Right Way to Road Force Balance?

[panthermike]

If I were to walk into a discount tire and assume the technician only knows the basics; what would you tell them to do? I've heard a few things in regard to the right way to do it; is there an article or chart that lays out the "proper" way to get the best results with a RF balance?

I'm genuinely curious and also when I recently had Discount RF balance tires for me; it seemed worse than before at highway speed.

 

[redhat]

Interested myself. I’ve been super unsatisfied with “tire shops”. I don’t think any place knows what to do.

 

[CapriRacer]

Just ask them for the road force values by wheel position. If they know what those are, they'll know the procedure. Record those for future reference. Post them here if you like.

 

[benjamming]

I also ask at what RF value they break down the tire to see if they can get it better.

 

[Cujet]

My local Ford dealer knew how to do it right. Maybe a quality dealership is the place to go for competency? They don't want to mess up a vehicle sale.

 

[dippschtick]

Tell them to pull out their phones and watch some Youtube videos if they are having problems.

 

[Kira]

deleted...I watched the video.
I've only seen tire techs add or subtract weights. I'm glad to see they break the beads sometimes.

 

[SC Maintenance]

Does this mean break the beads and spin the tire on the wheel to get "heavy spots" to cancel out ? ...resulting in less weight needed?

Sort of. They rotate the tire to match the "high" portion of the tire with the "low" portion of the wheel. Road force deals with roundness of everything.

The Hunter screen will actually tell them what to do step by step - you don't need to tell them. However if there under their "failure" value - they will simply stop rather than try to get it better. Time is money.

 

[JohnnyG]

If I were to walk into a discount tire and assume the technician only knows the basics; what would you tell them to do? I've heard a few things in regard to the right way to do it; is there an article or chart that lays out the "proper" way to get the best results with a RF balance?

I'm genuinely curious and also when I recently had Discount RF balance tires for me; it seemed worse than before at highway speed.

Yes, just go to the Hunter website.

The real problem is the limits that they are told are "OK".
Some cars, like my 1999 Caddy STS was very sensitive to road force (and Buicks of that same era) and you could feel anything over 10 pounds of road force.
Took me forever to convince the tire place to work harder to get it down. Places get under 20 pounds and call iit good.

 

[panthermike]

All helpful thank you. I had some new michelins installed on my truck yesterday and it is leagues better than what was on there before. However there's still a little bit of something at 70 mph (minor).

With this information in this thread I called discount this morning and learned a couple of things.

1. They RF all tires at least at this location.
2. They do not force match unless there is a high road force, not sure what their threshold is.

I did notice on at least two of the wheels, there is seven or eight weights on the wheel. Would this indicate that there is a moderate amount of force?

 

[thescreensavers]

Id request before and after road force values. Usually you have to pay more for road force, id want them to do it even if the number doesn't change much an improvement still an improvement.

 

[panthermike]

Id request before and after road force values. Usually you have to pay more for road force, if want them to do it even if the number doesn't change much an improvement still an improvement.

I think I'm going to bring it in tomorrow and have them force match. I will for sure ask them to write these values down. To be fair, I think the majority of people would not even notice. But us here do notice, it's only right around the 70mph area (which is where i'm at mostly on the interstate). I like a smooth ride and these bad boys were $$$. I feel like if the Westlakes on my Wife's Mazda can be balanced well at walmart, a Michelin certainly can on a RF

 

[CapriRacer]

All helpful thank you. I had some new michelins installed on my truck yesterday and it is leagues better than what was on there before. However there's still a little bit of something at 70 mph (minor).

With this information in this thread I called discount this morning and learned a couple of things.

1. They RF all tires at least at this location.
2. They do not force match unless there is a high road force, not sure what their threshold is.

I did notice on at least two of the wheels, there is seven or eight weights on the wheel. Would this indicate that there is a moderate amount of force?

May be. Lots of weight indicates a problem of some sort, but it might not be something involved with RoadForce.

 

[panthermike]

May be. Lots of weight indicates a problem of some sort, but it might not be something involved with RoadForce.

Appreciated, I will follow up tomorrow with the results/values and report back here.

 

[SubLGT]

Flat spotting from being parked overnight can affect road force balancing. OEMs like GM recommend the vehicle be driven at least 15 miles, at 55mph or more, immediately before doing measurements. The GM tech bulletin on road force balancing can be downloaded from NHTSA at this link:

GM Tech Bulletin

 

[Joba27n]

Flat spotting from being parked overnight can affect road force balancing. OEMs like GM recommend the vehicle be driven at least 15 miles, at 55mph or more, immediately before doing measurements. The GM tech bulletin on road force balancing can be downloaded from NHTSA at this link:

GM Tech Bulletin

View attachment 280441

You beat me to it, yes the tires have to be warmed up first. Brand new tires I wouldn't road force because depending on storage/shipping they could be a little deformed. If someone brought me their vehicle with a complaint of a vibration that I thought would be tires then I would purposely take a bit of a longer road test on the highway to warm up the tires.

Road forcing is just matching the stiffest part of the tire to the lowest of the rim. Before the fancy machines we would just rotate the tire 180*, then 90* then 180* again until it was smooth

 

[panthermike]

Here's the results:

RF values: 35, 36, 29, 28. Don't know if this is normal/good with big tires. Also, they recommended hubcentric rings. In his words; "tire and wheel balance is perfect".

 

[Joba27n]

For a truck running LT- rated tires and/or mud tires, I consider that okay. For cars and passenger p-rated tires I aim for under 20lbs. I think 17lbs was the spec but it's been 5 years since I last did it so imm kinda hazy on the specs

 

[SubLGT]

Here's the results:

RF values: 35, 36, 29, 28. Don't know if this is normal/good with big tires.......

What is the tire size?

 

[t1snwrbrdr12]

Those RF numbers are pretty high for Michelins. What size tire and is it a load rated tire?

Where are your 6/7 weights on the one wheel? In one spot or spread out? Any weights should be placed together. If they are spaced out that is not a proper balance…tech spun the wheel and it was still out of balance so instead of fixing it they just add weights elsewhere.

Are these sticky weights or clip on? Sticky weights on truck tires give for a tough balance for the tech.

If I remember right, our hunter road force limits didn’t exceed 26lbs. It was like 14ish for passenger cars, 18-20ish for SUVs, and I thought the highest set limit was 26 for LT tires. Any shop can adjust the limits to make it look ok on their readouts though. Even if a tire doesn’t test beyond limits, the machine will give the tech the option to measure the wheel and find a better fit/match. They’re just too lazy to do it because it’s not their car.