Anyone heard of "wheel hop" ?

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strombony

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Recently while having my front tires swapped out for new ones under a warranty issued, the tech was balancing my wheels before putting them back on my van and showed me that the right wheel has a "hop" in it and said that it could cause the tire to bounce along as it is rolling down the road. He showed me with a screwdriver where the metal would hit it as it spun. He said I would feel the vibration in the steering wheel from this; however, I get no vibration whatsoever. I took it out on the highway yesterday, up to 80 mph, smooth as glass.

If I'm feeling no vibration, should I worry about getting a new rim? No vibration in the steering wheel means no tire is bouncing correct? Any of you ever heard of this?
 
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typically wheel hop, in my world, is when launching in a drag race. its a poor balance of available traction and tires. its likes to kill axles on FWD cars.
 
I thought wheel hop was when you do hole shots and you're at the breaking point of traction. I have had tires that shake when going at speed. Replaced them and it's pretty good now. I saw an old pickup the other day that the front left tire and suspension was visibly bouncing on smooth highway at about 60 mph. That will vibrate the whole vehicle.

If yours does not vibrate, get second opinion, or wait until it does--if it ever does. Might check the high speed balance too, maybe a weight fell off.
 
I've heard of it when you are breaking traction and the wheel leaves the pavement, and then hits again.

It's pretty common in FWD cars trying to drag-race, as the front wheels get "light" as you leave the line.

Wheel hop was a good way to break the spider gears the the diff of a manual axle'ed Ford Contour. That's how I know about wheel hop.
 
I agree, wheel hop is when breaking traction unpon launching. Corvette C5s tend to do this with their IRS and tear up differentials.

Bad shocks can cause wheel bounce which causes uneven tire wear.

What did he show you on the wheel? A dent or flat spot?
 
My hunch is that the tire is slightly out of round. In some instances you may feel a vibration if it is out of round enough.

If you don't after a wheel balance I wouldn't be too concerned about it at this point. If you do start to feel something get it checked out. Sometimes that can be a precursor to a failure. More often than not, things are Ok.

I should also mention that the majority of tires I've seen on a spin balancer are not perfectly round. . . especially the larger tires.
 
NO!! let me clarify..it's not the tire, it was the rim...the steel rim. while it was spinning on the balancing machine, he put the end of a screwdriver on the inside of the rim and it had a noticeable bump as it went around...
 
Originally Posted By: racer12306
typically wheel hop, in my world, is when launching in a drag race. its a poor balance of available traction and tires. its likes to kill axles on FWD cars.


Yes -- "wheel hop" on a 2nd gen Neon, or wheelhop on my college roomate's '67 Camaro RS 327 before adding traction bars:)

That's the only time I've heard/experienced this reference. If a wheel does not balance, it is "out of round".
 
Ok then, it was out of round...but this is my question...I get zero vibration when going at higher speeds down the highway. Nor do I noticed anything at low speeds. Therfore, do I need to worry about buying a new rim?
 
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I was also expecting a different type of wheel hop thread!

Originally Posted By: strombony
Ok then, it was out of round...but this is my question...I get zero vibration when going at higher speeds down the highway. Nor do I noticed anything at low speeds. Therfore, do I need to worry about buying a new rim?


If it's on the front and you still can't feel it, I don't think you need a new rim.
 
My 1994 Honda Civic with the whopping 1.5 liter engine and MT, if launched hard enough to lose traction on dry pavement, produced wheel hop. I attribute it to the control arms allowing too much front to rear movement. Looking at my friend's 1995 Accord with its more sophisticated suspension, I see an additional component that Honda calls a "Radius Rod" which serves same purpose as a "Traction Bar" as I see it.
 
Read this:

http://www.geocities.com/barrystiretech/unifandbal.html

On this page I discuss a lot of aspects of balancing and run out - and there are 2 items that apply here:

1) Vehicle suspensions have a wheel hop frequency that occurs in the 50 to 70 mph range. This is the natural resonant frequency that is common to what we engineers call spring-mass- damper systems.

2) Vehicle suspensions are sensitive to radial (up and down) variations and much less so to lateral (side to side) variation.

So I would find a very smooth road, take the vehicle up to 80 mph, take it out of gear and allow the vehicle to coast down to 40 mph, while holding the steering wheel lightly by your finger tips. Pay particular attention to which speed most of the vibrations occur. Do this several times to be sure you've identified the wheel hop speed. Then drive the vehicle repeatedly over this section of road at that speed to see if you can pick up the vibration and how severe it is.

If you don't feel anything at all then one of two things: You have what we tire engineers call a DA (Dead A$$) and are insensitive to vibrations - or - the vehicle is not sensitive to the amount of wheel run out that you have.
 
Originally Posted By: CapriRacer
Read this:

http://www.geocities.com/barrystiretech/unifandbal.html

On this page I discuss a lot of aspects of balancing and run out - and there are 2 items that apply here:

1) Vehicle suspensions have a wheel hop frequency that occurs in the 50 to 70 mph range. This is the natural resonant frequency that is common to what we engineers call spring-mass- damper systems.

2) Vehicle suspensions are sensitive to radial (up and down) variations and much less so to lateral (side to side) variation.

So I would find a very smooth road, take the vehicle up to 80 mph, take it out of gear and allow the vehicle to coast down to 40 mph, while holding the steering wheel lightly by your finger tips. Pay particular attention to which speed most of the vibrations occur. Do this several times to be sure you've identified the wheel hop speed. Then drive the vehicle repeatedly over this section of road at that speed to see if you can pick up the vibration and how severe it is.

If you don't feel anything at all then one of two things: You have what we tire engineers call a DA (Dead A$$) and are insensitive to vibrations - or - the vehicle is not sensitive to the amount of wheel run out that you have.


Holy Carp, how long has that page been around? It's excellent and should be required reading for any tire nerd.

You need to start a tire blog. Seriously.
 
Originally Posted By: javacontour


Wheel hop was a good way to break the spider gears the the diff of a manual axle'ed Ford Contour. That's how I know about wheel hop.


That's exactly what happened to my GN. Rear control arm bushings were worn as were the shocks which led to wheel hop when I launched hard. I pulled the diff cover one day and only had one spider gear, the other was laying in two pieces at the bottom. Car still drove though.
 
My GM from 1984 specifies .040" radial and .045" lateral max. limit measured at the tyre seats of the wheel. Pretty close tolerance when compared how out of round a tire can be.
 
yep, wheel hop to me is a suspension that can't handle the torque, in the old days it was mostly common in GM cars and some fords

part of it is pinion climb and rear end twisting/wrapping
 
Originally Posted By: MillerMan
yep, wheel hop to me is a suspension that can't handle the torque, in the old days it was mostly common in GM cars and some fords

part of it is pinion climb and rear end twisting/wrapping


Yeah, good ol' wheel hop. It's not what the OP was misusing the term for, but it's ...

Tires have more traction when they are not slipping or slightly slipping than when they are really slipping.

So, you start out hard, and the suspension winds up a bit while you have good traction, then as wheel spin increases and the tires lose traction, the suspension unwinds nearly instantly until the tire grabs again and it starts over. It's about the same effect as popping your clutch 5 or 6 times a second.
shocked2.gif


In the electronics world, it's called a relaxation oscillator. in the automotive world, there is nothing relaxing about it.
LOL.gif
 
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