Something tells me they did not complete the entire process.
Feeling ripped off after paying for road force balance
- Thread starter Matt1357
- Start date
- Joined
- Jun 8, 2022
- Messages
- 5,580
Road force balance at Discount Tire saved me a lot of trouble.
I bought tires that vibrated. The old tires did not. I complained, then they rebalanced (regular type) still bad. So I bought a new spare and started rotating through. Still no joy - it changed, the feel but not vibration. So I swapped all 4 - with rims - from my truck to Xterra (same tire size). Guess what - vibration followed the tires.
So I paid Discount Tire 16.00 each in 2020 to put them on a Hunter machine. 2 were over 40, one was like 35, one was 25 which they said was not great but not warranty, and the 5th was pretty good. They helped me with warranty even though I didn't buy there, there was a pro-rated fee which was sort of garbage since they were that way to start and caused me a lot of time and effort, but at least my vibration went (mostly) away.
I would agree that if you just get a regular balance and there is no vibration - then a road force balance likely isn't needed. However after all this ordeal, I will never purchase tires somewhere that does not do it.
I bought tires that vibrated. The old tires did not. I complained, then they rebalanced (regular type) still bad. So I bought a new spare and started rotating through. Still no joy - it changed, the feel but not vibration. So I swapped all 4 - with rims - from my truck to Xterra (same tire size). Guess what - vibration followed the tires.
So I paid Discount Tire 16.00 each in 2020 to put them on a Hunter machine. 2 were over 40, one was like 35, one was 25 which they said was not great but not warranty, and the 5th was pretty good. They helped me with warranty even though I didn't buy there, there was a pro-rated fee which was sort of garbage since they were that way to start and caused me a lot of time and effort, but at least my vibration went (mostly) away.
I would agree that if you just get a regular balance and there is no vibration - then a road force balance likely isn't needed. However after all this ordeal, I will never purchase tires somewhere that does not do it.
I think thats why Tech turn over is High, time clock quality. Especially with corporations, I'll spend 20 minutes balancing 1 tire if needed. you can do that if your own Boss.
A couple years ago, discount tire sold me some pirellis and they were horrible! They did refund my money, but 40lbs was the least of the road force results! Junk.. They went through about 3 sets of tires, they were all unevenly manufactured! You could see the tread bouncing up/down on the balancer! Could see it with the human eye! I got Toyos and Nittos after that never a problem with uniformity.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)
Had to add when I read @CarDoc66 post and it reminded me of what I went through. But the local discount tire was great about it, manager said he would never recommend Pirellis again. I couldn't believe how bad they were!
yup take the money and RUN! couldn't agree more.. glad you got it resolved!
I had a similar problem with Genera Ultimax RT43 several years ago. You could visually see three out of four tires were bad. The build dates were the same on three of them. All four were made in Romania. Replaced with Cooper CS3 and everything was good.
- Joined
- Jul 10, 2022
- Messages
- 3,677
Sometimes I actually feel bad for the employees. Who would work there if given a better opportunity? Do they feel good pretending the alignment rack is down (for lifetime alignments) or the printer was not working (for lifetime alignments)? They probably just get used to it.
I don’t think there is an infallible tire maker out there. I’ve personally never had a problem with an RT43 or 45 but they ALL make some bad ones…..even Michelin. Funny too because my bey would have been on the cooper being a culprit.
As I’ve said in other threads, it’s a crap shoot.
Most newer cars have comically oversized rims that sometimes need road force to achieve the same results that normal sized rims give with a normal balance.
It’s all relative to how the shop is set up. The dealership I was at that paid .3 I had to pull the car in, do a multi point, get the tires billed out in parts, get the key to the tire warehouse, get the Polaris Ranger, haul the tires down from the warehouse, load the tires into Ranger, load wheels/tires off of vehicle into the Ranger, haul all of them to body shop where the tire machine, record all the DOT codes….then I could mount and balance them for my 18 minutes per wheel pay and when done I needed to haul the old tires to the recycling stack outside of the heavy truck shop.
The last place kept tires in the main shop along with a tire machine. Parts recorded the DOT code and a porter hauled off the old ones. So that .8 was actually better than the 1.2.
I would hope that a dedicated tire shop is set up with the tires nearby and a machine/balancer in every bay.
It seems to be. The RT 43 tires were to replace the OG Ultimax that were on my car.
I’m gonna age myself here but tires were an afterthought when I started at dealerships. They were farmed out for the most part back then. As they’ve become more common the set ups have had to change out of necessity and they’ve mostly been delegated to “fast lube” guys.
Sounds the same as my dealership was.
Tech has to find the car, bring it in, shake it down / do a free multipoint, record tire size and go get a quote together in parts department for any work and options for a few tires in their size, turn it in to service writer to get them sold, wait a little for that to happen, go back to parts to get the tires, bring the tires to the shop (if they’re actually in stock which is almost never), put the vehicle back outside to wait for tires if not in stock, remove and install tires, put away old tires, balance tires, reinstall on car, test drive it, turn in paperwork with DOTs recorded…certainly not worth the 1.2 in a dealership setting.
My tire distributor is actually managed by a personal friend, he’s told me that all the tires we “warrantied” through them for excess road force, they just throw back on the shelf and re-sell.
Most / 80% of shops won’t check road force and that’s usually only after the vehicle comes back with a problem after the customer takes the car back into their possession. So they’ll get re-sold to another shop who doesn’t use road force, or to another customer again and again till they get onto a vehicle who’s driver isn’t as sensitive.
I wouldn’t have a Firestone touch my car. I have a post about an experience where I had them do an alignment after I did suspension work (tie rod ends and sway bar links) because my Indy guy was closed on the weekend and I was impatient. They tried 3 times and couldn’t do it right then told me I needed $3300 in repairs including stuff I legitimately had installed the day I brought it in. Indy guy got the alignment done perfectly, he was pretty confident they didn’t center the wheel properly when doing the alignment (even called it that they had to do a left turn to get into the bay) and commented my truck was in pristine condition underneath. Had to do a chargeback with my credit card to get the money back (wouldn’t even bother wasting time contacting Firestone the credit card companies know they’re ****e) and wasted two days peckering around. Regardless I’m very sensitive to balancing and have brought cars back to re-balance even if they were road force balanced, I find that I get the same results with normal balancing at Discount Tire and bringing it back if it’s slightly off.
JHZR2
Staff member
Every time I’ve done it the shop has been able to tell me the weight per tire. So OP is onto something if for no other reason than best practice. I think condemnation criteria is 28# or so but I don’t know if that is universal. Every time I’ve used it they have found one that won’t meet the spec.
No, it is not universal. The problem is that large cars are less sensitive than small cars, and in places where the freezing weather heaves the road surface, those are more tolerant than places where the road doesn't freeze.
What should happen is that every locale ought to develop its own criteria, but what usually happens is that the default settings are used.
Further, the Hunter RoadForce machines are really good at identifying the most likely problem tires, but not so good as a screening tool - too many false readings.
So far my RF is working for me. My new 23 F250 vibrated like crazy @ 58 MPH, right off the lot.
Dealer got the fronts better, but still vibrated noticeably. They would not go
any further, as Ford sets the RF limits higher than General (owned by Continental now) says they are
(they claim 30, but even then they said, "you still might feel it")
Forget RF for a second, was kind of surprised one of the rear tires was even used at the factory.
Yes, it is a 32ish" LT, but it had a ton of weight on it for a tire that size, with a very mundane AS tread
(been balancing for over 20 years on my own machine). Almost 9 ounces of weight and calling for
another ounce.
Figured I just do it myself, as dealer was about an hour away, and over a Pa bridge, so tolls applied
every trip.
I bought one new tire myself (don't mind having a 6th, in case of getting screw/nail locally, I can just swap out a tire
quick, and maybe fix the other one later). So far I have managed to get the two fronts to 7 and 11 (which
supposedly is really good for a 275 LT tire, I'm a relative RF newb). The worst two, were 52 and 56, and I am going
to try to warantee them out locally.
Anyway, SOP vibration is much better, so I'm a believer so far. These were the best two I could get so far.
I can tell you why no one does it though, it's a ton of work (at least without the latest type, fully auto tire machine).
Supposedly the new Elite measures rim runout with tire on. Not sure how they do outer bead surface correctly, since most
wheels are not machined there anymore.
Dealer got the fronts better, but still vibrated noticeably. They would not go
any further, as Ford sets the RF limits higher than General (owned by Continental now) says they are
(they claim 30, but even then they said, "you still might feel it")
Forget RF for a second, was kind of surprised one of the rear tires was even used at the factory.
Yes, it is a 32ish" LT, but it had a ton of weight on it for a tire that size, with a very mundane AS tread
(been balancing for over 20 years on my own machine). Almost 9 ounces of weight and calling for
another ounce.
Figured I just do it myself, as dealer was about an hour away, and over a Pa bridge, so tolls applied
every trip.
I bought one new tire myself (don't mind having a 6th, in case of getting screw/nail locally, I can just swap out a tire
quick, and maybe fix the other one later). So far I have managed to get the two fronts to 7 and 11 (which
supposedly is really good for a 275 LT tire, I'm a relative RF newb). The worst two, were 52 and 56, and I am going
to try to warantee them out locally.
Anyway, SOP vibration is much better, so I'm a believer so far. These were the best two I could get so far.
I can tell you why no one does it though, it's a ton of work (at least without the latest type, fully auto tire machine).
Supposedly the new Elite measures rim runout with tire on. Not sure how they do outer bead surface correctly, since most
wheels are not machined there anymore.
Try some Michelins...So far my RF is working for me. My new 23 F250 vibrated like crazy @ 58 MPH, right off the lot.
Dealer got the fronts better, but still vibrated noticeably. They would not go
any further, as Ford sets the RF limits higher than General (owned by Continental now) says they are
(they claim 30, but even then they said, "you still might feel it")
Forget RF for a second, was kind of surprised one of the rear tires was even used at the factory.
Yes, it is a 32ish" LT, but it had a ton of weight on it for a tire that size, with a very mundane AS tread
(been balancing for over 20 years on my own machine). Almost 9 ounces of weight and calling for
another ounce.
Figured I just do it myself, as dealer was about an hour away, and over a Pa bridge, so tolls applied
every trip.
I bought one new tire myself (don't mind having a 6th, in case of getting screw/nail locally, I can just swap out a tire
quick, and maybe fix the other one later). So far I have managed to get the two fronts to 7 and 11 (which
supposedly is really good for a 275 LT tire, I'm a relative RF newb). The worst two, were 52 and 56, and I am going
to try to warantee them out locally.
Anyway, SOP vibration is much better, so I'm a believer so far. These were the best two I could get so far.
I can tell you why no one does it though, it's a ton of work (at least without the latest type, fully auto tire machine).
Supposedly the new Elite measures rim runout with tire on. Not sure how they do outer bead surface correctly, since most
wheels are not machined there anymore.
