road force balancing$$$$$$

[MERCMAN]

I have a vibration in my tires above a certain speed ;) and looked into getting my tires balanced by a road force machine. $120.00 for all four That seems a bit, no A LOT expensive. Is this an average price for this? There is only one such machine in my town, and of course, it isn't at the L/M dealership. :help:

[RF Overlord]

Dan, I checked this out at the local FORD dealer (of COURSE an L/M dealer isn't going to have one, you silly boy...no one who buys a Grand Marquis drives fast enough to need it :P ) and that's the same price they gave me..."plus or minus", depending on how long it took at their ludicrous labour rate.

[MERCMAN]

Actually it is a Ford/Mercury dealer, but putting down F/M just didn't look right :lol: or even worse M/F :) I am having the tires rotated as well as an O/C so they are going to take the wheels to the G/M dealership to have it done. I am only going to have the fronts done at this time :up:

Thanks Bob.

[Mike Poore]

I have a vibration in my tires above a certain speed ;) :help:
Um, ~130? Could be the driveshaft.:banned:

[SergntMac]

I am only going to have the fronts done at this time.
That was going to be my suggestion, Dan. After driving your superb MM and feeling the vibration myself, I would suggest you approach it with a "as needed" plan. First, have your balance checked to see if the tires are in fact balanced as they sit, you may have just lost a wheel weight. If it's good, look closer at your tires for "out of round." If not, then road force balance the fronts, then the rears if necessary.


Um, ~130? Could be the driveshaft.
Yes, it could be. Dan, do you get any vibration in the review mirrors?

BTW, yes, that's what a road force balance costs around here too, 120 bucks for all four corners.

[CRUZTAKER]

Road force around here is 30-40 a wheel as well. Those machines don't come cheap!

[MERCMAN]

Yes, it could be. Dan, do you get any vibration in the review mirrors

I have never noticed the mirrors vibrating, the vibration starts about 75MPH, too early for driveshaft I suspect

[Ross]

I got a quote in Houston for $20 per wheel.

[CRUZTAKER]

Mercman....is there anyone close to you to do a little test?

Why not swap all four tires with another Marauder and put this theory to an end?

I'd be willing to meet you in Toledo of perhaps a little further west and bring my jack and cordless impact. We could tear up some Ohio turnpike together!:D

[Mikeenh]

I had 4 tires for my 04 Jeep force balanced for $50 TOTAL here in Concord, NH

[MERCMAN]

Mercman....is there anyone close to you to do a little test?

Why not swap all four tires with another Marauder and put this theory to an end?

I'd be willing to meet you in Toledo of perhaps a little further west and bring my jack and cordless impact. We could tear up some Ohio turnpike together!:D


Barry, thanks!! No offence but remember, I was in the parking lot at MV2 I know what you do to tires :lol:

[David Morton]

I've learned a few things about the new Hunter roadforce balancer (It wasn't available a few years back when I retired from the auto repair business) by watching my SVT technician, who was kind enough to explain the thing to me.

It does two things the old computer balancers don't do.

1) It can roll the tire against a drum at a slow speed and measures resistance exposing any hard spots in the tire that can cause trouble. This has nothing to do with balance. If it has a hard spot, the tire is to be discarded.

2) It will measure the high spot of the tire and the low spot of the rim and indicate the best adjustment so the technician can dismount and realign the tire on the rim. I think this is why they are charging so much for the service.

It also has a neat arm with a wheel on it that is used to measure the rim low spot and also to indicate the spot where to put the recommended weight for balance correction. I'm not counting this as something new because it really isn't. A dial indicator should be part of any shops basic equipment and on a cast wheel that doesn't indicate the low spot (ours doesn't) standard quality procedure has always been to find this low spot before mounting the new tire, which has the high spot indicated, by law. Also an arm to put the weight on an exact spot within a millimeter is just plain overkill. Pick up one stubborn pebble in the tread and this kind of accuracy just went out the window.

So my experience as an ASE Master Technician tells me this "roadforce" thing is a great machine for dealerships, because it can help eliminate any tire/wheel related vibration complaints (warranty) and at the same time, provide a real cash-cow for the NASCAR dads that don't know it isn't really doing anything a regular balancer and a knowledgeable technician can't do. Except the part about the hard spots in the tire, but this is something a little knowledge and 'stand-up-for-yourself' on the part of the customer won't cure. If you bought two new BFG G-Force tires and they can't get those suckers balanced, somethings either wrong with the tire (extremely rare) or the technician.

I just bought two new rear stock tires at my local Firestone dealer for $81 each, which he mounted and balanced for free, on an old style rim-clamp type machine and dinosaur computer balancer. I've had her up to 100 mph and she's smooth as glass. And he didn't damage the rims.

[CRUZTAKER]

If you bought two new BFG G-Force tires and they can't get those suckers balanced, somethings either wrong with the tire (extremely rare) or the technician.Not as 'RARE' as one might think.

My father built tires for over 37 years, I wish he was still around to share some stories...'cause he really knew his tires.

I recently had 3 of 4 high performance Michelins (for the LS), fail road force balance for internal manufacturing defects. The data was faxed to Tire Rack and they gladly x-shipped three new tires.

Had they not been R/F balanced....my wife would have never known there was a problem....aside from the 4 oz. of stickey weights the installer put on the rim....:shake:

[SergntMac]

Excellent post David, thank you. Very imformative on what's behind a true road force balance. One of my tires had to be rotated on the rim 3x before a true balance was found, and that's expensive in time, and wrench salary.

I do agree with Barry, the incidence of failed tires is greater that one expects. But, I think it's simply a matter of business, where and how to spend production and warranty money. Large tire companies like Goodyear and BFG used to maintain their own and very stiff internal inspections before the tires left the factory. But, they ran their own retail stores back then too, and warranty issues were part of their operating budget and gross profits.

IMHO, it's not like that anymore. The tires are given general a once over and sent out to high volume aftermarket retailers and mail order companies who thrive on our tendency for instant gratification and full consumer protection. For those customers not concerned, a slightly out of round tire is unimportant to them. Tires are disposable, and if they do have any problems, they have a generous warranty protecting them. However, auto enthuiasts like us here are a PITA to them, because we'll keep coming back until it's done right.

The cost of product replacement and warranty is no longer a matter of high in-house QC. It's more a money question of "cost of a tight QC network in-house" vs. "meter out substandard product, banking it won't get noticed by the end user." It's all smiles and sorry when something gets noticed, but I believe substandard product slips through much more than we think.

Increase your gross profit by reducing your production rejection overhead by loosening QC, and let someone else sort out the rejects and service the warranty. I bet there is big bucks in this for both the manufacturers and retailers. Remember, it's the aftermarket retailer that's selling you his lavish warranty, not the manfacturer, and IMHO, it may be one of the reasons my Pirelli tires average 255 bucks each, and our OEM tires can be found for 81 bucks each, on line. That's quite a spread, yes? Profit in volume? Just take a peek at the computer industry over the last 10 years. My first IBM cost me 4K, my last clone 459 bucks. Remember when Packard Bell would repair your sick PC by replacing it? It's business in the new milenium.

Just my .02C, carry on...

[Bradley G]

Thank You Gentleman for your posts, I lived with a steering wheel shake for several months.after replaceing the front tires and re road force balanced my wheel shake is gone . At high speeds the wheel shakes only if I hit the brakes.I can relate to your comments Mac, cause I can't get anyone(dealer) to call me back as I've been back sooo many times to get this resolved.

[David Morton]

Oh, I agree about the lousy QC in the tire industry. SergntMac, you put your finger right on it and that puts the onus on us (forgive me) to demand good tires and service. The mass-production tire industry doesn't have the same problem the car industry has. They screw up a tire or mounting and most folks let it pass, they're gonna go shopping for the cheapest tire next time anyways, but pi$$ off a customer that's going to be making payments for the next 60 months and it won't matter how good a deal your cars are, he's gonna remember the time he got screwed by a salesman or that rattle they never fixed.

And cruztaker, I would have been suprised a few years back (20) about those Michelins that were bad, but not anymore. They are completely gone to the Wal-Mart mass market now. But my comment about the hard spot problem being rare was aimed at the performance tire industry, which is a sub-set and sort of a different animal from the mass-production market. The BFG T/A radial is a name that goes back a long ways and the company has done a superb job of protecting the tires sterling reputation over the years. Sure, it's no Pirelli but they know their market, NASCAR dads like me, and even though the G-Force wears a little fast, that's OK because it's part of the price we pay for a sticky compound and I am well pleased with the performance I've gotten from mine.

That's my opinion.