Seering Wheel shake GONE!!!

[BillyGman]

It's my understanding that a number of Marauder owners have been plagued w/the infamous Marauder steering wheel shake like I have been for the past two months. Well, I want to give a BIG THANKS to "FORDNUT" for telling me about how the "ROADFORCE" tire balancing procedure corrected the steering wheel shake that his Marauder had for over a year despite the standard wheel balancings he's had. I had the standard wheel balancing performed also to no avail. but today I just had the "ROADFORCE" wheel balancing performed, and all the wheel shaking that was apparent on the highway is GONE!!!! It wasn't chaep though ($300 to be exact!!). But because it was the only remedy to this problem for me, it was well worth it. I had to travel a little bit to find a place that had the ROADFORCE balancing equipment since very few places have it. But what a difference there is in the results!!!

[Bradley G]

Hey BillyGman,

Hey can I have an honorable mention for my 411 on this?;) Now that my wheel shake is gone now Too.I was curious who has noticed a vibe that has a resonance feel that is noticeable on a perfectly smooth road it has a rythm that comes and goes through the whole car.The reason I ask is that when it does hibernate the car has no vibe what so ever .still the tires?? they have 9-10 K
and for some folks that don't seem to speak up .........Go on now don't be shy
If you have this,please tell!
Bradley G

[KilledKenny]

Yes, it can still be the tires. All tire have a certain amount of road force which is rated in lbs. What the road force balancer does is show the spot on the tire where the most road force is. Then if the amount of road force is to high (which depends on if the balancer is set for car or truck tires) the balancer will give you a prompt to check rim runout. After the rim runout is checked, it will display if the excessive road force is being caused by the tire or rim and if indexing the tire to rim will lower the road force enought to be in spec. I believe the spec on our 9700 balancer for road force is 35lbs max for Cars and 45lbs max for trucks. I will tell you this, I have sent back many brand new due to excessive road force. Goodyear tires seem to be the worst and Michellin the best. :cool:

[TAF]

Just another reason to go with (what I feel) are a MUCH better tire in the KDW2s. My new ones indexed out at 2, 3, 3 and 7 respectively. Most tire experts will tell you anything below 15 is excellent and 5 is phenominal. I think these new treads are superior in every way including manufacturing practices.
http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires.jsp?tireMake=BFGoodrich&tireModel=g-Force+T%2FA+KDW+2
http://www.tirerack.com/images/tires/bfg/bfg_gforce_ta_kdw2_ci2_l.jpg

[Petrograde]

I never had the steering wheel shakes, but I did have my tires Roadforce balanced last time I got tires.

She drives as smooth as glass! :cool:

[HwyCruiser]

The only issues I ever had with the tire shimmy is right after the brake upgrade, after I had the Wilwood rotors turned on the hubs everything has been fine.

The tires have been off and on the wheels twice so far. Once when I got new BFGs this spring and just today when the 18" Blizzacks went on.

Balanced with whatever machine the dealer has (never asked) for $50 total each time. Straight as an arrow and no shimmy. No wheel scratches either. Guess I'm just lucky.

- JD

[Logan]

$300?!?!??!?!? HOLY CRAP!

Should I mention I had mine done on Discount Tire's Road Force machine for an extra $10 per wheel?

...and before anyone asks the stupid question, yes, an actual honest to goodness road force machine. Apparently my tire guy has a conscience about taking the screws to the common man.

[KilledKenny]

$300!!! :eek: Holy :censor: . I missed that part. We charge $46.00 for a basic balance and rotate. We always road force the tires. We will only charge extra for a balance if the tire needs to be reindexed to the rim to bring the road force in spec. Heck, the labor charge to install 4 new tires is only $50.00 inc indexing tire to rim if needed.

[Bradley G]

Hey Killed Kenny,thanks for the scoop My dealer is not going to divulge any additional info to me,cause now they think I'm a pain in thier azz!I have held them to thier oversights and mistakes and pointed out who I feel are underachievers.

[Bradley G]

Hey Billy,

That wouldn't be the same tire shop you left under a big cloud of white smoke?If so the $300 may include some "SIR" charges:burnout:
Bradley G

It's my understanding that a number of Marauder owners have been plagued w/the infamous Marauder steering wheel shake like I have been for the past two months. Well, I want to give a BIG THANKS to "FORDNUT" for telling me about how the "ROADFORCE" tire balancing procedure corrected the steering wheel shake that his Marauder had for over a year despite the standard wheel balancings he's had. I had the standard wheel balancing performed also to no avail. but today I just had the "ROADFORCE" wheel balancing performed, and all the wheel shaking that was apparent on the highway is GONE!!!! It wasn't chaep though ($300 to be exact!!). But because it was the only remedy to this problem for me, it was well worth it. I had to travel a little bit to find a place that had the ROADFORCE balancing equipment since very few places have it. But what a difference there is in the results!!!

[BillyGman]

I contacted the Hunter company who makes the roadforce balancing machines. I was under the impression that they're the only ones who make them, but I'm not certain if that's true or not. All as I do know is that nobody else that I've dealt with nor spoken to in my homestate has this "Roadforce" balancing equippment like this Ford dealer does that I went to. I asked the Hunter company for the nearest place that has that equipment and they gave me the name of this Ford dealer that is in another part of the state. So I didn't think that I had much of a choice. They told me that this equipment costed them $12,000, and the guy from the Hunter company informed me that it was just three months ago that this dealer had purchased it. So I guess they're looking to make their $$ back.But the $20 balancing specials around where I live did NOT correct the problem, so I'm just glad that I got it corrected.

[Logan]

Call Discount Tire, in Dallas at least, there were 5 or 6 of them that have Roadforce. I got the impression that they were being installed at most Discount tire's...

[marauder307]

I saw something in another thread about adjustment of the side backlash, or something like that...did you have to have that adjusted too? I need to know myself...I'm getting new tires put on in the next week or so. My fronts have come up bad..misalignment has turned the inside inch of both fronts slick, and there's a split in the driver's side outside wall. Discovered this when I had the Metco parts installed about a week or so ago...the wrench did a little work on the camber to bring the tires more straight up-and-down, but the damage is done now. After almost 25k on 'em, my fronts are getting replaced...and I just want to make sure I'm covering all the bases.

[BillyGman]

I saw something in another thread about adjustment of the side backlash, or something like that...did you have to have that adjusted too? I need to know myself...I'm getting new tires put on in the next week or so. My fronts have come up bad..misalignment has turned the inside inch of both fronts slick, and there's a split in the driver's side outside wall. Discovered this when I had the Metco parts installed about a week or so ago...the wrench did a little work on the camber to bring the tires more straight up-and-down, but the damage is done now. After almost 25k on 'em, my fronts are getting replaced...and I just want to make sure I'm covering all the bases.
If the camber was corrected, then that was why the tires wore pretty badly. As far as your other question, I've never heard of "backlash" concerning tire balancing nor front-end alignment. And I used to do front end alignments for a local tire place. Sorry.:confused:

[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.

[This is a cut & paste I wrote for an earlier thread.]

End of :soapbox: . :o

[BillyGman]

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.........

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.


Perhaps you're correct, because it took them two hours to balance all four tires, and nobody who has balanced tires for me before has ever taken that long.

[Bradley G]

It may be one of several post I made while I tried to correct this same issue.The steering box has a torque setting that was modified from the origional spec.The Marauder(all panthers) have a new Rack + pinion steering and the steering box is bolted to the frame with no osolators(used to absorb road imperfections) So the driver gets more feedback from road irregularities.I remember the backlash adjustment was not the cause of my problem nor was the several other "fixes" I found in my investigation.

Bradley G


I saw something in another thread about adjustment of the side backlash, or something like that...did you have to have that adjusted too? I need to know myself...I'm getting new tires put on in the next week or so. My fronts have come up bad..misalignment has turned the inside inch of both fronts slick, and there's a split in the driver's side outside wall. Discovered this when I had the Metco parts installed about a week or so ago...the wrench did a little work on the camber to bring the tires more straight up-and-down, but the damage is done now. After almost 25k on 'em, my fronts are getting replaced...and I just want to make sure I'm covering all the bases.

[marauder307]

Now I'm confused...[I]corrected camber makes the tires wear badly? I would think that incorrect camber would wear them the wrong way...I shoulda paid attention in high school shop class...

BradleyG: Thank you for the feedback! What was your correct setting, BTW?

[BillyGman]

Now I'm confused...[i]corrected camber makes the tires wear badly? I would think that incorrect camber would wear them the wrong way...I shoulda paid attention in high school shop class...


LOL.....naw, it was just my neglect to communicate my viewpoint clearly. What I meant was, that if the camber was corrected, then obviously the camber was incorrect, and needed to be adjusted. And an incorrect camber of the front wheels will cause uneven tire wear in addition to handling issues. BTW, what Bradley mentioned about the steering box is some good info, however, if the steering wheel can actually be seen shaking back anf forth in your hand while you're driving down the highway like it was doing in my car, then I doubt that it would have anything to do w/the steering box. Anyway, atleast it didn't have anything to do w/it on my car.

[BillyGman]

Call Discount Tire, in Dallas at least, there were 5 or 6 of them that have Roadforce. I got the impression that they were being installed at most Discount tire's...
Logan, thanks for that info, and perhaps it will help some other Marauder owners, but there aren't any Discount tire places in my homestate at all. Infact, according to the locations map on their webpage, there aren't even any in all of New England. So that wasn't an option for me anyway.

[Bad Boy Merc]

I have had my tires balanced four time in the 7000 miles since it was new. The third time it was done on a road force balancer at a local Ford dealer and after that time, the shake was more severe than it had ever been. I took it back to the LM dealer where I bought it and they checked all four rotors, wheels and tires for out-of-round conditions, with me observing each process. Everything was well within spec. so they rebalanced all four tires, using a standard balancing machine (non-road force). It is much improved but it still has a shake or nibble at times. It comes and goes depending on the road surface and varying speeds. I think it is going to take new tires to fix it.

[Bradley G]

After it seemed to improve by backing off the factory torque settings 1/8 turn the S/M suggested we " Back it off a little more and see what happens?By the way, I noticed he wrote "Per customer request" on the ticket.:confused: Since then they told me they would return the torque to origional factory specs.And a few months later they finally made good on a road force balance (On new tires that he got warrantied)which has made the big difference.I have got to say they have tried :o I would think Ford would encourage $$$$$$$4 thier dealers to have such equiptment.
Bradley G


Now I'm confused...[i]corrected camber makes the tires wear badly? I would think that incorrect camber would wear them the wrong way...I shoulda paid attention in high school shop class...

BradleyG: Thank you for the feedback! What was your correct setting, BTW?