acugirl

I would like to know what you guys think of this ...

I have replaced the stock tires with Falken Ziex 512 for the winter. I took the car to our local Honda dealer (no Acura dealer in town) and they balanced them on Hunter GSP 9700. I can now feel vibrations at highway speeds that were not there before with the stock tires (yes, I waited for the tires to warm up, so this is no flatspotting). I took the car back and asked for rebalancing. The guys test drove the car, checked the balance and they swear that the tires are in balance saying thet their state of the art Hunter machine cannot do better. They also claim is that it is the tires that are bad They mentioned that a loose belt or "something" can cause the tires to become imbalanced once they start rotating - essentially the center of gravity changes as the centrifugal force starts acting on the tire. Does this sound possible or is it BS?

I bought the tires from Edgeracing.com. I was wondering if anyone experienced any problems with the Falkens and if you think I have a chance to replace them ... or are the Honda guys incapable of balancing them properly? Should I try another place for balancing before I try to pry a new set of tires from Edgeracing.com?

Many thanks for your opinion!!

Montez

Also check the location of the weights the pu ton before balancing, on my 350Z I had an issue with that. It is so many factors that come into play from equipment to the tire itself when trying to get tires of 17inch or larger balanced correctly.........

3PUTT

i had a similar problem when i replaced my HPTs with the Falken 512's.
i get a vibration between 70 - 80 mph. my wheels/tires were not balanced with the hunters which was my next try until i picked up a set of 18" SSR wheels + tires.

the problem is no longer. this narrows down the problem to either the tires or the balancing. it could also mean that the wheels are bent.....

good luck!!

TBone2004

Crap - this is bad news I was planning on getting some for mine.

Please let us know if you resolve the problem.

svtmike

T-bone I love your avatar but I think it's probably too big to be within the rules.

The Hunter balancer should be able to tell the operator if the tires or wheels have a defect that cause the "roadforce" to be out of specification (which could cause a vibration) even if the tire is statically balanced. That's the whole point of the Hunter system.

Mike

fla-tls

Mike's right. I had mine roadforce balanced and they found one of my Continentals could not be brought into spec. After replacing that one tire my car rode like a completely different one.

I'm sure they're not all bad, but one tire can make a big difference.

Too funny T Bone - but WAY to big!

acugirl

Thanks for the opinions, guys. Here is an update:

Called edgeracing.com and they told me that the Honda guys with their Hunter should be able to identify the bad tire, as svtmike and fla-tls pointed out. Edgeracing will then replace the bad tire(s) with a new one(s) free of charge. I am going to the dealership tomorrow and ask them to do this (even though ... they must know which one is the bad one, right? I am wondering why they did not tell me already ...).

The bad thing is that I will have to put back one (or two?) Turanzas back, mail the bad Falken(s), wait for the new one(s), and then have them replaced again. There will be some $$ "friction" to pay for this exercise. I hope the problem will be solved eventually...

fla-tls

My experience - with the Tire Rack - was that I called them and they immediately sent out another tire. Once I got it, I had the dealership replace the bad tire and re-roadforce balance the new one. The Tire Rack paid for all shipping - and mounting of the new tire.

Tell them that their competition is doing it - and you want the same treatment! (hopefully they'll cut you some slack - after all - it's not your fault they sold you a defective product).

Maybe they would agree to credit your CC for the shipping and installation charges when it's all done?

acugirl

Another update:

The Honda dealer gave me the roadforce results. They were for all four wheels:

11, 15 in front, and 9 and 6 in the back. They also told me that the numbers should not be above 7, which means three out of four tires should be bad and replaced. Now it becomes REALLY interesting and confusing ... I called up edgeracing.com and the guy told me that these numbers are well within the specs!!! He said that anything below 25 is an OK tire by their standards.

Does anybody know what the acceptable range for the roadforce is? Could 11,15,6, and 9 cause a lot of vibrations? PLease, help, I have no idea who is right here and who is BSing and I know that one of them must be!

6speedv6

First of all, no matter how many weights the tire/wheel combo needs (it is not the tire only), if they are balanced, they should not vibrate.

They should check for wheel nuts torque, alignment, and tire pressure. Make sure they are all set to the propper numbers.

fla-tls

The range my dealership used (and I spent some good quality time talking with the tech) is 20.

Above 20 - trash 'em. Below 20 - keep 'em.

Oh - and make sure they put the lowest numbers in the front. That gives the more uneven rears time to adjust without you having any steering wheel/vibration problems.

acugirl

Thanks for the advice. I am going to visit another place in town where they have Hunter GSP 9700 and ask for a second opinion. The roadforce 11 and 15 tires are in the front, btw. Are these numbers in pounds?? What are the units?

I was also thinking if improper inflation (overinflation) might contribute to this. Also, I do not have wheel locks, fyi.

I found a wonderful page explaining the technicalities with tire/wheel balancing:

http://128.242.141.111/pub/technical/index.cfm

I wonder what these numbers actually measure. From the page above, there are several different things one can measure on the hunter machine.

svtmike

I've seen reports here of numbers in the high 20's range indicating a really out of spec EL42. I'm not sure if the spec varies from tire to tire or not. Any trained Hunter techs on here?

Mike

fla-tls

Yes - the numbers are in pounds.

Brokedoc

I have the Falken 512 with 35 PSI all around on a 5AT and experience a brief period of flatspotting on cold mornings if I park outside overnight but this goes away quickly.

Last night I was doing 110 MPH and I didn't have a single twitch of vibration.

Let us know if going to a different tire installer fixes your problem.

acugirl

Here is an update:

Received two new tires from edgeracing.com (roadforce 23 and 23) and sent back the two worst ones. Tires mounted for least pull. I can still feel high-frequency vibrations at highway speeds but it is now less noticeable. I still do not like the tires but I guess the only thing I could do at this point is to return them and buy new, more expensive tires. However, I already invested $200 into endless balancing/roadforcing and somehow am tired of this. I will probably keep the Falkens.

Overall, I am NOT impressed with them. They are a lot noisier than the stock tires and it looks like on my car they will never be buttery smooth for some reason.

What other all season tire would you recommend? I went with Falkens because I heard a lot of positive feedback from people on this forum, but, honestly, I will NOT buy them again and I do not recommend them, especially from edgeracing.

And I will never buy from edgeracing again because although they paid for the shipping, they refused to compensate me for the additional expense for balancing and roadforcing - something I heard tire rack does.

6speedv6

Check that the lug nuts are properly torqued to spec.

Lore

My understanding is that TireRack will only reimburse the customer if TireRack mounted the tires on a wheel they sold and the customer continued to have problems.

kyle-wdp

Although I have just ordered a set of Nitto Nt 555s, I still don't trust spending 400 bucks for a set of tires for a 30k+ car. I will be posting a review of the Nittos as soon as they are on and they are being balanced with a Hunter.