Road force balance, Never heard of such, some new crap to suk more money
Feeling ripped off after paying for road force balance
- Thread starter Matt1357
- Start date
Firestone Stores = Clip joints.
A road force balancer cannot balance an egg shaped tire.
A road force balancer cannot balance an egg shaped tire.
56 and 27 lbs road force doesn't pass, it is even red on their print out. 21 could be inproved on if the tech gave a flip. Go back and make a scene... don't leave until they are all under 16.
The GSP9700 isn’t some magical balancer. If you have high road force in a tire and the wheel is perfect there’s nothing the machine can do except diagnose which tire is the culprit.
To make matters worse, road force is something Hunter made up, tire makers really do not recognize this (or want to).
However most tires are warrantable for ride disturbance for the first 1-2 32nds of an inch or so. Tire makers don’t want to hear “my tires have excessive road force”. If you get four tires that vibrate you’re generally screwed unless the place that sold you the tire comes thru.
To make matters worse, road force is something Hunter made up, tire makers really do not recognize this (or want to).
However most tires are warrantable for ride disturbance for the first 1-2 32nds of an inch or so. Tire makers don’t want to hear “my tires have excessive road force”. If you get four tires that vibrate you’re generally screwed unless the place that sold you the tire comes thru.
OK, it appears time for me to step in and explain RoadForce Balancing.
Nothing is perfectly round. Nothing is perfectly flat. The net effect is that there is a threshold where the out-of-roundness of the tire/wheel assembly is so great that it becomes worse than the bumpiness of the road. Needless to say, this varies all over the ballpark. Some roads are so bad, you can't feel anything about the tire/wheel assembly.
So the idea is to match the out-of-roundness of the tire with the out-of-roundness of the wheel making the assembly "more round" - that is, turning an egg shaped tire into a roundish assembly.
That's what the Hunter RoadForce Balancer does. In this context, the word "balance" is a misnomer. Yes, the machine does balance an assembly, but the RoadForce part is not about balancing. It's about uniformity - a bit more complex version of "out-of-round".
And it's also about thresholds. Not only are roads not the same bumpiness, but some vehicles are more sensitive than others. Some people are more sensitive than others.
Tire manufacturers use a more sophisticated machine called a TUG (Tire Uniformity Grader) The Hunter RoadForce balancer mimics the TUG, but uses a much smaller wheel, so a Hunter machine over emphasizes short term events and misses long term events.
And that's why tire manufacturers don't accept returns purely on the RoadForce values. Not only is there a wheel involved, but a tire can be improperly mounted (as in off-center). Plus the Hunter machine can give false negatives - declaring a tire bad, when it isn't. (It can also do the oppositie - declare a tire good when it isn't!)
If you want to wade through an even longer discussion, here's my webpage of balancing, runout, and uniformity:
Barry's Tire Tech: Vibration - Balance, Runout, and Uniformity
Nothing is perfectly round. Nothing is perfectly flat. The net effect is that there is a threshold where the out-of-roundness of the tire/wheel assembly is so great that it becomes worse than the bumpiness of the road. Needless to say, this varies all over the ballpark. Some roads are so bad, you can't feel anything about the tire/wheel assembly.
So the idea is to match the out-of-roundness of the tire with the out-of-roundness of the wheel making the assembly "more round" - that is, turning an egg shaped tire into a roundish assembly.
That's what the Hunter RoadForce Balancer does. In this context, the word "balance" is a misnomer. Yes, the machine does balance an assembly, but the RoadForce part is not about balancing. It's about uniformity - a bit more complex version of "out-of-round".
And it's also about thresholds. Not only are roads not the same bumpiness, but some vehicles are more sensitive than others. Some people are more sensitive than others.
Tire manufacturers use a more sophisticated machine called a TUG (Tire Uniformity Grader) The Hunter RoadForce balancer mimics the TUG, but uses a much smaller wheel, so a Hunter machine over emphasizes short term events and misses long term events.
And that's why tire manufacturers don't accept returns purely on the RoadForce values. Not only is there a wheel involved, but a tire can be improperly mounted (as in off-center). Plus the Hunter machine can give false negatives - declaring a tire bad, when it isn't. (It can also do the oppositie - declare a tire good when it isn't!)
If you want to wade through an even longer discussion, here's my webpage of balancing, runout, and uniformity:
Barry's Tire Tech: Vibration - Balance, Runout, and Uniformity
Thanks for this reply, don't know if you or anyone else can answer this.. what tire manufacturer has the best tire uniformity or is it all the same?
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Long ago I asked a BMW dealer how much to mount balance tires that I provide? They said $80/each.
I said that much? Is it road force?
They said no, it’s not needed 99% of the time. If needed, it’s more.
I said wow, Firestone wants $20/tire.
They burst out laughing. You really want those guys to handle your car? At the time I thought it was very snooty.
Since as mentioned we have 2 lifetime alignments at Firestone, the condescending laughter was justified.
But I still didn’t pay $80/wheel. $30/wheel at a BMW indie to include installing my provided tpms. When I went to pickup my car, it was in the shop being hand washed. I realized it was a good choice that I made.
Nitrogen inflation is a gimmick, road force balancing is not. Road Force balancers are a legitimate tool. Not always needed, but they do service a legitimate purpose.
If it was a gimmick, it would not be utilized as a required service tool by OEM's.
Last dealership I worked at it was .2. So twelve minutes to mount and balance a tire. Their reasoning is they’ve gotta stay competitive with the places doing it “for free” aka building it in to the price of the tires.
Then thy shouldn't be driving cars...or living in cities...or have HVAC units in their homes...or have dogs etc.
I’ve been asked for roadforce reading for warranty returns by both Ford and Goodyear. They both wanted the tire moved on the wheel and more readings taken as well but they both found road force an acceptable measurement that could cause the vibration complaint.
Michelin on the other hand would only return a tire for us once they tested it themselves and only then would they issue a credit.
Our distributor(ATD) was really good to us though so we just started to warranty all tires through them. All they wanted was DOT code and tread depth, if we said it was bad that was good enough for them.
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there is a such thing as the road itself. Buddy's co runs super singles vs duals. I did understand that many drivers don’t like them as they float. Today he explained roads develop ridges from the duals esp when asphalt is hot. Now the tractor is not able to settle down and gives the appearance that the driver is drunk, when he’s not. They actually have drivers pulled over by troopers as a result
Thanks for the useful information. Very helpful
seems to me, tire rotation, places are charging a premium I think it a $40 job, with no rebalance, but I had one place that wanted $80 just to put on the rack and rotate, I said thats alot, but it was a company vehicle, and I was having trouble finding anyone to do it. They ended up backing it down to $60. If they balanced in addition I think thats more fair.
Ive paid for the Firestone free balance and flat repair on tire purchases, but to much trouble to get it in, when you actually need the service. Same with battery warrnties.
I rotate tires in my driveway many times with jack stands , a rack though is so nice, if you can get it right in.
I have one place near me that does internal flat repairs for FREE , Insane but I like it, I just take the tire off, and run it up there. Now that to me is worth $30, which is what most charge, including if I were doing it.
Ive paid for the Firestone free balance and flat repair on tire purchases, but to much trouble to get it in, when you actually need the service. Same with battery warrnties.
I rotate tires in my driveway many times with jack stands , a rack though is so nice, if you can get it right in.
I have one place near me that does internal flat repairs for FREE , Insane but I like it, I just take the tire off, and run it up there. Now that to me is worth $30, which is what most charge, including if I were doing it.
sounds like it took too much lead to balance that tire. Does anyone else think tire is junk or wheel is bent?
Jack up your car, and spin the tires by hand, with a screwdriver on a box or block of wood, and see if the rim looks bent.
The screwdriver should be almost touching the lip of the rim.
Then put the box or block of wood in front of the tires face almost touching it, and spin by hand and look for out of roundness, then do the same to both sidewalls of the tire looking for seperation.
Tires can seperate inside of themselves, and be almost impossible to see by eye.
I deal with a ridiculous amount of tires every year.
Which is part of the reason i laugh at 18 minutes to mount and balance a new tire and put it back on a car.
If my mechanics took 18 minutes to do a car tire, I would fire them for working so **** slow.
That is 72 minutes per car to do 4 tires...or 6 vehicles per 8 hour shift.
If a tire shop is only doing 6 cars per day per shop bay, that is absolutely pathetic.
Just close the doors, lock up, put a for sale sign on the building, and go home.
When i was half owner of a fountain tire shop, if a guy took 72 minutes to remove, swap over, balance and remount 4 car tires, he better have had a good reason why it took so long. Now if his girlfriend stopped by, and they got it on in the backseat of her car, i would have given him a hi 5, but told him from now on to save those visits for his lunch break, not during work time.
I would be interested to know what Ford thinks is an acceptable road force measurement. Working at an FCA dealer the spec was below 15#..... below 12 is preferred. Good Year was telling us 25# was acceptable so we never used the actual number, we just submitted a claim for "ride disturbance". I saw some Pirelli's with over 40#
.Good Year would take months to give us a credit after returning the tire. Its good you have a distributor to help you, we had to buy our tires from Mopar and it made warranty claims a hassle.
We found that it was easier and faster to submit a road hazard claim (thru Mopar) for one or two tires at a time, we'd get reimbursed right away.
Honestly the worst were Good years......with the NVH analyzer I would get 2nd order vibrations from those tires (multiple disturbances per revolution)
So the update is .. I went on the Firestone customer service live chat and told them the situation. They asked for my details and told me the store manager would contact me within 2 days. 10 minutes later he called and said he'd refund my money. I told him I just wanted the road force numbers but he said the rim could be bent or the tire could be defective and it wouldn't show that. Once I heard that I figured I should shut up and take the refund.
Take the refund and never enter their doors again.
