Vibration after tyres fitted, ideas?
Discussion
Hi All,
Just wondering if anyone has any other things I can try before I give the tyre fitters a shout.
Car is the Wife's 2016 Mini Cooper S. Had the original Dunlop run flat tyres on it but they were really badly cracked after 6 years so had them replaced.
The run flats were a bit harsh with bumps and not particularly grippy so swapped them out for some Michelin PS5s.
Since then I've noticed a vibration, easily noticeable at higher speed but also seems to be quite variable dependent on the road surface as well as the speed. Which is odd, my previous experience of badly balanced tyres being that it just gets worse with speed regardless of road surface.
It isn't coming through the steering wheel so presumably not a problem at the front but you really feel it in your bum and back.
We drove the car on a 200 mile motorway round trip a week before having the tyres fitted and it was fine so don't think it is a wheel bearing or anything mechanical?
I've tried playing with pressures. The fitter set them to 36psi all round, I first tried setting them to the numbers on the car 42/39 F/R and have dropped them down twice since in case a lower pressure needs to be used on non run flats. They currently sit at 34/32 but none of the pressure changes have made any difference.
I have checked the wheels and they all have new weights on so it isn't that the fitters have not attempted to balance them, though no idea if they had more weight on but fallen off.
Checked wheel bolt torque and all fine.
Been using the same fitters for years now on a variety of stuff and never had a problem.
Of course it may be unrelated to the tyres completely and just a massive coincidence.
Any diagnostics I can try myself before I give in and ring the fitter to see if they can double check the balancing? Otherwise it will have to go off to a garage to look at as we can't keep driving it like this.
Just wondering if anyone has any other things I can try before I give the tyre fitters a shout.
Car is the Wife's 2016 Mini Cooper S. Had the original Dunlop run flat tyres on it but they were really badly cracked after 6 years so had them replaced.
The run flats were a bit harsh with bumps and not particularly grippy so swapped them out for some Michelin PS5s.
Since then I've noticed a vibration, easily noticeable at higher speed but also seems to be quite variable dependent on the road surface as well as the speed. Which is odd, my previous experience of badly balanced tyres being that it just gets worse with speed regardless of road surface.
It isn't coming through the steering wheel so presumably not a problem at the front but you really feel it in your bum and back.
We drove the car on a 200 mile motorway round trip a week before having the tyres fitted and it was fine so don't think it is a wheel bearing or anything mechanical?
I've tried playing with pressures. The fitter set them to 36psi all round, I first tried setting them to the numbers on the car 42/39 F/R and have dropped them down twice since in case a lower pressure needs to be used on non run flats. They currently sit at 34/32 but none of the pressure changes have made any difference.
I have checked the wheels and they all have new weights on so it isn't that the fitters have not attempted to balance them, though no idea if they had more weight on but fallen off.
Checked wheel bolt torque and all fine.
Been using the same fitters for years now on a variety of stuff and never had a problem.
Of course it may be unrelated to the tyres completely and just a massive coincidence.
Any diagnostics I can try myself before I give in and ring the fitter to see if they can double check the balancing? Otherwise it will have to go off to a garage to look at as we can't keep driving it like this.
Thread resurrection.
Never did resolve the problem in December. Swapped wheels front to back, made no difference. Keep forgetting about it as the car doesn't do many miles. It went for MOT last week and while doing that the garage measured the tread depths and have recorded that the rear right has lost about 1mm already, car has only done a few hundred miles since fitting. So I thought hmm maybe the rear right is well out of alignment and causing the wobble. MOT didn't note any advisories so guess no obvious borkage with wheel bearings etc.
So today I have had a full wheel alignment, nothing was particularly far out, just a bit too much toe on the front right. They took a fair bit of camber out of both rears, put them in the middle of the tolerance window rather then the upper limit.
Asked them to check the balancing on all the wheels while they were at it. All of them were out, the fronts quite a lot.
Driving back from that it possibly feels even worse at low speed now, and high speed maybe slightly better or no different.
Might have to try and see if I can find someone with a similar Mini who will let me borrow their wheels and see if it does the same on theirs.
Any other ideas welcome.
Never did resolve the problem in December. Swapped wheels front to back, made no difference. Keep forgetting about it as the car doesn't do many miles. It went for MOT last week and while doing that the garage measured the tread depths and have recorded that the rear right has lost about 1mm already, car has only done a few hundred miles since fitting. So I thought hmm maybe the rear right is well out of alignment and causing the wobble. MOT didn't note any advisories so guess no obvious borkage with wheel bearings etc.
So today I have had a full wheel alignment, nothing was particularly far out, just a bit too much toe on the front right. They took a fair bit of camber out of both rears, put them in the middle of the tolerance window rather then the upper limit.
Asked them to check the balancing on all the wheels while they were at it. All of them were out, the fronts quite a lot.
Driving back from that it possibly feels even worse at low speed now, and high speed maybe slightly better or no different.
Might have to try and see if I can find someone with a similar Mini who will let me borrow their wheels and see if it does the same on theirs.
Any other ideas welcome.
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