Finding new tires that are not out of round - mission impossible?

[edyvw]

Michelin, always Michelin if overall quality of tire is priority.

Of all tires I had, and I had more than 100 sets, Nokian was absolutely worst in this segment.

 

[Sequoiasoon]

Michelin, always Michelin if overall quality of tire is priority.

Of all tires I had, and I had more than 100 sets, Nokian was absolutely worst in this segment.

I had some Nokian's that were out of balance after install. A friend (RIP) was working as a BMW tech at the time. We brought it to his shop on a Saturday. Checked them and it called for a lot more weight opposite what previous shop had. Started fresh with road force balance, broke beads and spun 2 on the rims they were on. Almost no weights afterward.

My Michelin Defender LTX M/S on the Pilot balanced up well, nice and smooth, quiet.

My Goodyear WinterCommand Ultra still have a light vibration even after road force balance. Shop rebalanced after initial install complaint, then I paid for the Road Force after still not happy. Not spending more after 3x balancing's. Not crazy vibration but annoying. My Pirelli P7's don't have that problem on the same car.

The Conti Viking Contact 7's on both kids cars smooth with just regular high speed balance. The Conti WinterContact Si's on Pilot are still smooth but getting noisy.

 

[edyvw]

There was no way I could balance my R2’s without tones of weight. Regardless of type of balance, shop etc. Same shop balances my Michelin, Bridgestone or Continental easily, Nokian? One tire has enough weights to balance all tires on two other cars.

Continental VC7 is IMO still best overall snow tire. I think WS90 is also superb tire, but I would still take VC7. Problem is, VC7 became really expensive. For BMW this year VC7 set would cost me some $200 more than WS90.

 

[Chevyc10]

Had local Chevy dealer mount tires on my 66 c10. Tech RoadForce balanced without me asking. Big difference driving truck. Now I will request RoadForce balance on all my vehicles.

 

[AZjeff]

Seems like incredible bad luck that all of OPs cars are so sensitive and all the tires he buys are so crappy.

 

[MParr]

You can’t road force balance an egg shaped tire or one that doesn’t have tread that is straight on the carcass.

 

[meep]

upfront. I’m not a huge fan of Michelins. I know a lot of folks are. They often don’t have the features i seek in a tire, and the vast majority of tires I’ve bought have not been Michelin.

that said, the two brands I’ve experienced the most vibration-free and alignment-neutral driving with are:
- yokohama
- michelin

the most notable issues I’ve experienced have been:
- continental (minor, I really liked the tires and could buy again). (steering wheel was aligned to center but vehicle had uneven steering just off-center until tires were replaced, and the centering characteristic moved with rotations). Reviews of the time suggested they had problems with runout across several models.

- firestone - bought 4 destination LE, first generation. 3 of the 4 couldn’t be balanced. Firestone dealer replaced all 4 after they couldn’t balance them. (again, I bought two more sets of LEs because Firestone took care of the issue very nicely).

- uniroyal - visibly non-circular in shape when measured while spinning. Oddly, road force balancing masked it on the rear, but when mounted up front, it was a harried mess while steering.

the Yokohama tires I have now are the most transparent tire I’ve ever owned. I’ve never experienced a ride so effortless down the interstate, and this is on a stiffly sprung pickup.

the Michelins we just put on both of our other cars seem just as precise, but there is still something in the Yokohama tires that seems more … unobtrusive?

I’ve primarily purchased Bridgestone. I like their upper models, but they can end up requiring more weight to balance than you’d want to see.

 

[Ws6]

I had a Michelin made in USA that was out of round. Tire shop replaced it. Only Michelins made in France have been perfect for me but I only had 1 set so it's hard to generalize.

The original set of tires on any car will most likely be perfect, regardless of brand. As I explained in the original post, car manufacturers have strict standards. Every wheel+tire assembly is tested for balance/roundness and only the very best make it on brand new cars. Unfortunately, tire manufacturers use much lower standards for "replacement tires" sold at tire shops. So when you replace your worn tires with the exact same brand and model, there's no guarantee the ride will be as good as it was with your old tires. Actually, you are almost guaranteed it will be worse.

My 2019 cx5 had wheel vibration fixed with getting new tires. My 2022 rdx was the same. My c40 had an oem fitted tire fail road force and be replaced under warranty.

Now ? Just throw the oems out and put a good tire on. Oem is the worst.

 

[Cruisin'n5thgear]

I'm assuming that's pounds of force out of balance when spun at a particular speed. If a tire were actually 18 lbs out of balance, it'd look very lopsided

 

[The Critic]

I will say that Michelin's seem to have the fewest RF issues, IME.

I have found that some tires will be fine at first, but then later on (as they age), they seem to have an incurable steering wheel vibration regardless of balance methods. I have seen this issue with some Continental tires.

 

[CapriRacer]

I'm assuming that's pounds of force out of balance when spun at a particular speed. If a tire were actually 18 lbs out of balance, it'd look very lopsided

No. It doesn't work like that.

An imbalance is like a weight on a string. When you twirl it, the faster you go, the more the force. Even a small weight could generate a lot of force.

But Uniformity (Force Variation) works on stiffness, so it doesn't matter how fast you go, the force remains the same (more or less).

To try to put this in perspective, a 15# tire is on the order of a 1 oz imbalance - just annoying but not something you'd go back and have redone.. (I'm sure someone is going to do the math and provide a much better value)

 

[MParr]

My 2019 cx5 had wheel vibration fixed with getting new tires. My 2022 rdx was the same. My c40 had an oem fitted tire fail road force and be replaced under warranty.

Now ? Just throw the oems out and put a good tire on. Oem is the worst.

Unlike you, I have never had a balance issue out of OEM tires. I’ve bought new cars since 1986. I had the usual problems of roaring tires, poor wet traction, and fast wear.
The issues with out of balance or out of round tires were all from replacement tires. General Altimax RT 43, Firestone Wilderness HT, and Cooper Trendsetter were three sets that come to mind.

 

[Jmlo96]

I will say that Michelin's seem to have the fewest RF issues, IME.

I have found that some tires will be fine at first, but then later on (as they age), they seem to have an incurable steering wheel vibration regardless of balance methods. I have seen this issue with some Continental tires.

I had something like this happen with 2 sets of Continental tires on my Regal. The second set was PureContact LS and around 7k miles on the tires they developed a nasty vibration.

 

[FowVay]

Grab a cup of coffee and watch this fascinating 3 minute video. This is a tire factory for OEM wheel/tire assemblies. I thought it was pretty cool.



I deleted my original video that shows the tire mounting. This stuff is cool!

 

[jeepman3071]

Lack of quality control.

I love the Michelin PS AS4's on my BMW, but it took 5 tries to get them balanced by different shops.

 

[Jim me]

Hid tires are a little out of round.

 

[SC Maintenance]

I had this exact issue for the very first time a couple years ago. Long story short - turned out 3 tires were out of round / out of road force spec - call it what you want. The worn out BF Goodrich's that came off were perfect - next day it wasn't. On my truck which is absolutely not sensitive to this.

First shop only had a balancer. After much research and much attempt to fix I learned about road force balancing and took them to the brand new discount tire store in town. They found the bad ones. They were Generals - Made in Mexico. Continental - parent of General - demanded I pay 20% pro rated - even though they had only a couple thousand miles. My last continental purchase ever. I have patience for quality issues, but no patience for fighting warranty. From memory the "bad" ones were 40,40 and 35 lbs. They wouldn't replace one that was either 20 or 25? The new ones weren't great either but better. They have seemed to get better over time - or I more used to it.

My rigs are absolutely not sensitive to this. This is a real issue.

I will only buy from this discount tire going forward - since everything they do gets road force balanced, and I can get them rebalanced for free if needed.

 

[SubLGT]

.......Since Road Force® is a made-up term by Hunter, I can 100%, without-a-doubt, assure you that Toyota (or any other manufacturer) is not using it as any type of production or service standard that a tire has to meet or pass to be considered "good"

I don't know about Toyota, but Subaru have in the past, in a service bulletin, stated that a Hunter road force value of 8kg is the dividing line between an acceptable tire and a non-acceptable tire. I've seen similar service bulletins online from GM and Hyundai.

Nobody here said Hunter Road Force balancers are being used in a production environment. For that purpose there are "tire uniformity machines" that do measure radial force variation, among other things.

Tire uniformity machines for quality assurance | Hofmann: the Original!

A factory quality assurance of car, truck and motorcycle tires is made possible by our tire uniformity measuring machines.

www.hofmannmaschinen.com

Tire Uniformity Measurement Machines - MicroPoise

Uniformity machines measure force variation, runout, and sidewall appearance. Without properly checking these forces, the integrity of your tire and ride quality and is dramatically affected.

www.micropoise.com

Tire Uniformity Grading Machine (TUO) – inmess GmbH

inmess is one of the global leaders in manufacturing tire uniformity machines in the field of tire measurement machines.

www.inmess.de

...Inmess, as one of the global leaders in manufacturing tire uniformity machines for complete wheel assemblies, continues its firm steps along the way to achieve the same success in the field of tire measurement machines.
The determination of the radial and lateral force variations in a rolling tire, its ply steer and conicity as well as the radial and lateral run-out is a prerequisite for substantial statements about the current quality level of a tire production site. Geometrical measuring can be added as an additional feature to a tire uniformity measurement machine. The detection of bulges and dents, which is considered as a safety failure of a tire, is an important criterion for the exclusion of low quality tires during a production process...

 

[MParr]

Hid tires are a little out of round.

A road force balance will take care of that. 🤣🤣🤣🤣

 

[ammolab]

The problem with road force balancing …not 5% of the installers have any idea what they are doing. I have watched this procedure while getting new tires many times. Only ONCE did I see the tech measure the bare rim so adjustment could be made after tire is mounted.

I asked the teen aged tech what the road force numbers after he mounted my CR-V tire job (I paid extra for RF Mounting). He said, “I don‘t know what you are talking about, I just balance tires”).

Most of the time it isn’t a Road Force issue.
It’s a Work Force issue.