or rear to front, not side to side to see where you feel the imbalance, in the steering wheel or your seat.

m&b6speed

out of round tires are very very rare, i was a supervisor in a busy costco tire center and saw 1 out of round tire in 5 year. not saying it cant happen cause it does.

the cl rims need to be balanced on a machine that has an option for "static" balancing, basically there is no front lip to put a weight on so you need sticky one on the inside. if they do a regular balance and try to just place the sticky weights about where the outside weights would go, it wont work.

as far as the bent rim, thant wont matter, i have a pretty badly bent inside rim and it has been on the front and the back, can never tell cause it was balanced properly

if you have one nearby, go to a costco, i can attest that they do things very meticulous.. its FREE balance and rotation for all members unless the policy changed-i no longer work for them.

ssk0771

That sounds like problem I had when I recently got new wheels & tires on my SC430.

Mine vibrated between 55-75 mph also. I had to have them rebalanced using Hunter. They had to do it couple of time.

Now its fine.

jtournas

Thanks for all the help, folks - I did notice the dots on the tires, I will have to see if they matchup with the valve stems - otherwise I'll be taking them somewhere else to be remounted and balanced properly. All of these explanations seem rather plausible.

fuzzy02CLS

iTrader: (2)

You should try to swap them front to rear first & see if anything changes. This way you will know if the problems are the rear or fronts, or all of them.

jtournas

Update: If the Acura rims are meant to have the tires aligned with the dot at the valve stem, Wal-Mart sure doesn't know about it. The dots are all over the place. Driving the car more, the symptoms are indicative of both out of balance and out of round. I'm thinking that I'll just demand my money back at Wal-Mart and just go somewhere that knows what they're doing, with the Hunter GPS9700.

Zippee

Actually the dot has nothing to do with high and low points but indicates the lightest spot on the tire. It goes next to the valve for better balance.

carquest

i went through this horse sh!!t when i 1st bought my cls. the problem is that you need to have them balanced on a "Hunter Road Force" Wheel balancing machine. the machines are more common now than a few years ago, just call a few tire shops and ask if they have one (or know anyone who does).

the low profile tires need to be balanced for what Hunter calls "road force variation". i have no idea what this means, but it works. the Hunter machine puts a rotating weight against the tread of the tire while the balancing machine measures "road force variation". it then instructs the "technician" to remove the tire, how far to rotate it & in which direction to eliminate any imbalance, and then re-mount it. i had to have this done on all 4 of my tires several times and eventually it resolved the problems. the shop who did the work didn't whine, they just kept trying till i was satisfied. the tires have remained balanced for over 12K miles.

for those of you in the baltimore/fredrick md area call scott at Yingling Tires in Westminster. he did the work for me and i highly recommend them.

m&b6speed

never worked with the Hunter machine, but i have withe the Coates machines. easy to work with, never had problems balancing tires, although rims with no front lip are a pain on any machine.
i mean what would you expect from walmart anyways, they get 5.15 an hour near me, they dont care(generally)

fuzzy02CLS

iTrader: (2)

I've only had to use the Hunter one twice, & they weren't on the CLS.. I have been through 4 sets of low profile non stock tires between 2 CLS's & haven't had balance problems with the regular balancer the tire shop uses. And they don't always line up the dots.

bilpu

In the past five years I've had the bad luck to buy five tires that were so out-of-round that they had to be replaced. Just one ou-of-round tire on the car can cause the car to vibrate. If it's on the rear, you may feel it most in the seat; on the front, in the wheel. Ask your Wal-Mart guys to look at your tires for excessive radial run-out or out-of-round before you go to the Hunter balancing. They should be willing to replace a defective tire or two. If the radial run-out or out-of-round is unacceptable (replaceable) it will be bad enough to be visible with the naked eye. However, they should have an instrument to measure the radial run-out. I think anything over 0.050 inches is considered a defective tire, though I may be wrong here. With that much run-out, no amount of harmonic balancing/matching to the rim is going to get rid of your vibration. Good luck, I know a vibration will ruin your ride!