Originally Posted By: stephen9666
Originally Posted By: sasilverbullet
Every time I buy four tires, at least one of them comes up bad.
Are you serious?
I worked in a tire shop and I've bought quite a few sets of tires in my day. I've never bought a set of tires with a bad tire, and probably only had a handful that I installed ever turn out to be bad. No where near one out of four tires is bad, from my experience.
It's much more likely that you're getting installers who don't properly balance the tires.
To the OP-
I don't think the extra money is worth it for the road force balance, unless you have a balance problem that it can help correct.
Yes, for real! For about 12 years I bought my tires from Discount Tire here in the San Antonio area. The old adage "you get what you pay for" is born out by those guys. They're the cheapest, and it shows in the quality. Before road force was an option it would take a few times of coming back in with "unbalanced" tires, or ones that "pulled" before they'd replace one and fix the problem. Now with road force, I knew I was leaving the store with four good tires.
About 1 yr ago I found a local tire shop that is amazing! They don't have the road force machine, and don't need it because of their experience level. I've already bought two sets of tires from them (I have a lot of vehicles) and I've not had any problems.
Bottom line - in the average shop, get the road force when you buy new tires. If you're just getting a good set of tires re-balanaced, go with the old machine.