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A Mechanic's Life - Tales From Under the Hood

2788 messages,  Last post on May 18, 2013 at 11:15 PM

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Messages Page 62 of 279

#609 of 2788 Re: Things that are out of balance [thecardoc3] by thecardoc3

Dec 05, 2012 (3:18 pm)

Replying to: thecardoc3 (Dec 05, 2012 2:41 pm)
What was that I heard? You want the balance free with the tire purchase?

#610 of 2788 Re: Things that are out of balance [thecardoc3] by xwesx

Dec 05, 2012 (3:55 pm)

Replying to: thecardoc3 (Dec 05, 2012 3:18 pm)
Yep, that's it, too!
 
Most places around here do the mount/balance for about $60. The local Ford dealership charges $90 for theirs, but they also use the Hunter RF9700. What I find is that not only are the tires better balanced (although I've never had an out-of-balance that was noticeable at under 70 mph, which is where 99% of my driving occurs), but the amount of weight used to balance them seems to be considerably less. Of course, that's on the same rims, but with different tires, so the tires themselves could be the difference?
 
I'm not sure why, but for some reason that just seems worth an extra $30 to me.
 
The only thing that bugs me is that there isn't a differential rate for mounted vs. unmounted wheels (meaning on or off a vehicle). It seems to me that changing tires on rims that are mounted on a vehicle should take more time and effort than ones that are not... yet the price is the same.

#611 of 2788 Re: Things that are out of balance [thecardoc3] by qbrozen

Dec 05, 2012 (4:14 pm)

Replying to: thecardoc3 (Dec 05, 2012 2:29 pm)
You would add yourself to bearcats list of people who couldn't balance his tires with that.
 
Probably. Sounds like his wheels and/or tires are really messed up. Luckily, all the ones I have done haven't had that problem. I even balanced out the set that the BMW dealership told me was bent. Still running them now.

#612 of 2788 Re: Things that are out of balance [xwesx] by explorerx4

Dec 05, 2012 (7:44 pm)

Replying to: xwesx (Dec 05, 2012 3:55 pm)
The tires and the wheels are not perfectly round.
I'm pretty sure the there is a way to even that out, then balance the whole thing.

#613 of 2788 Re: Things that are out of balance [explorerx4] by xwesx

Dec 05, 2012 (7:48 pm)

Replying to: explorerx4 (Dec 05, 2012 7:44 pm)
In talking with a guy at the Ford shop, he said the first thing they do when balancing is offset the heaviest point on the tire opposite the heaviest point on the wheel.
 
Is that what you're saying?

#614 of 2788 Re: Things that are out of balance [qbrozen] by oldbearcat

Dec 05, 2012 (11:00 pm)

Replying to: qbrozen (Dec 05, 2012 4:14 pm)
I had tires balanced for years with the old bubble balancers, and, never had problems. My son has one. If he didn't live 200 miles from me, I'd took the Honda to him. Bet he'd done a better job than the chain tire store did. The Mercedes dealer here uses a road force balancer and gets 'em perfect. A couple of years ago, I needed tires for an 06 Jaguar, and had them pick up the tires from the tire store and mount and balance them. Yeah, it cost me a bit more - but - they actually found that two of the new tires were out of specification with the road force balancer, and, made the tire dealer replace them.
Now a story about some of the crap I've run into. A few years ago, I went to a big national retailer and bought a set of tires for a 95 Chrysler LHS. I got the car back, and, headed home, which involved a 10 mile interstate run. As soon as I got on the interstate, I had violent wheel shake, so I went back to their auto center for a re-balance. From their waiting room, I was watching their guy work on my car. He didn't even put it on a lift or take the wheels off. As I watched, he took a tire pressure guage and let air out of all 4 tires. a few minutes later, they told me my car was all fixed. I went out, got my tire pressure guage out, and verified that I now had 25 psi in all 4 tires. I went back in, grabbed a store manager, and showed him what they did. Then I made him refund all the balancing charges, and, I went to another shop and had them balance the wheels correctly.
 
Regards:
Oldbearcat

#616 of 2788 Re: Things that are out of balance [oldbearcat] by thecardoc3

Dec 06, 2012 (6:19 am)

Replying to: oldbearcat (Dec 05, 2012 11:00 pm)
Now a story about some of the crap I've run into
 
Right back at you.
 
I was given a repair order for a complaint of wheel/tire vibration. We used a bubble balancer back then and we would use four weights which had us putting the weights at a 60 degree angle on each side of the wheel. I could then slide the weights towards each other a little to make them "heavier" if I needed a little more weight or if I had a little too much I could slide them apart from each other to make them "lighter". Back in those days, this was easily "good enough". I road tested the car and it was fine. The next day the guy was back and it was vibrating like crazy again. I put the first tire on the balancer and it was off by about three ounces! I rebalanced the tire, but there was no way that I had missed by that much, something was going on here. I picked the tire up off of the balancer, and bounced it. and then put it back on. It was again off by three ounces.
 
This guy had been using so much stop leak in his tires that it was like a ball of wet newspaper inside the tire, in fact all four of them were like that.
 
I had to take the tires apart, clean all of that trash out of the tires, replaced the bad valve stems, cleaned the rust from wheel beads, and patched one of the tires and rebalanced them. I didn't get paid a cent for all of that because "it was a comeback".

#617 of 2788 Around here by bartbarter

Dec 06, 2012 (7:34 am)

they do charge more to take the tires off the car. I can get tires mounted and balanced for $10, including tire disposal. And, they're open, not 24 7 but almost all the time. National chain. I wouldn't let them touch anything on my car though.
 
Interesting turn of discussion. My 03 Grand Marquis has a hard to fix slight back and forth wobble, and the Marauder guys say it's common, and needs road force balanced, with hot tires.
 
That bugs the heck out of me.

#618 of 2788 Re: Around here [bartbarter] by imidazol97

Dec 06, 2012 (7:42 am)

Replying to: bartbarter (Dec 06, 2012 7:34 am)
>slight back and forth wobble,
 
I would assess that to be bad belts in a tire or bent rim. Out of round tires give more of an up and down movement.
 
Road force balancers can ameliorate out-of-roundness due to differences in compression of the tire at different parts of its circumference. The tech measures the rim for its high point and then places the high part of the tire at the low part of the rim hoping they will reduce the effective out-of-roundness. If a tire or rim is out a lot, then the tech can move the tire to another rim which has more variation if available. After reducing out-of-roundness as much as possible, then the balancer spins the tire for dynamic balancing: they do not correct for out-of-roundness due to compression variation in the spin balancing.
 
Does your waddle change if tires are moved to front/back?

Messages Page 62 of 279

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