Frustration with tire shops......

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dan_erickson

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Most recent frustrating thing with tire shops in my area seems to be balancing. My Accord recently developed a vibration around 70mph in the steering wheel so I took the car to a shop across the street from my work that we deal with all the time. It's convenient, I drop my car off for a few hours and walk back to work. When I picked up I noticed a large difference is weights on my wheels. As in one wheel has only 1/2 ounce of weight on and after previous balance it now has 2 ounces of weight. Another wheel same thing. Just thought the large change in weight was weird. I could see it being slightly off, but not a lot. The shop also told me that the tire on my right front had a hop to it and probably needed to be replaced. So I bought another Michelin Pilot Sport tire and had it replaced yesterday. Same shop has been doing all the work. On the way home I get on the stretch of road where I can get some speed and the vibration is worse!!

Not sure if I should bother bringing the car back to the same shop or go to a different shop and ask them to rebalance the wheels. It really upsets me because I have a lot of money invested into a vibration, it's not going away and I have lost trust in another shop.
 
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BTDT. Was chasing the same on my new to me 1991 350SD.

Supposedlynquakity shops didn't do a good job.

Find a place with a road force balancer, go there at a slow time, like a Tuesday afternoon, and get the real scoop...
 
^ Agreed. Tell them you're chasing the vibration and go when they'll have time to work with you. I'd still go back to the first shop and just let them you know you work right there and have the patience to chase it down, but will be back until it's made right.

A lot of tire shops are scared they'll chase you off. If someone goes in to buy a tire and are told their rim is bent and they should get another (from a junkyard) the customer disappears, never to return. A lot of rims have a little wobble/ runout to them. Tip the guy and watch your rims on the balancer where the bead sets and watch the tire tread for "the wiggles".

The "more weight" could be countered by more weight on the inside, 180 degrees out, to make a better (?) dynamic balance. Your previous balance could have been static only, done in "weight (money) saver mode", or actually drifted out of balance.
 
Originally Posted by Sayjac
I wouldn't go back, you've already given them two chances. Enough. Find a new shop, with a RF balancer probably a good idea.


^^^This is what I did. On this one particular set(4) of tires, Walmart*, who I do like, couldn't balance 2 of my 4 tires after they installed my "brough in" tires. As much as I like W*M for my tire installation(I gave them several chances), if their equipment can't do it, I can't blame the tech. 2 were good/2 were not.

I took those 2 tire/wheels to Firestone where they have a RF balancing machine. Because I brought in the wheels/tires in by themselves and because the wheels were off of the car, they gave me a small break on the price and charged $15/ea. They've been fine since. I haven't had to have any of the 4 tires rebalance from either place...~4 yrs now.
 
I've had good luck buying junk chinese tires from Discount Tire, and having them roadforce balance them.

If you are having repeated vibrations, I would look into wheel torque specs and lateral brake rotor runout.

If the hub has rust on it it will cause runout, i have seen this on several applications.
 
Originally Posted by JustinH
I've had good luck buying junk chinese tires from Discount Tire, and having them roadforce balance them.

If you are having repeated vibrations, I would look into wheel torque specs and lateral brake rotor runout.

If the hub has rust on it it will cause runout, i have seen this on several applications.

I am currently at Discount Tire waiting.
I have new brake rotors on my car and I cleaned any rust scale off the hubs with a wire brush on a drill so that should be taken care of. I also torque my lug nuts. This is why it's so frustrating lol
 
It is a thing of beauty to see a real tire man at work! When I lived in Houston there was a small sport compact car tuning place I found out via the Houston BMW car club.

Touchless tire remover / installer. The most advanced tire balancing machine available at the time. Brand new cutting edge alignment machine. And most important of all people who knew how to use them. They also happened to be the owners. These machines were treated like the precision devices they were.

After tire removal every rim was checked for run out and bead sealing and mounting surface cleaned. Old weights were removed and adhesive removed as well. The tires (from tire rack ) were inspected, labels removed and touchless mounted. Put on balancer and the tire was rotated on the rim several times to get the best weight recommendation by the machine.

After balancing a second road force test was applied. When finished, the tires and rims were cleaned with a sprayway like product. They looked like new! The cars hubs were cleaned prior to mounting, then torqued properly.

Needless to say the car drove like new, I was a happy camper! I continued to use them from there forward. They weren't cheap but the best never is.
The owners were used to the finicky sport compact tuner crowd and had picked up several Porsche customers too. The tire remover / installer was bought because they were beginning to see the new tangled carbon fiber wheels. Surprisingly it was the tuner crowd that came up with them first.

There's no comparison between this shop and anything I'd ever seen before; they were located in a business park and I'd never found them if I hadn't read about them in the car club magazine.
 
Long story short Discount Tire would not service my car because I have 15mm H&R hub centric wheel spacers on with extended studs. I have to use them to clear the 4 piston brake calipers and 13 inch rotors on the front. That is company policy and they felt bad about the situation because they know it's not cheap junk on my car.

Anyway, I didn't really have another choice at the moment and went back to the original place the did the work for my and told them the problem is worse. I'm a pinch they road forced balanced my right front wheel for free and that fixed 90% of the problem right there. I'll talk to them Monday and see what they can do about road force balance on the other three tires.

I just don't under why when I ask for a road force balance no one seems to be able to do it the first time. I always have to come back complaining. It's becoming a habit with all the shops in my area. I am willing to pay!
 
Took 2 of my cars back for rebalancing today at Firestone. Both shook somewhere between 65-75. I already took the truck back. Why I'm mentioning this is my coworkers shook at the same speeds but he went to a Firestone over in Lee Summit. I'm thinking these shops need to be more in the ball with calibrations and maybe that's the question that needs to be asked. Road forces requires calibration also if I was to guess?

Both of mine are ok now it seems to.. hard to tell with the roads and the Escapes struts needs changed.
 
Today of all days being New Years Day I took my car to Tire Barn because they were open and slow. I explained my problem and the tire tech said it sounds like the other shop needs to calibrate there balancer. They balanced the wheels for my for $40, much cheaper then the first shop I was going to. A quick ride down I65 at 70mph and car was smooth! Finally! Hopefully it stays that way.

Not that it matters much but all the wheels balanced out with not much weight.
2 wheels have 1.5 ounce total on each wheel
1 wheel has 1 ounce total
1 wheel has .75 ounce total.
 
I've chased balance issues in the past and it is definitely frustrating. Been to shops where I paid for a RF balance, but the techs refused to use the RF drum on the machine.
mad.gif


Other times, I had 2 weights put across from each other on the same side of the rim, weights fall off as soon as I left the shop, techs not check tire pressures or remove old weights, uncalibrated machines give inconsistent readouts each time the wheel was spun -- just sloppiness overall.

If you're lucky enough to find a good tire shop, stick with them.
 
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Recently I was going to a tire shop for their $25 Valvoline oil change and tire rotation. But the last two times they didn't rotate the tires. Kind of evident when the wheel without the hubcap stays in the same spot. These wheel covers don't need to be removed since there are cutouts in them for the lugs.

Checked over their work and the damper arm on the glove box was left unconnected, washer fluid cap left open, and oil change sticker had the current mileage with no date on it. Talk about messing up the little things. I'm done with them and will go elsewhere. Which is fine since I'll have the mechanic do it along with a few other maintenance items on the car.
 
Originally Posted by SatinSilver
Recently I was going to a tire shop for their $25 Valvoline oil change and tire rotation. But the last two times they didn't rotate the tires. Kind of evident when the wheel without the hubcap stays in the same spot. These wheel covers don't need to be removed since there are cutouts in them for the lugs.

Checked over their work and the damper arm on the glove box was left unconnected, washer fluid cap left open, and oil change sticker had the current mileage with no date on it. Talk about messing up the little things. I'm done with them and will go elsewhere. Which is fine since I'll have the mechanic do it along with a few other maintenance items on the car.

Just do all simple maintenance yourself.

I had an oil change done on my company vehicle (2015 Chevy Equinox) and the idiot forgot to install oil fill cap. I had to spray degreaser to remove all the oil. I was busy and kind of lazy and look what happened...
frown.gif
 
What's different with tires these days that roadforce balancing is necessary? In the old days you could just have your tires balanced the regular ol' way and they were fine...
 
Originally Posted by grampi
What's different with tires these days that roadforce balancing is necessary? In the old days you could just have your tires balanced the regular ol' way and they were fine...


In the old days, cars were built body-on-frame, with huge rubber insulation between the 2. Plus the suspensions were pretty loose with low resonant frequencies. A wheel end vibration was hard pressed to find a pathway to the driver.

Nowadays, the suspensions are much, much tighter with chasses that have much higher resonant frequencies - some in the vicinity of the wheel hop frequency or the wheel rotation speed. Vehicles have to be carefully tested to avoid anything the resonates at any multiple of the wheel hop or wheel rotational frequency. That's not an easy thing to do.
 
Originally Posted by grampi
What's different with tires these days that roadforce balancing is necessary? In the old days you could just have your tires balanced the regular ol' way and they were fine...


Oversized rims.
 
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