Wheel Balancing Woes - Driving me insane!! Any help appreciated

Technical Area Wheels, Tyres & Brakes
2

Hi All

I’ve recently had the my 14" minilite wheels refurbished and fitted with some new boots. 

The first time they were balanced the car was shaking, increasing with the speed so I got them to look at them again which aleviated the problem a little. However, at speed I could still feel the dreaded shake of unbalanced wheels.


I left it a while and then decided to try another garage. When they put the wheels on their machine it was indicating that each one was at least 50g out of balance. Which I found strange because the other garage  balanced them to 0 grams.

Anyway, I got them to balance the wheels but alas i’ve just been out on the M-Way and I couldn’t stand it for more than 5 mins as the car was shaking so badly - much worse than before.

It appears to me that good wheel balancing is difficult to come by. It seems more luck than anything. How can there be more than 50Grams difference between different tyre shops?

This is driving me nuts and has absolutley, spoiled the car. 

I’m aware that it seems much more sensitive to balancing issues than other cars.

Can anyone recommend anywhere decent around the Telford/Shropshire/West Midlands area that can do it accurately?

Any help would be very much appreciated


Paul

P.S. This is my first post on the new forum. I used to be a club member until recently and an active member of the old forum.

3

So has the vibration only appeared since the new tyres were fitted - ie no vibes before?

If so, then its unlikely to be something else on the car so maybe there’s something loose inside the tyre.

You may have to have the tyres taken off and closely inspected. Its possible that one of the tyres is out of round or has some other sort of fault?

4

Check the rims on the reverse sides for flat spots.

5

Yes, the problem only came about after having the 4 wheels refurbished and 2 new tyres fitted.  The car was perfect before then :(

I checked the wheels closely after they were refurbed and looked fine. There was no damage beforehand, just a bit of paint peeling.

Incidentally, I can feel vibration on the older tyres too.

Also, when the wheels were on the machine the tyres looked to be running perfectly true. I did think it could be something else so I made a point of looking at the tyres as they rotated.  

6

If you have not already done so then check that the disc and hub faces are clean and torque the wheel nuts evenly. Have the mounting faces on the rear of the wheels been painted or powdercoated (they would have had been a bare metal machined face originally)?

7

Very good point.

Might be worth putting the car up on stands and running it in gear to see if there is any wobble / runout apparent on the rears and spin the fronts to look for the same.

 

8

I’ll jack the car up today and see if the wheels run true and check for any overspray/dirt etc. on the mating faces.

Paul

9

 Check for flat spots is all I can suggest. I’ve had tyres balanced that shook but they were not round (due to standing too long in one position).

10

 Hi

Just a quick question did the garage use stick on or tap on weights?

The reason i ask this is if the first garage balanced the wheels and the car felt ok for a short while the weights may have come off (stick on) or moved around the rim (tap on).

this would explain the problem with the first garage. I dont think the 2nd garge could have set the machine up on the correct setting as it didnt resolve the problem. To me it does sound like a balance problem and i have been fitting and balancing tyres for the last 3 years. My advice would be to take it to a place you trust shame your not in dorset cus i know a great place to get them rebalanced

11

 Thanks for all the replies. It’s all now sorted. It did turn out to be poor balancing in the end. I took a gamble and took it somewhere a friend recommended and they sorted it first time.

So third time lucky. I don’t know how the first two companies I used can still be in business as they clearly cannot use their equipment properly, or it’s out of calibration.

The chap at the third place commented on how good condition the wheels/tyres and the rest of the car was.

Thanks again

P.S. I’m not sure if i’m allowed to name and shame on here? 

12

I don’t see why not, all you are doing is reporting on good or bad service and as long as you are factual about it then you are doing other club members a favour and they can then make up their own minds.