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Yeah that is fascinating. I am not nor was I ever in the automobile tire industry so I ask - what is a good value for tire conicity? I notice from this: https://www.tiretechnologyinternational.com/opinion/prediction-of-ply-steer-and-conicity.html that the auto industry at one time would mount...

Oh thats fascinating - thank you. Yeah, lateral force of wheel/tire assembly is not the same as lateral runout of the wheel, but I digress. FWIW, one shop I uses apparently does not have Straight Trak and the other shop that I use *does* have Straight Trak.

Thank you! And by "fixed" or "solved" what I really mean is "the vibration forces that I feel through the steering wheel has been reduced to a magnitude that is acceptable for me while driving my car. I enjoy my car now." For folks reading this in the future, its not really an binary "fixed /...

Oh that's a great point! Thanks! Using a cone on the back of the wheel/tire assembly on the balancing machine - this might engage the tapered part of the wheel center bore, so if the wheel center bore taper isn't 100% consistent and uniform around 360 degrees, then the wheel/tire assembly...

Thank you and totally agree re lazy folks in this race-to-the-bottom industry. BTW that Hunter feature is called “Smartweight”. You are right NEVER use it - it is terrible! A sham of massive proportions which has condemned countless unknowing motorists to a lifetime of vibration filled agony...

Thanks!!! It wasn't just that though - it was multiple issues - One bent wheel, one tire with too much non-uniformity (RMAed back to Tire Rack) and the balancing. I had to get through three all three issues to solve the vibrations! The balancing was just the last piece of the puzzle. That...

Finger Plate - a must!!! No front cone and No pressure cup. Now that I know what I'm looking at w.r.t balancing wheels, I know how totally screwed up the aftermarket wheel balancing / tire installation industry is! Its the wild west out there with folks front-coning or using the pressure...

Vibrations solved finally! The last step was the re-balance of all four wheels (that I verified all had great runout numbers) w tires mounted. The balancing shop: - Got down to 0.10oz of balance, not just the usual 0.25oz - BACK Coned the balancer - Used a SHALLOW angle collet at the back -...

As a corollary, here is the car hub from a Porsche 911 of 1990s vintage. The car hub itself is not a continuous circle ---- the car's hub has three flanges .... and the wheel center bore itself is a continuous 360 degree circle. Why does Porsche do this --- is it the same reason as above with...

Thanks guys. The reason I postulate that the tabs might make aftermarket balancing worse is because aftermarket wheel balancing machines) use cones that look like this: That cone is tapered and allows the aftermarket wheel balancing machine operator to balance wheel/tire assemblies from...

Thanks for reading. Indeed those wheels are OE MB Hubcentric and the circle formed by the edges of those 5 tabs are 66.6mm and the wheels fit tightly against the car’s hub. Just curious about the reasons for the tabs as I postulate their existence makes aftermarket balancing more fussy.

Hi gang, please see the backside of these wheels. These are OE Mercedes wheels - forged for Mercedes by Fuchs (you can see the Fuchs logo). These were original equipment on w220 S600s. These are hubcentric for MB 66.6mm hubs. My question is this - why do these wheels have these tabs in the...

Progress --- I had the tires dismounted from the wheels. I brought the wheels home and I measured the runout of all four wheels with my dial gauge. They actually look pretty good -- you guys agree? Note the units are in mm. 0.01mm equals 0.394 thousandths of an inch. This shop is the...

Thank you for the well considered replies and thoughts around the tie rods. Indeed I have never thought of the difference that at "high end aluminum suspension" versus "low end but durable steel suspension" might make. I totally agree - MB (and almost all German cars) have a low tolerance for...

Got it got it ... If I may make a request, let's focus on the technical aspects of this thread and not make this thread a diatribe against certain tire brands. In my past, I have dealt with faulty Bridgestones / Michelins / Pirellis / Continentals --- all of them. Anyways, thank you for...

Yes I have a dial indicator measurement tool like that for which I use to measure runout on bare wheels. I am curious about your comment about "not all cars can handle above 10# road force". I am not in the industry but perhaps you are and if you are, in your experience, what kinds of cars...

Yeah, checking wheel runout is kind of a PITA because one has to dismount the tires from the wheels. Taking the measurements (4 of them - inner barrel radial, inner barrel lateral, outer barrel radial, out barrel lateral) is not difficult .... but just need to go through the hassle (and cost)...

The Hunter GSP9700 that the local shop was using was an older one - 12+ years old and definitely was not new and doesn't have any sensors for automatic lateral runout measurement. Note that these old roadforce machine GSP9700s (as opposed to new ones which aren't even called "GSP9700" any more)...

Yes, I did that! After cleaning the hub and backside of a rotor hat, I brought one rotor hat lateral runout down from 0.20mm (yikes!) to 0.04mm. Great thinking!

Here is the result of me using the NVH app / accelerometers on the four corners of the front dash / rear deck. The BIOTG website seems to reduce to resolution so please let me expound - Blue is speed and orange is elevation. What's really useful is grey and green. The grey and green lines...