Wheel balance frustration
Discussion
With all this lovely weather we've been having I decided to give my Forester wheels a fresh look, removed them from the car and spent three days "re-furbing" them myself. They look almost as good as new but because I needed to take the balance weights off I now needed a re-balance on all four. So down I go to one of our "national" tyre fitters. £28 and 30 mins later, job done. Decide to go up the motorway on way home to test them out. Fine up to about 50mph, from there upto about 75mph not good. Took it back a coule of days later and explained, they took fronts off only and re balanced, motorway home again and guess what, still got vibration. Who are these clowns, all I want is a simple vibration free wheel balance. Think if I take it back they'll start saying things like, "ball joint mate" and "siezed caliper" etc etc, but whilst the whees were off I did new discs and pads and checed all balls joint etc. How many times do you need to go back to these places until they get it right, I guess I'm not alone at being severely p@ssed off at a vibrating steering wheel at motorway speeds.
MX7 said:
Does it vibrate through the steering wheel?
AlaskanMal said:
I guess I'm not alone at being severely p@ssed off at a vibrating steering wheel at motorway speeds.
Sounds like you went to the wrong bunch of clowns...especially if they're the ones who like to do a kwik job!
Annoyingly, balancing wheels is the only thing that's tricky to do yourself - shame we can't even trust garages to do this properly for us.
You need a hunter gsp9700 road force tyre balancer
http://classic.multimap.com/clients/places.cgi?cli...
this will show you garages that have the hunter gsp alignment machine and you will need to ask them if they have the road force balancing machine too.
Its very good as it determines the structural integrity of your tyres sidewall which can cause vibration without showing any obvious signs of deteriation.
Thanks for info, looks like a good service but my wheel balance was fine before. The wheels did have the tap on weights on the outer rim but because I've re-furbed them I requested the stick on weights. They have put these on the inner rim, I'm beginning to think they have their machine set up wrong? It's annoying because you pay for a service and what do you get apart from stressed out.
Find somewhere that balances motorcycle wheels.
The outfit I prefer to use, (but it's not always convenient), uses one and it balances down to 1g rather than the 5g favoured by most chains.
Even when it reads 0-0 on a 'normal' balancer, I can still feel vibrations but when I visit my favourite place, (M+G tyres in Glasgow BTW), the car feels like it's driving on silk.
The outfit I prefer to use, (but it's not always convenient), uses one and it balances down to 1g rather than the 5g favoured by most chains.
Even when it reads 0-0 on a 'normal' balancer, I can still feel vibrations but when I visit my favourite place, (M+G tyres in Glasgow BTW), the car feels like it's driving on silk.
Some of the more inexperienced wheel balances will blindly follow the technology that on some machines tells them to use opposing weights, the problem is opposing weights don't work.
This may not be your problem but have a look at the inner & outer of your wheels for opposing weights, if you don't know what I mean, opposing weights are when your weights are not all in one position on one side of the wheel, so you may have one weight at 4oclock & one at 9oclock for example.
If this is the case take it back & tell them you don't want opposing weights. If it's not the case it may be worth taking it somewhere else to get them rebalanced & see what happens.
This may not be your problem but have a look at the inner & outer of your wheels for opposing weights, if you don't know what I mean, opposing weights are when your weights are not all in one position on one side of the wheel, so you may have one weight at 4oclock & one at 9oclock for example.
If this is the case take it back & tell them you don't want opposing weights. If it's not the case it may be worth taking it somewhere else to get them rebalanced & see what happens.
My wheel balancing place of choice has their kit re-calibrated about once a week, apparently.
I have grave ddoubts whether most places have it done this frequently so I would suggest it quite likely your tyre fitting place's machine is 'off'. They could balance them 100 times and it would still wobble.
I have grave ddoubts whether most places have it done this frequently so I would suggest it quite likely your tyre fitting place's machine is 'off'. They could balance them 100 times and it would still wobble.
Man from UNCLE said:
Some of the more inexperienced wheel balances will blindly follow the technology that on some machines tells them to use opposing weights, the problem is opposing weights don't work.
They do, but it is a clear sign that the person doing the balancing doesn't understand what they are actually doing. 'Opposing weights' as you call them is a sign that weights have been placed incorrectly and then further weights are required to counterbalance the inaccuracy of the original placement.If you ever see someone applying counterbalanced weights tell them to take the original ones off and start again. If they complain then politely tell them why and if they get stroppy go elsewhere because it means you are not getting what you asked (and were expected to pay) for.
AlaskanMal said:
Cheers folks, plenty of info to go on there. Going to take discs off and double check smoothness of mating surface and go from there.
The hubs should be wirebrushed before new discs are fitted to ensure there is no corrosion/crap under there before the new discs go on.I had this problem a couple of months ago and someone on here suggested Costco. I must say I won't go anywhere else now for my wheels balancing, they were brilliant and also cheap at £8 for the fronts!
They calibrate their machines religiously which is important, so if you have a card or know anyone with them I would make a trip.
They calibrate their machines religiously which is important, so if you have a card or know anyone with them I would make a trip.
I had similar issues in a 7 series BMW with 20 inch wheels.
In the end I found a recommedned tryre garage who was quiet and went throught the syptomns. He spent time and it improved a lot, but he also said the tyres were 'our of round'. He did show me where and how.
New tyres did solve it and I was fairly sceptical...
In the end I found a recommedned tryre garage who was quiet and went throught the syptomns. He spent time and it improved a lot, but he also said the tyres were 'our of round'. He did show me where and how.
New tyres did solve it and I was fairly sceptical...
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