road force website!

[blackhueys]

Found this cool website that allows you to look up who has the road force balancer machine check it out kinda cool I thought. :burnout:http://www.gsp9700.com/pub/search/findgsp9700.cfm

[red]

This is a great find! Thanks for sharing the information; I'm sure it will be useful for many owners.

[Marauderjack]

Dang......I have seven within 10 miles of me??:eek:

[Stranger in the Black Sedan]

Also make sure they know how to use it. That is not a given, as I have found out.

The road force machine still does a conventional dynamic spin balance, without the roller being applied. The "road force" part w/ the loaded roller checks for a tire pull and out of round, and if these conditions exist, helps diagnose how to improve the problem. If your wheels and tires are not out of round, the road force will not give you a "better balance".

[MM2004]

Dang......I have seven within 10 miles of me??:eek:

Dayum! I got 34 within 10 miles..

Mike.

[ts-pa]

Has any used the StraightTrak option? Is it worth it?

[DOOM]

Very useful information thanks.

[Stranger in the Black Sedan]

I think straight trak is where they assess a tire pull, and then put any tires with unacceptable pull in an orientation on the car that will theoretically be least offensive.

If you have a tire pull, you have junk tires anyway. I had some Fulda brand no name tires that I got for free, and one of them had like an 18 lb tire pull, but all other tires were fine. There wasn't anything you could really do with that thing other than put it on the back and hope it didn't really cause a problem.

If it's not that expensive it might be worth checking though. "The works" w/ the 9700 machine at the shop I used to deal w/ when I lived in PA, was around $60 for all 4 tires. The Ford dealership out here does road force balancing by book hours. It's hundreds of dollars. Total joke.

[ts-pa]

Thanks for the info Steve. Apparently I got to call around about pricing beforehand.

[Stranger in the Black Sedan]

Oh yea. Prices are all over the board because very few consumers are educated on what the road force balance actually does.

The "balance" part, is still just a straight up dynamic spin balance. I had a set of wheels run on the 9700 machine that I had balanced at a crappy tire shop that had some Coats dynamic balancers, and the 9700 showed the balance was within 0.25 of being zeroed on all of the wheels. You won't even get thet kind of repeatability if you take the tire off one machine, mount it back up, and spin it again. The 9700 computer helps the tech locate the weighs better if they are doing a split balance, and it also has some cool features (that most techs probably don't know how to use anyway)

You can index the machine off of the spokes, say on a 5 spoke wheel, and it can figure out how much weight to put hidden behind one or more spokes to achieve dynamic balance, without having any of the weights visible through the spokes.

Like I said, have fun finding a shop that is willing to take the time to use some of the fancy features -- most places are way too busy to care.

Also ask if the shop has lug centric adapters for their 9700 (not just the generic cone). If they have lug centric adapters, which are very $$$ add ons, they probably know what they are doing.

Mickey's Suburban Alignment in Broomall, PA has a 9700 and know how to use it. They have all the lug centric adapters and whatnot, and also the correct alignment head adapters for their hunter machine, to do a touchless alignment on lipless wheels like the MM.

Hell I have driven to Mickey's from VA (3+ hrs), just because I at least trust the work they do w/ tires and alignments.

They are probably 1.5 hrs from you though.

But I digress... (tire balancing is one of my pet peeves)

[ts-pa]

Good info, Thanks again. Broomall isn't so far, I'll drop the family off at the huge malls in the area & head over there!

Do you think that they will resist using Carfixer's alignment specs?

[Stranger in the Black Sedan]

They will align the car to anything you want, if you specify. Carfixer's "specs" are stock specs in the middle of the range. I would run a very small amount of toe in, rather than zero'ing the toe. WHen I zeroed the toe on my car, straight line stability on the highway suffered significantly.

[ts-pa]

I thought Carfixer's were near the edge of the range. Regardless, glad to hear that they will be accomodating.

[Stranger in the Black Sedan]

The cars as shipped were near the edge of the range. They came out of the factory with -1 to -1.25 camber, and a lot of toe out. Carfixers specs put you on the conservative side, aligned like gramma's old buick. Zero camber, zero toe. Most modern cars run negative 1/2 deg. camber with no adverse tire wear. I would not go any lower than that (don't zero out the camber). This is a heavy tank and needs any help it can get cornering.

[ts-pa]

Darn, Mickey's is only M-F 7-5

[Stranger in the Black Sedan]

Yeah they are old school. They are family owned and don't buy into being open 7 days a week.

[ts-pa]

Trip to Mickey's Alignment in Broomall, PA...

I took the day off on June 6th so that I could get an alignment done before going to the All-Ford show in Carlisle.

They are "old school" in workmanship & "new school" with great alignment & balancing equipment.

It cost me more money & time since they discovered that I had a bad ball joint.

They aligned my car to my specs with slight ridicule from the man who did the actual alignment. Otherwise it was a great experience.

They even had a new G8 that needed an alignment.

[Stranger in the Black Sedan]

Glad to know I helped

[ctrlraven]

Thanks for the info!

[ts-pa]

Yes, thanks Steve for the tip on a good alignment place to go to. :up:
Now if I can only find a great detailer within driving distance. :(

If you decide to go to Mickey's, just remind them of the exhaust sticking out past the bumper. When my car was being backed into a parking space, the exhaust tip touched the blacktop due to a "water runoff ditch" that is built in their lot. More specifically, ask them not to park your car in that location.

The owner is a very pleasant man who seeks customer satisfaction more than what I'm used to seeing. Might want to bring your own nourishments since there doesn't seem to be anything within walking distance.

They do a test drive after everything is done. On my car the technician swapped front tires due to pulling and drove it again to confirm improvement.

[burt ragio]

So what range is best for toe in?

[offroadkarter]

Got 32 within 10 miles

[ts-pa]

So what range is best for toe in?

I used zero per Carfixer's specs (http://www.mercurymarauder.net/forums/showthread.php?t=30880&highlight=carfixer+specs)

[ts-pa]

Got 32 within 10 miles

??????????????????????????

[Icarus]

Has any used the StraightTrak option? Is it worth it?
Also the StraightTrak only works if all four tires are the same size.
I was sent to a couple courses with Hunter when I worked at BMW and was certified on the Hunter 9700 machine and the TC3500 tire changer. There are a ton of adapters and extras you can get for both machines. They turned into a love/hate relationship with us tire bitc#es as they could be real finiky at times! Theres nothing like being able to test drive everything you work on though at a BMW shop! Over-all I loved using them though and really miss being able to do my own tires after work etc... :cool4:
To do a full set of tires, with Force Matching, StraightTrak, split spoke (to hide the weights behind each spoke) and measuring the runouts etc can be time consuming. This is why some shops are so pricey. A good tech with four tires/wheels the same size should be able to fire off a set decently ForceMatched & balanced in 1/2 hour though ;)

:burnout:

[Stranger in the Black Sedan]

Good point about the straight tak, totally forgot about our tire sizes. Another reason to run square tire size at all corners!!

[ts-pa]

The man who did the balancing took about 1/2 hour per wheel. He rotated each tire on the wheel at least once to get a better balance. A different man did the ball joint & alignment.

[ts-pa]

...To do a full set of tires, with Force Matching, StraightTrak, split spoke (to hide the weights behind each spoke) and measuring the runouts etc can be time consuming...

This feature alone is worth going to a place such as Mickey's! Wheel looks so much better when you don't see the weights.