I hit a pothole about a month ago. I was going about 10 miles and hour, but I caught it square with my back left tire/wheel. The car began to vibrate instantly.

I took it into the dealership and they looked at the wheel and sais it was fine. The problem was with the tires. The steel belts were comming loose from the tire. So at 12,500 miles... I had to replace all 4 tires.

Well, I have 4 new tires, balancing and an alignment and I still get a horrible vibration from 0 to as fast as I wanna...

My question is... Can a tire be balanced on a rim that is bent? They keep telling me that they are balancing the tires...

If the wheel is okay... what else could it be?

Thanks,

JA

 

I bet it's still the wheel. If you can still identify which one it is (all wheels put back to original positions?) I would go someplace else and have the rebalance only that one. A good tire technician can tell a bent wheel. Some of the better/newer(?) balancing machine can also identify a bent or out of round wheel. If they do find it bent I doubt the dealer will replace it at no charge. But try it. At 10 mph a wheel should not bend if it's attached to a normal suspension.

 

It can still be the new tires!

My advice to you is to find a tire shop with a Hunter RoadForce Balancer and get them balance there.

Google "Hunter Roadforce" the read the many comments from all over the net on how people solve your kind of problems.

This is the best tire balancer on the market today. While it rotate you tire on the machine, a roller applies 1,400 pounds of rolling pressure on the thread area to check for varying pressure around the tire.

Check the website of the manufacurer @ http://www.gsp9700.com/

There is a demo on the site.

You can also input your ZIP code and find a local shop in your area.

I am not connected in any way with Hunter, just a owner looking to solve a little vibration problem myself on i get my Smartire system delivered.

Best regards

frenchnew

 

could be suspension, i bent a control arm once, it was a friggin bitch to finally find out, we changed both axles and the tranny before we found out. couldn't even see it either.

 

I would pick up a new wheel. The stock 17's bend really easy. I have replaced 4 of them due to just barely hitting a pothole. I can pretty much gaurantee you that it's the wheel and not the tires. Frenchnew was correct in saying use a Hunter road force balancing machine as this will limit the possibilty of vibration a great deal. However that's not gonna fix your wheel.

 

Talk to the person doing the ballancing... It is probably the rim since a bent control arm usually does not cause a vibration. I hit a pot hole with my 2g and had to get a new tire and when they went to balance it they said there was a problem due to the rim...

 

Where did you buy your new wheels from? I have read in other forums that people have purchased referbished wheels as well...

Would it be worth it to try to get it fixed, or will they never be able to get it back to normal?

 

You need to find a shop that has a hunter road force balance setup.
That balancer checks the rim, the tires for belt problems, out of round,
out of balance, etc.
It enables the tire shop to offset an off center rim, or an unbalanced rim,
with the tire, so less weight is needed to balance the tire, and its more
in round.

A normal tire balance just balances a spinning tire, and does not check for
out of round rims, tires, bad belts, stiff spots in tires, etc.

Its very common to have perfectly balanced tires and still have vibration from
belts or out of round conditions.

How many times have you been next to someone on the hiway and heard one of their tires going wap wap wap wap from a tire with a bad belt?

I see that all the time, although the tires look fine, they make a loud noise
from a bad belt, and you know its got to vibrate badly.

They were bad from the start, or the driver hit a pot hole that damaged the belts inside the tire.

Brett

 

I actually bought mine from an acura dealership for $100 a wheel. They were take offs of a car they did the full Aspec kit on.