Feeling ripped off after paying for road force balance

Been looking at these as a backup plan.


If I have to spend another $1300 on a brand new truck, I will. But since I have the ability and machines,
going to try to get "what I paid for" first. Just sharing my personal experience RF-ing.
over the years Michelins have cleared up many dealer claims that...they all do that....no they dont...installed Michelins and the ride was smooth and vibration free...I stay away form Goodyear and Firestone and General and Continental. tire bad experience in the past...
 
over the years Michelins have cleared up many dealer claims that...they all do that....no they dont...installed Michelins and the ride was smooth and vibration free...I stay away form Goodyear and Firestone and General and Continental. tire bad experience in the past...

Yes, I have had great luck with Mich perf tires, pretty much the smoothest, vibration free tires (PS4S's), I've ever owned.
Now their typical AS's I've got for my parents Grand Marq's. Most of them cracked all over, at only a couple years old.
 
Yes, I have had great luck with Mich perf tires, pretty much the smoothest, vibration free tires (PS4S's), I've ever owned.
Now their typical AS's I've got for my parents Grand Marq's. Most of them cracked all over, at only a couple years old.
Never had any cracking issues on mine....
 
Never had any cracking issues on mine....

Fairly common on some of their std pass car AS's, from what I've read (and experienced).

"As an official distributor of Michelin's...I see this all the time...even pirelli's (crappy to my standards) don't show this when they racing slick bald in a never-ending heat cycle"



Mine were 4-5 years or so ago at this point, so hopefully they cleaned up their act.
 
  • Like
Reactions: hrv
Torturous thread because the "elusive unbalanceable tire" is a mega-frustrating, recurring character.

After hand-mounting our tires we'd go to a garage where the spin balancer had a crank to adjust for tire width.
The tech would check the bead-to-bead width with a large caliper, crank said crank and spin away.
It was perfect every time.....for $5.
I don't see today's tire mounters measuring rim width or adjusting anything. Maybe the equipment has evolved?
 
Torturous thread because the "elusive unbalanceable tire" is a mega-frustrating, recurring character.

After hand-mounting our tires we'd go to a garage where the spin balancer had a crank to adjust for tire width.
The tech would check the bead-to-bead width with a large caliper, crank said crank and spin away.
It was perfect every time.....for $5.
I don't see today's tire mounters measuring rim width or adjusting anything. Maybe the equipment has evolved?

Even an older RF machine measures rim diameter, the diameter of where you put on weights (if different than main rim diameter, say inside of rim) and rim width (with two arms that you apply against the rim in various spots). Even does full lateral and radial runout (if you do bare rim).
 
We have 2 cars with lifetime alignments at Firestone. Conveniently either the machines are down or the printer was not working when we’ve scheduled alignments. Not just 1 but 4 locations. Sad
"The printer is down" is a universal excuse at garages. It's code for "piss off".
 
Road force balance at Discount tire didn't take any longer than a regular balance.
They likely didn't do an actual RFB. Same thing happened to me at a DT. I called them out and they said more or less they don't do a RFB until if/when a customer comes back to complain about vibration. These places all operate on razor thin margins.
 
A friend had her new tires road force balanced at it shook.
They tried 3 more times.
Then I took the wheels off her car, dynamic balanced them, put them back on her car, problem solved.

This road force junk seems more like a rip off, than a new better mouse trap that someone invented.
Agreed it's probably a ripoff in the case of your friends Buick Encore GX, with 6" sidewalls.
 
Back
Top