Finding new tires that are not out of round - mission impossible?

[BrainThicknessVariation]

I have also had terrible problems with out of round tires. My wife and I have two Volvo C30s. Mine is the R design with 18" wheels, hers has 17" wheels. Both cars drove smoothly before trying to replace the tires. To shorten the really long story, each car has had wheels replaced as needed to have four very straight wheels. I first got a set of Falken Pro G5 A/S for each car (Discount Tire). More than one tire on each car was visibly out of round which resulted in road force numbers well over 20lbs - even after breaking the bead, rotating and re balancing. I had come back so many times, that they calibrated the machine before they did my tires and let me watch (necessary to get them to take time to do it properly). After a few more visits, I contacted customer support and they offered me free tire upgrades. I found a Volvo service bulletin that specifies a maximum road force number of 20lbs (using the hunter road force elite machine). Discount tire said 25 or 30 lbs was acceptable depending on who you asked.

I picked Yokohama advan sport A/S+ for the car with 18" wheels and Pirelli P7 AS plus 3 for the other car. The Yokohama tires were better than the Falkens, but one tire still has a road force number over 20 and I get a slight steering wheel shake since it is on the front left.

It took SIX Pirellis to get four that were marginally acceptable!!! Two were good, one was fair, one was marginal (road force of 23lbs) and two were terrible - around 30. This car also has a slight shake in the steering wheel - again the worst tire is on the front left. When I rotate the tires, it may not be noticeable.

I am amazed at the amount of radial runout on theses tires. I thought the Pirellis would be good. I don't know where the Falken tires were made. The Yokohamas were made in the Philippines, and the Pirellis were made in Mexico. I had to look up a code to find the country of origin on the Pirellis.

Michelin is usually headache free. *Usually*... Caveat Emptor - words to live by.

 

[CarDoc66]

My experience lately (I sell tires and deal with this a lot) is that getting a good, uniform tire is a crapshoot. Very low profile tires seem to be the worst, maybe because there isn't much sidewall to "absorb" some of the forces? Surprisingly I've had some high end tires cause problems and have had some cheapo tires run perfectly smooth. It's a roll of the dice.
My personal experience is Good Year is the worst for balance problems. Working at a new car dealer for many years we always had problems with Good-For-A-Year.
Yes, OE's spec out their tires even down to the compound. My father in law got 60,000 miles on a set of Wranglers for his Ram truck, bought the exact same tire as a replacement and only got 25.000 miles, and had a nasty vibration the whole time.

I'll give you an example of my personal experience recently: My 2020 Tacoma 4x4, I put some Good Year Ultra Terrains (made in Canada) on for a traction/winter tire. I also just purchased some Michelin LTX A/T2's (made in USA) for a summer tire. Both sets were mounted on brand new wheels, both balanced on the same machine, both sets were almost perfect in terms of lateral and radial run out. The Good Year's are perfect, I mean the smoothest A/T truck tire I have ever purchased (not quiet, but very smooth). The Michelins (which cost considerably more too) have a vibration that I cannot get rid of. I would have bet money it would have been the other way around.

A GSP 9700 road force balancer is no help when you have nice straight wheels and terrible tires, or even the other way around.

Also, clarification on sidewall dots from a tire manufacturer (Toyo): The red spot is the high spot of the tire. The yellow spot is the lightest spot. If both are present, the red spot takes priority. The valve stem hole has nothing to do with anything, most OE wheels are marked during manufacture (usually a yellow sticker or a red dot) and you'll se that on new car lots if you do a walk thru.
On a used wheel, you need to find the high/low or heavy spot to match with your new tire. This is where the GSP 9700 comes into play. it's not a magical balancing machine. It's a tool that the operator must be trained to use properly to get results.

 

[CharBaby]

I can attest for Good\Year being the hardest name brand tires to keep balanced that I’ve ever owned since the 1970s and have continued even today which is why I am done with them. However, I have had private label tires that were absolutely rubbish for any quality in any area except being black & round-ish.

 

[BLND1]

I’ve been buying tires for a long time and I’ve never had a set that wouldn’t balance and I’ve never had vibration issues. Too many brands to count.

No offense, this really sounds like a “you” problem.

All brands, all of your cars? Almost every time? Yeah.

 

[JohnnyG]

Currently the cars in my signature. Pontiac Vibe GT (FWD) and Jaguar S-Type (RWD). In the past I had the same problems on my Ford Probe GT, BMW 325i and Toyota Matrix.

No. The problem is the tires, 100%. Each of my 3 cars rides perfect on good, well-balanced, round tires. I have extra sets of wheels both for the Pontiac and for the Jag so this is super easy to demonstrate. I had to go show the shop a couple of times. They finally stopped insisting on a suspension issue when they felt the car drive perfectly smoothly on the other tires. Also, quite often I can get rid of the steering wheel shake/hop simply by rotating the tires until the bad ones end up in the rear, where it's much less noticeable. That's what I ended up doing with my current set of Kumho's on the Jag, after much back and forth with the tire shop.

Not that. The steering wheel and whole car shakes in direct proportion to how bad the tires are. Usually in line with measured road force measurement.

No, all rims are perfect, all OEM. I had the rims tested independently. This is actually showing in the report image. (Rim - OK)

I heard the 2 lb RF figure in a video posted by a Toyota production manager turned YouTuber a while back. In any case, the manufacturers have incredibly strict requirements to ensure the new cars ride smoothly.

They refuse to do it as part of the standard install cost until I come back with a problem.

The only place that I've seen road force balancing "ADVERTISED" as being done when buying new tires is my Mercedes Dealer. I plan to get my tires there when the need arises.
I put advertised in quotes because you and I both know how variable tedious service like this can be.
I have never seen road force numbers down to 2#.

On another note, from personal experience, my cars would show vibrations if over 10# of road force imbalance was present. These were both Cadillacs. The Mercedes has been good to well over 100 mph. One car had Continentals, this one has the Perelli run flats.

 

[redmed]

Is there somewhere that lists where a specific tire is made?

 

[cb_13]

Road Force and "out of round" are two different things.

Road Force is a measurement made up by the Hunter Engineering Company. You'll notice all over the Hunter website that it appears as Road Force® in their descriptions. That's because it is a registered trademark. Hunter owns the term. They literally made it up. It's not some SAE or ISO measurement standard. It's a marketing tool to sell wheel balancers that can then be used to upsell services to customers.

"Out of round" is a simple measurement of the circular run-out of a tire. You don't need a $10,000 wheel balancer to measure run-out. Hunter will tell you that measuring Road Force is more than just measuring run-out. With a roller that contacts the tire, it applies a load and spins the wheel assembly. This measures not only run-out, but also any construction related items that could cause an inconsistent measurement around the circumference of the tire that can only be identified with Hunter's proprietary Road Force® dynamic test. This is when the Hunter rep asks a shop if they're going to buy his $10,000 wheel balancer.



Since Road Force® is a made-up term by Hunter, I can 100%, without-a-doubt, assure you that Toyota (or any other manufacturer) is not using it as any type of production or service standard that a tire has to meet or pass to be considered "good". The tires on a new Toyota Corolla haven't met some arbitrary Road Force® number when they were first mounted and when those tires are replaced at the local Toyota dealer, they're not being sent back to Bridgestone or Michelin if they don't result in a specific Road Force®.

That's absolutely not how it works, despite what a

Can you share this enlightening video or is it lost to the annals of your search history and we'll just have to trust you on this one?

I’m not saying it’s the only metric they will use but I’ve been requested to record road force measurements with the tire at 3 different positions on the wheel by both Ford and Goodyear for warranty claims. They were aware that our dealership used a Hunter balancer.

It was much easier to get a tire replaced through the distributor. ITD or ATD either one just asked for DOT code, tread depth and the reason we were not satisfied. Then they traded us out for a new tire.

 

[cb_13]

Is there somewhere that lists where a specific tire is made?

Tire rack.com still did last time I checked. They’re not always 100% accurate but I think I’ve only caught it one time that I checked before buying/selling a particular tire and they were wrong about COO.

 

[CarDoc66]

I’ve been buying tires for a long time and I’ve never had a set that wouldn’t balance and I’ve never had vibration issues. Too many brands to count.

No offense, this really sounds like a “you” problem.

All brands, all of your cars? Almost every time? Yeah.

There are plenty of people with your experience. There are plenty with the opposite experience. Some people are more sensitive to NVH, some vehicles are more susceptible to NVH...... and vice versa.
Some food for thought: Why would Hunter engineering develop specific wheel balance equipment (and owns the patent) to help diagnose and counteract uniformity issues with tires that are causing ride disturbance? Their GSP9700 system costs two, three and even four times more than conventional balancing equipment but more and more shops are buying them because of vibration complaints.

 

[BLND1]

There are plenty of people with your experience. There are plenty with the opposite experience. Some people are more sensitive to NVH, some vehicles are more susceptible to NVH...... and vice versa.
Some food for thought: Why would Hunter engineering develop specific wheel balance equipment (and owns the patent) to help diagnose and counteract uniformity issues with tires that are causing ride disturbance? Their GSP9700 system costs two, three and even four times more than conventional balancing equipment but more and more shops are buying them because of vibration complaints.

I have no doubt that folks experience a full spectrum of variance.

In this case, Occam’s razor suggests that the common denominator is OP.

Every set, every car? Yeah, nah.

 

[Mr 59 4cv]

I understand your skepticism, my recent personal experience doesn't sound believable either (three brands, four sets of tires all with problems). There are also many variables that have to be ruled out before determining that it is actually a tire problem. The only time I ever had anything similar happen was with some super cheap tires put on my wife's camry about six months before selling it. One tire was a bit out of round, but not badly enough to replace. I purchased Kumho Ecsta tires for my corvette and have not had any problems at all. I would have expected that this sort of problem would be more likely for the much lower profile size on the corvette (as compared to my Volvo C30s).

I spoke with an fellow engineer who had this problem with replacement tires that were on his Pontiac G8 when he purchased it. After checking the wheels and repeated attempts to balance out the shaking, he took it to someone with tire shaving equipment. Once the tires were round and re-balanced, the problem was solved. The shop that owned the equipment said they see this quite a lot with many brands, but rarely with Michelins. I have not found a shop with tire shaving equipment (and someone who really knows how to use it) in my area yet.

 

[HangFire]

Part of the problem is the installers.

I have been trying to get a Road Force printout for my Conti's for the past 3 years. All the local shops either a.) don't even have a printer or b.) printer is broken. I ask ahead if they can produce a printout, sure, then time comes and Oops sorry but still they want to charge full price for the best balancing service.

 

[OX1]

The latest Hunter machine automatically measures wheel runout and wheel dimensions with the tire mounted. After running the wheel/tire assembly against the roller, the tech is guided where to mark the stiffest part of the tire and the lowest part of the wheel. Next step is to pop the bead and rotate the tire on the wheel so the 2 marks line up.

Looks like it uses cameras in the hood, to measure rim runout with the tire on (Pg 27),

https://smonta.ru/upload/iblock/781/7817d822c8ac55d4ea5d8b3b33f7ee1b.pdf

but I wonder if that is really as good as measuring bare rim runout, where you're actually
measuring the spot where bead sits. Especially on outer face of rim, which is most likely not
a machined surface, on most modern rims.

 

[MattPersman]

The hunter road force elite is around 21 grand.

It’s likely the sales person/service advisor that is taking the road force sale and the tire guy/kid/girl is just throwing the tires on that same balancer and balancing them.

It is being balanced on a road force machine just that feature is not being used until there is an issue with vibration that is likely brought back with a complaint.

The balancing is probably a menu item, and at some places it could just be the only menu item and maybe genuinely just think the machine is called road force and that’s what all the balancing is.

Problem with checking the road force on every single tire a place sells is they could have a large pile of “junk” tires they have to deal with getting replaced and 90%+ of the vehicle drivers would have never noticed. So if a place had 4 only if a certain tire and size then well now we only have 2 or 3 to mount on your car and it’s holding up you and the business

 

[SubLGT]

My experience lately (I sell tires and deal with this a lot) is that getting a good, uniform tire is a crapshoot....

That says it all.

 

[SC Maintenance]

I’ve been buying tires for a long time and I’ve never had a set that wouldn’t balance and I’ve never had vibration issues. Too many brands to count.

No offense, this really sounds like a “you” problem.

All brands, all of your cars? Almost every time? Yeah.

I am 50. I have driven over a million miles at minimum. The first time I had this problem was 2020.

Every tire up to the last set of Generals I bought were all fine. Those were not.

I do hope you never have the problem. I can tell you when you do - anyone without a Hunter machine is no help and they will tell you its your car, not their tires.

 

[BrainThicknessVariation]

Anecdotal, but a few years ago I purchased an entire winter tire/wheel setup from TireRack (Alpin PA4 + chinese Motegi wheels). Once I got them on the car, it was obvious there were vibration/shimmying issues. I took them to someone with a Hunter machine and all four assemblies were way way out of spec. like 30-40# of RFV, IIRC. I was not surprised in the least. Someone at TireRack didn't do their job, and to make matters worse, they adamantly tried to blame my car until I got them checked indepenently.

Fast forward a little, I got them to send 4 new tires. My indy guy was able to balance most of them to within spec. However, the problem persisted. TireRack kept insisting it was my vehicle, to which I repeatedly denied, as the outgoing summer set ran perfectly (Michelin P4S on OEM Lexus wheels). I returned the winter set and swapped for a new summer set under the Michelin satisfaction guarantee and I just toughed it out for the winter, and after a year and going to the BBB, I got them to take the wheels back as well.

The following winter (1 year later from the original order), I re-ordered an entire winter/wheel setup, only this time I went with Michelin X-Ice Snow and Italian-made OZ's. Threw them on the car and wouldn't you know it, smooth as glass. Maybe I got unlucky and then lucky, or maybe TireRack actually did what they purport to do, which is to only ship the most uniform and balanced products out there using their Hunter machines. Who knows. To this day, I don't know the RFV of the new winter set, as I never needed to. In fact, they ran so smooth that I left them on until July.

I suspect the culprit were the cheap chinese Motegis. Even with a proper RFB, they still rode like trash. The takeaway here is, you get what you pay for, and while RFB is an incredible diagnostic tool, having RFV within spec does not mean those wheel/tires will ride smooth, and being out of spec will typically manifest as noticable NVH. In other words, IME, you do need to have your assemblies to be within spec, but it still might not guarantee a smooth ride, even if your car is brand new.

I usually only go with Michelin, but have had good results with Conti DWS. I think for my next summer set, I'm going to try the new Conti ExtremeContact Sport 02. Slightly cheaper than P4S but they seem to perform at least as well or better, given the reviews.

One last tidbit: when my indy guy does my RFB, he spends at least a few hours on it. At least 30 minutes a tire. Anything less and you're getting fleeced, like at a Discount Tire where they claim to do it in 20 minutes total.

 

[oil pan 4]

We recently bought a 1999 Dodge Dakota 5.2l 2wd as the impending doom of $4 a gallon gas looms and has made gas hogs cheap. It's not a daily driver, put maybe 300 miles a month on it.
It has a front end shake. The last guy replaced the rotor, put the spare on it, got it aligned. It's Just the wheel bearing.

 

[SubLGT]

Anecdotal, but a few years ago I purchased an entire winter tire/wheel setup from TireRack (Alpin PA4 + chinese Motegi wheels). Once I got them on the car, it was obvious there were vibration/shimmying issues. I took them to someone with a Hunter machine and all four assemblies were way way out of spec. like 30-40# of RFV, IIRC. I was not surprised in the least. Someone at TireRack didn't do their job, and to make matters worse, they adamantly tried to blame my car until I got them checked indepenently.

Fast forward a little, I got them to send 4 new tires. My indy guy was able to balance most of them to within spec. However, the problem persisted..

did you measure the radial and lateral runout on the Motegi wheels ?

 

[BrainThicknessVariation]

did you measure the radial and lateral runout on the Motegi wheels ?

Not initially. IIRC, as the tires/wheels were brand-spankin' new (I mounted the assemblies and the next day was on the horn with CS), my indy and I just agreed to check the RFV of the whole assembly, and they were wildy out of spec so we stopped there and got 4 new tires.

Eventually, TireRack had me send the whole order back and they did check the wheels. They sent me a video of one that was apparently bent. Problem is, they were brand new and I never hit any potholes. Given the original wildy out of spec order they shipped me, and their attempt to gaslight me, the trust had been broken and I still insisted they keep them. Also, my indy never indicated to me that any bent wheels were the culprit. They'd have easily seen it if it was in fact as bad as the wheel TireRack sent to me in a video. *I should add that my indy is a TireRack trusted installer, so any misdiagnoses due to incompetence would be on the both of them, not me.*

No joke, at one point, the CS rep I had been dealing with tried to tell me I hadn't selected at checkout that they be balanced lol. That's literally not even an option. It comes with any wheel/tire package purchase. I had to go out of my way to screenshot the order to them. Not really sure what was going on in their heads they thought I would fall for that.

If you are ever on their BBB page, you'll probably run into my complaint. The whole thing dragged on for a while until I decided to go that route, then it was a quick turnaround. From now on, I give people one chance and then it's straight to BBB.