New Bridgestone Potenza 970AS - Balance issues!

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Originally Posted By: eljefino
99.95 per tire or per car?

Be sure to let them know you're chasing a specific problem, they can work with you and put any prospective duds on the rear where you'll feel them less, etc.

If you watch a tire on the balancer you can see if it's egg shaped (which you can miss if it's 1/4" runout) but of course not if its variably forgiving (which the road force should find.)

And yeah I'd try and get a new one under warranty. A road force balance of a crummy tire is kind of two wrongs making a right.


When I called and confirmed that they had a roadforce balancer, he asked 'got a balance issue you can't get down?'. Said yea, 2 balances and it's still rubbish.
 
Originally Posted By: DirtyApe
When I called and confirmed that they had a roadforce balancer, he asked 'got a balance issue you can't get down?'. Said yea, 2 balances and it's still rubbish.


- AND?

Did they offer to do a warranty exchange?
 
Originally Posted By: CapriRacer
Originally Posted By: DirtyApe
When I called and confirmed that they had a roadforce balancer, he asked 'got a balance issue you can't get down?'. Said yea, 2 balances and it's still rubbish.


- AND?

Did they offer to do a warranty exchange?


I'm going in today to have a roadforce balance done, I'll have to see if anything is bad with the tire or just bad balances.. I called yesterday to confirm they had the machine before going up there today.
 
well went to the firestone place today, after 90 minutes of waiting, they said something about their 'air chuck leaking like crazy' and that they were very sorry and couldn't do it today.

Oh of course, only me.

I checked a couple of other places and will try again on Monday.

*sigh*
 
Originally Posted By: DirtyApe
well went to the firestone place today, after 90 minutes of waiting, they said something about their 'air chuck leaking like crazy' and that they were very sorry and couldn't do it today.

Oh of course, only me.

I checked a couple of other places and will try again on Monday.

*sigh*


It's terribly unclear, but are you going back to the place where you bought the tires? If not, then do so. It is quite possible that you have a tire .... uh .... Mmmmmm.... Let's call it "out of round" - and that is the source of the vibration. The road force machine can detect this, but can not correct it. But the important thing is IF the machine detects an out of round tire, the guy who sold you the tires can exchange that tire for another one.

But if you are going to someone else, then that guy might refuse to do anything - and you will have wasted your money on a balance jiob.
 
Originally Posted By: CapriRacer
Originally Posted By: DirtyApe
well went to the firestone place today, after 90 minutes of waiting, they said something about their 'air chuck leaking like crazy' and that they were very sorry and couldn't do it today.

Oh of course, only me.

I checked a couple of other places and will try again on Monday.

*sigh*


It's terribly unclear, but are you going back to the place where you bought the tires? If not, then do so. It is quite possible that you have a tire .... uh .... Mmmmmm.... Let's call it "out of round" - and that is the source of the vibration. The road force machine can detect this, but can not correct it. But the important thing is IF the machine detects an out of round tire, the guy who sold you the tires can exchange that tire for another one.

But if you are going to someone else, then that guy might refuse to do anything - and you will have wasted your money on a balance jiob.


Sorry, they came from tire rack. I'm not sure if a firestone location could or would warrantee a bridgestone not bought from them, didn't get that far.

I might not have time on Monday to go back to a Firestone store, there are some other places listed such as a honda dealer, toyota dealer within a few miles of me.

If the firestone place is willing to warrantee (from tire rack) with the proper invoice, should something be found wrong it might make more sense to go back there. The firestone store I went to is in St. Louis and Hunter is based there and they hoped to have them out Monday AM.
 
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If you used one of Tire Rack's recommended installers, then Tire Rack is usually pretty good about doing an exchange on a defective product and covering return shipping.
 
On dealer-mounted tires, TR will sent out a replacement with a phone call.

You'll have to return ship the bad one from the billing address, however.

Everything is shipped at TR's expense.

I would just call TR first thing Monday morning and tell them what is happening. You need to isolate which one is the problem.

You also have the Bridgestone 30 day unconditional exchange option.
 
Originally Posted By: Volvohead
On dealer-mounted tires, TR will sent out a replacement with a phone call.

You'll have to return ship the bad one from the billing address, however.

Everything is shipped at TR's expense.

I would just call TR first thing Monday morning and tell them what is happening. You need to isolate which one is the problem.

You also have the Bridgestone 30 day unconditional exchange option.


Only problem is the original TR recommended installer doesn't have a RF machine. They chipped the paint a bit on 1 wheel and are stonewalling me. That's another issue though.
 
Originally Posted By: BMWTurboDzl
Be sure to leave a legit review on TR website.


Called TR yesterday and they will pay up to 20 per wheel to RF balance. I have an appointment this morning to get it done @ Firestone, so I'll see how that goes. I also have a call in to the regional guy for the tire place that TR recommended that chipped up the wheel.

More later.
 
Ended up going to the infiniti dealer - out of round wheel. Takes 18lbs to resolve the balance on it, the other 3 were 10,10 and 12. I don't really understand what those numbers mean as they aren't weight of the lead needed. Apparently 20lbs is the upper limit?

On a brand new car.
 
Originally Posted By: DirtyApe
Ended up going to the infiniti dealer - out of round wheel. Takes 18lbs to resolve the balance on it, the other 3 were 10,10 and 12. I don't really understand what those numbers mean as they aren't weight of the lead needed. Apparently 20lbs is the upper limit?

On a brand new car.


They may resist, but on a brand new vehicle try to demand a new wheel. Depends on the mileage. More than likely, they'll blame it on you for hitting something, and want to straighten it. A skilled tech will make the straightened wheel as good as a new one. The usual street price for straightening and refinishing is $100-150.

But either way, the problem goes away.

Some wheel styles are prone to bending out of round, so keep an eye on them.
 
Got the car back, can't tell anything was done to the wheel cosmetically, rides like velvet. They paid for the straightening and split the bill for the roadforce. Now the other half of the balance Tire Rack is paying.

Never had a car with such a smooth ride. Roadforce balance rules.

End numbers were 10,10,12,14

Glad that saga is over.
 
Last edited:
Perhaps a bit of explanation is in order.

The Road Force numbers are in pounds force. This is the variation of the "roundness" of the tire - and instead of using a length dimension (like thousandths of an inch), they use force because that is what the axle is experiencing.

For example, a 10# tire is like periodically pushing up on the axle with a 10# force. (Actually, it's more like a 5# force oscillating up and down.)

Every vehicle has a certain sensitivity to force variation. Some are quite sensitive and some are vewry insensitive. Not being a vehicle engineer, I can't tell you what causes this sensitivity.

Both tires and wheels have force variation. In the case of wheels, it's directly from the runout. In the case of tires, it's a combination of runout and differences in stiffness around the circumference of the tire.

But you can get vibrations from other sources. An eccentrically mounted wheel (which is why every car manufacturer uses hub piloting to center the wheel!), an out of balance rotor, - and every so often a CV joint or a bad bearing will feel like an out of balance tire.
 
Originally Posted By: CapriRacer
Perhaps a bit of explanation is in order.

The Road Force numbers are in pounds force. This is the variation of the "roundness" of the tire - and instead of using a length dimension (like thousandths of an inch), they use force because that is what the axle is experiencing.

For example, a 10# tire is like periodically pushing up on the axle with a 10# force. (Actually, it's more like a 5# force oscillating up and down.)

Every vehicle has a certain sensitivity to force variation. Some are quite sensitive and some are vewry insensitive. Not being a vehicle engineer, I can't tell you what causes this sensitivity.

Both tires and wheels have force variation. In the case of wheels, it's directly from the runout. In the case of tires, it's a combination of runout and differences in stiffness around the circumference of the tire.

But you can get vibrations from other sources. An eccentrically mounted wheel (which is why every car manufacturer uses hub piloting to center the wheel!), an out of balance rotor, - and every so often a CV joint or a bad bearing will feel like an out of balance tire.


interesting, thanks!
 
Glad you resolved your issue, OP. For what it's worth, my Bridgestone RE970AS Pole Positions required no weight (zero) to balance on my stock Subaru WRX rims. I am very impressed with the quality control on these tires. And their wet performance is insane. Dry is on par with the stock summer tires (Dunflop Sport SP 01) that came with the WRX.
 
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