How much weight (Ounces) should it take

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to balance a tire? And how much is too much meaning that the tire has some issues?(out of round etc)

I haven't been to pleased with the Comfort level of my GY Comfortreds...car seems to ride a bit more jittery even going just down the street at about 30-40 mph. Notice on one of my back tires there is a pretty big hunk of weight on the inside of the wheel...I can't see how much but if I guessed I'd say over 3 oz...seems excessive for that much weight on a 205/55 16.


Have 30 days to decide if I want to keep them, so far they are not being the "comfort" tire that they are advertised at.....not an earth shaking ride mind you, just not what I would expect. I know a small 4 banger ain't gonna ride like an Impala but...

I may give the Tripletreds or the Mich Exalto's a look...even with the more aggressive tread pattern the Triples rated a higher comfort ride than the Comfy's in CR
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That is a lot of weight if that is how much is on that wheel. Compare it to the others if it is the only one get the tire rotated on the rim and have it balanced again. Check for a bent rim. Usally 2 oz. is plenty except for truck and suv tires which are large. Were the tires balanced with a weight on the outside and a weight inside or just weights on the inside?
 
This just reinforces my opinion that GY tires are junk. The OE Eagle LS2's on our '04 Quest have vibrated since delivery. It shakes worse than my 1981 200k miles Rabbit does on the highway. Several re-balances & force balances and I was done with GY and ready for some better tires. Too bad that ONLY GY makes a tire in the size for the Quest (but this is my problem).

Back to your problem. Trade these GYs in for the Michelins, or Bridgstones, Yokohamas, or ANYTHING other than GY, even Kumho & Hankook. Well, maybe not anything. I have not had much good luck with BF Goodrich's passanger car tires.

I have run Yokos, Bridg's and Michelins through their entire tread life w/o ANY rebalancing required. I have noticed that the Michelins & Bridgstones required the least abouts of weights. Maybe 2 ounces. The Yokos and Kumhos needed a bit more. This comparison is between different wheel & tire combos, so I would take it with a grain of salt.

I am not sure if amount of weights is a direct indecation of tire quality because the rim and mounting practices can effect balancing requirement. If you can, ask the installer what the red dot near the bead of each tire indicates. If he can't answer the question, you are not getting a quality mount job. FYI, the red dot is the factory indicated heavy spot, which should be mounted opposite the valve stem.

With GY, I have experianced slipped belts, un-even tread wear, belt wires through the tread, and poor rain & snow traction on M+S tires.
 
its funny how one person has nothing but bad expierence with goodyear, and someone like me has nothing but good expierence with them.

i love goodyear. every time i have goodyear tyres, they awalys take minimal ammount of weight to balance. for instance, my set of viva 2's on the rear of my car right now, one tyre is only 1/4 ounce out of balance. the other one did not need any wheel weights. it came balanced from the factory.

maybe its how one percieves things, or maybe thel sell crap goodyears in that part of the country.
 
True Master Acid....although the only other set of Goodyears I ever owned were GY Eagles on my Celica and I remember them being one of the worst tires I had ever owned....towards the end before I got rid of them they were making squeaking noise that I thought was something in my suspension...once the tires went so did the noise!

Let me say again that these Comfys are not HORRIBLE....I just don't think they are at the quality that they should be for what they are billed as......

That leads to another question...could it be that I haven't given these tires enough time? Probably only 500 or so miles on them(I do 100 a day)....Do tires need to "break in" to smooth out etc?

I have some Bridgestones Duelers that seemed to get smoother with age....vibrations that were in the gas pedal and steering wheel really lessed after like 5k......could this be what I am seeing in the Goodyears?

I was really looking hard at the Mich Hydroedges but the guy at Town Fair talked me out of them stating that they were the worst tire he has ever seen on a car...not sure about that but.........the Exaltos look like a nice piece of rubber
 
One time, when I was still using Michelin MXX 3 Pilot Sport tires, NONE of them needed any weight! Of course, those tires were $225 each and lasted only 8k miles! Those were the best handling tires I've ever had on my car, but the price and short life was just totally unacceptable to me.
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ucandoit, you have to look at both pieces of the puzzle here, the tire AND the rim. The rim itself often is not perfectly balanced and will require some weight. Now, a good tire shop will do what's called optimization or counter-balancing. This means, pairing up the heaviest point on the rim with the lightest point on the tire. This will cause some of the weight discrepancies to cancel out and will require much less wheel weights to be applied. Of course this is additional work and most places will charge you extra for it.

Also, make sure the rim is not bent, like someone else pointed out already.

And sometimes, a new tire can be "out of round" beyond the point of feasible balancing. Roadforce high speed balancers like Hunter GSP9700 should be able to pick up on it and such manufacturing defects should be honored by the tire manufacturer.

As far as GY tires being junk, let's not generalize here. Every tire company makes a wide spectrum of tires, some good and some not so good. In my experience, GY LS and GY GT-II were crap. But from what I hear, their top of the line max perf. summer tire - GS-D3 is pretty good, confirmed by both user reviews and independent tests.
 
I just had the tires balanced again last night and if it is even possible, they feel a little worse to me.

I bought the Comfortreds because I wanted a smooth riding tire....I hate it when the tire guys says.."well the Matrix doesn't have the best ride to start" No kidding Sherlock...I know that.

BUT I would think that a tire billed as ultra smooth ride and it's main selling point would at least do what it is designed to do. Not to mention the Conti OE's had on there rode smoother when they were new!

I'll probably have them Roadforced balanced out of my own pocket to make absolutely sure that it is not the rims causing the less than optimal ride.

If the rims come out ok(Steel rims, not alloys) I'll trade them for either the Tripletreds or the Exalto Pilot A/S. I can put up with a stiffer jittery ride knowing that I have a tire with better traction and handling
 
I'm wondering if the problem is the inflation pressure (since "jittery" is mentioned "jittery" in the original post). Too high will cause the tire to be stiffer and normal pavement variations won't be damped out.

I think the pressure ought to be checked and assuming the same size as originally supplied is being used, the tires ought to be set to the value on the placard to see if that helps.

It is common for tire busters to use a high pressure to get the beads to seat and they don't bother to reset the pressure when they install the assembly on the vehicle.
 
Pressure is at 32 and this what it calls for...going for a Roadforce balance this morning....hopefully that will solve it...if not I'll opt for the Triples or Exaltos
 
Willy_G - I have an 04 Quest too and was amazed at how crappy those "Bad"years were. Thank goodness they needed replacing after only 23K noisy, vibrating, slippery, unresponsive, poor riding miles. Replaced them with Yokohama Avid TRZs and never looked back. Night and day difference that really made the van a ton more enjoyable to drive. The most weight added was 20gr at the outboard rim affixing area (17" alloys). All others took generally 10-15gr to balance with a front wheel/tire taking NONE!

ucandoit-Heard nothing but great reviews on the Exaltos.
 
some tire places has a balancer that can check to see if the rim is bent. they should of checked this if they had to put this much on it. my dakotas 245/16/R70 has less weight than that on them. or it could have a bad cord in the tire. I think I would have that tire replaced. is it one tire or all of them? sounds like something isnt right and has to be the tire or rim. I would call goodyear and ask them. tehy maybe able to help you more than these tire places. most of them knows just how to mount tires .
 
quote:

Have 30 days to decide if I want to keep them, so far they are not being the "comfort" tire that they are advertised at.....not an earth shaking ride mind you, just not what I would expect. I know a small 4 banger ain't gonna ride like an Impala but...

If the tire is out of round when it is mounted on the rim, wheel balancing won't make it run smooth.

When mounting the tire, it is important to match the high spot of the tire with the low spot of the rim. It doesn't matter about matching heavy spots and light spots because wheel weights correct this.

I agree with a previous post. You need a tire shop that has one of the latest tire balancing machines that measures out of round. They can then match mount the tire and rim. You may find that you need a new rim if it is out of round, as match mounting can only do so much and you would have the same problem with the next tire.
 
Had the tires Roadforce balanced today and it has smoothed the tires out quite a bit...Sullivan Tire did it and for those of you in New England know that they are a pretty decent tire place.

I think most of the vibrations I get now are engine related..the Matrix has a pretty raspy exhaust and I think that I am picking up engine reverb in both the steering wheel and gas pedal(on a seprate note...does anyone know what causes vibrations in the gas pedal?...Im guessing it is the exaust??)

So the tires are probably as smooth as they are going to be although they did need to put an ounce and a 1/4 from what I could see on at least one of the tires...I still think I will change out to the Tripletreds...If my ride is going to be a little bit jerky I might as well get the superior traction

Till next time
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well put the car in N and cost and see if the vibration go away. I do this on my dakota to see if the engine is making the vibration or if its the road. be surpised at how many times its the road. it can have so many lil bumps and dips you cant see.
 
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