Wheel balancing

[jvr]

Got my 2006 Focus st a couple of weeks ago and wheels needed balancing badly.Well after 3 tyre centres and 4 set of balances the car was still crap,however the last throw of the dice i went to Power Station in Tewkesbury and they have a 1970's machine.Well after thinking all manner of thing wre wrong it was just the balancing,their machine was dead on the others were all over the shop.So one happy bunny here

So how many of you have come away from tyre shops with wobbly steering
P

[fatboy b]

XR4x4s were notorious - and you couldn't do them on the car. I had to persuade the fitters to swap the chuck that uses the wheel-centre to locate, for the one that uses the wheel-stud holes. They used to moan like crazy if they were busy. I just said that I'd keep coming back until it's right.

[EDLT]

At the last garage I worked at, my training on how to use the wheel balancer was given to me by a mechanic (who had never fitted tyres before) who was trained a week earlier by the "engineer" that set it up (plugged it in) but didn't know how to use it - and then he took the manual away with him.

To this day, it was the only wheel balancer I've ever used that didn't appear to be broken.

[chippy17]

I have now had the wheels on my E36 M3 balanced 4 times and it is still vibrating so I know the feeling, although now worrying that it is something more serious!

In garage at moment having warped dics replaced, wondering if that might be contributory factor?

[*Al*]

Just had my alloys rebalanced as i was having 'the wobble' around 70 onwards. Three of my wheels were quite a long way out of balance but now they are fine and 'wobble' has gone! Some places just don't seem to have a clue how to balance a wheel.

[aizvara]

I had a wheel fail the MOT for having a minor buckle - was one of a set of Ebay wheels for winter. The tyre fitter struggled with balancing that one, (but did a good job - no wobble at all), so I knew the MOT fail was possible. The MOT people put on a brand new replacement wheel which actually seemed to make things worse - now there was a minor wobble!

Still, put the summer wheels back on at the weekend and all is well (aside from going from 16" narrow to staggered 18" huge with the attendant lowering of ride quality and increase of tram-lining).

[snotrag]

Any Peugeot 306 owners like to contribute?

The 'cyclone' alloy wheel on the Gti-6 had the rather wonderful feature of no centre bore.

So you'd ring to ask if they could fit your tyres. They say yes. You double check, because of the wheels, stating the exact reason your checking. Still yes.

They begin fitting tires.

They then hand you keys back saying 'tyres done, but we havent balanced them because believe it or not we dont actually have the machine to do it, despite us telling you we could do it numerous times.



In the end I used to get them done by a main dealer.

"Hello, funny one, can you balance some whee..."

" Peugeot 306 Sir? Certainly Sir, right away".

I think they'd experienced it rather regularly!

[andrewrob]

snotrag said:

Any Peugeot 306 owners like to contribute?

The 'cyclone' alloy wheel on the Gti-6 had the rather wonderful feature of no centre bore.

So you'd ring to ask if they could fit your tyres. They say yes. You double check, because of the wheels, stating the exact reason your checking. Still yes.

They begin fitting tires.

They then hand you keys back saying 'tyres done, but we havent balanced them because believe it or not we dont actually have the machine to do it, despite us telling you we could do it numerous times.



In the end I used to get them done by a main dealer.

"Hello, funny one, can you balance some whee..."

" Peugeot 306 Sir? Certainly Sir, right away".

I think they'd experienced it rather regularly!

Same problem with my 406. Local independent tyre place has two balancing machines one for centre less wheels and one for normal. Went to an ATS once and they had the gear to do the job too.
Although before I found this place I took it to another independent that did a terrible job.