Road Force Excessive on a New Car

t1snwrbrdr12 said:
Mechanics and shops don’t want to hear how to repair a car from their customers. We did discuss the possibility of having to replace them if they can’t fix them, but they don’t think it’s necessary at this point, whereas the first shop told me I needed 3 and if I’d have bought from them, I’d be getting 4 tires since 3 failed.
Click to expand...
First, on the phone, you aren't talking to the guy who is doing the work - you're probably talking to a service writer. Further, they do so many cars in a day that what happens to a particular car doesn't stay in their memory.

So ride the car before you take the next step. It might actually be fixed.

If it isn't, take it back. If necessary, involve the vehicle manufacturer's District Service rep.

And a bit of clarification. When it comes to vibrations, warranty is a bit complicated. Technically, the vehicle manufacturer doesn't cover tires, but they do cover the vehicle - which includes the tires. What should happen is that the vehicle dealer would do what he can to fix the situation, balancing, match mounting, etc., but if he needed to replace the tires, the dealer should do that under the vehicle manufacturer's warranty. Standard procedure in these cases is for the tires to be sent in for warranty adjustment, just like any other part - and the consumer isn't even aware of this happening.

But some vehicle dealers don't have the capability to do tires, so they claim the vehicle warranty doesn't cover tires - which is sort of true. What the vehicle manufacturer doesn't cover are road hazards, wear, and tire manufacturing defects - BUT - they do cover vibrations and shipping damage (flatspotting would be shipping damage!).
 
t1snwrbrdr12 said:
Shop 1 said the road force was at 21 - 39 - 24 - and 23. After they worked on it. Vibration changed from 60-80 mph to only 70-75 mph.
Click to expand...

The 39 is definitely a problem. The others are borderline acceptable.

My local America’s tire has Road force elite machines. All of them perform a measurement with every tire balance. They have the threshold set to 35 and none of the techs know how to perform an adjustment. If you pay for a RF balance and the measured road force values are under 35, you just get told that they were okay. 🙄
 
t1snwrbrdr12 said:
So we bought a new Hyundai. Immediately has vibration on the way home. But we bought on a Saturday night, closed the place down, and the vehicle is brand new so (warranty) right?

Make first available service appointment where I used to work (I handled pretty much all these type issues as a tech). Nobody quite understands road force, matching tires on rims, and regular spin balance there (when I worked there, and possibly still now?!).

They called to tell me 3 tires fail, excessive road force and cannot be improved enough by matching. They give me the print out and suggest returning to the selling dealer because HYUNDAI DOESN’T WARRANTY THIS TYPE OF ISSUE (tires?). Really?

On the way home call Hyundai corporate to open a case. They verify they don’t cover tires. Suggest buying an extended warranty with them that will cover tires. I tell them no way, proceed with opening a case.

Also call the selling dealer (out of my area, but it’s what you gotta do to find a new car lately). They’re more than willing to help, that’s great. They get me a loaner and I drop off.

They don’t even test drive it initially, just trust I have a tire balance issue. They call the day they work on it to say they think it’s fixed, all tires were out of balance. And let me know someone spun all my tires on the wheels. I let them know that was another Hyundai shops attempt to correct the excessive road force measurement. Selling dealer isn’t aware of what the road force currently is now, but insist it’s fixed. I insist they drive it before saying that, as I’m sure it was assembled with matched and balanced tires. Very rare that they are balanced wrong from the manufacturer.

Next day they don’t drive it. Day after (3rd day) they drive it and say it’s good to go. I again dig into the excess road force, and they aren’t giving me exact numbers as they claim they don’t understand it, but they said it’s all good.

I’m not saying it’s not good (haven’t picked up yet). But what would you all do if road force is exceeding what is considered normal? I remember we used 18lbs for passenger cars, 24 lbs for passenger tire SUVs, and so on.

Shop 1 said the road force was at 21 - 39 - 24 - and 23. After they worked on it. Vibration changed from 60-80 mph to only 70-75 mph.

Again I haven’t driven it but since it’s a hike to get it, trying to see anyone with tire knowledge or experience how big a deal is it IF road force is actually excessive? But drives fine.

As a tech you don’t get formal training on this stuff. Little worried of having “marginal” tires on a new car, if they’ll stay in balance over the course of their wear, etc.
Click to expand...
I've owned two Cadillacs that were prone to road force issues. It would always show up at speeds between 68 -72 mph, and would feel like it moved around the car. Sometimes I would feel it in the steering wheel, sometimes in the seat. I was also fortunate to have a local shop with a Hunter RF machine and knew how to use it.
They were a bit reluctant at first to put in the extra effort, but we finally came to an understanding after a bit of discussion. During a lot of conversations with the tech I told him I wanted the tires to have a road force of 10 - 12 pounds. He said that might not be possible and that even Jaguar specifies 15# as acceptable. I explained to him that in those cars, I can feel 12# of road force, but it was acceptable.
We eventually got all the tires (Michelins) but one under 15# one as low as 10#, so the 15 pound tire went on the rear and all was great. They even swapped out one of my new tires with one from their stock, which was great!
Never had any issues after that.
 
At the very least, one would think the tires would be covered under the 12mo/12,000 mile wear item and/or adjustments warranty that Hyundai has on every new Hyundai. If a customer complains, and the tires are determined to be bad, the dealer would simply put all new tires on and submit it as a warranty repair.

I had to chuckle at the road force service document that was posted. Hyundai's solution is to put the tires at certain spots based on their RFVs. Any perceived benefit to that solution will be totally undone at the next tire rotation...unless the ultimate solution is to never rotate them and just replace tires more frequently.

When I owned my Hyundai years ago, I distinctly recall a Santa Fe owner having a heated argument with the Service Manager about tires in the waiting room. The owner was on his 3rd set of tires in only 50K miles. The Service Manager said that was "normal", the Santa Fe had limited alignment options, and there was nothing they could do to prevent the tire wear. That, of course, didn't help the situation. Things got loud, and the Service Manager finally took the customer in to his office and closed the door.
 
ryster said:
I had to chuckle at the road force service document that was posted. Hyundai's solution is to put the tires at certain spots based on their RFVs. Any perceived benefit to that solution will be totally undone at the next tire rotation...unless the ultimate solution is to never rotate them and just replace tires more frequently.
Click to expand...

Agree. If it does happen to ride smoothly, I’ll be rotating the tires this weekend to see if it still rides smooth after that. You know, before they can shift the blame to me on damaging a tire due to a road hazard or something if I were to wait till a 5k mile tire rotation.
 
And it still vibrates. Surprise surprise. Standing waiting for some help, as I said I’m over an hour away.

F U HYUNDAI.

My 11 year old van ride better than this.
 
So the shop foreman had done the road forcing on the wheels and tires personally. I got the papers on it and reviewed it as I waited for the manager. He matched 2 down to 7 and 9 lbs road force, and of course put them up front. The other 2 didn’t get better then 30 and 23, he put them in the back.

The manager was the only one to make a final test drive on it and it sounds like he just zipped right up to 80-90mph and didn’t feel anything. I felt it at 58-65 on my way home but that’s as fast as I could get. I turned it around and left it with them again after taking them both out to have them feel what I was talking about.

At this point, the cars been in one shop or another more than we’ve even owned it. And I’ve put more miles on this POS Kona than our own car. Hopefully they get it right at some point. Sat in traffic to get there after work and then get back home for about 3.5 hours.
 
Shop 1 said the road force was at 21 - 39 - 24 - and 23....
Click to expand...

He matched 2 down to 7 and 9 lbs road force, and of course put them up front. The other 2 didn’t get better then 30 and 23....
Click to expand...

That is a big discrepancy between the two dealers.
 
SubLGT said:
That is a big discrepancy between the two dealers.
Click to expand...
There’s a big lack of training and understanding on road force.

Dealers buy the equipment because they have to. They don’t train their techs on it though, at least not all. I was at a major dealer (shop 1 that I used) and not one of us was trained beyond what the hunter installation guy told us in a 5-10 minute rundown.

Selling dealer (shop 2) tech is actually apparently the shop foreman. He rode in the car and said he felt the vibration now that I said something. I have the app in my phone to know when the car drives etc. The paperwork states both he and the manager drove the car, but I know that isn’t true. He knows he was chancing it with the high road force tires, but since he didn’t drive it he didn’t know how it rode.

And as someone posted, the Hyundai TSB even stated not to replace tires solely based on bad road force. It basically leads the tech to place the bad ones on the rear…to not replace the tires unless the customer keeps complaining.
 
Time to involve the District Service manager.

Plus, it makes sense on the RoafForce values. 30 is still a bit high. It's on the rear and you feel it in the seat. It's that one!
 
CapriRacer said:
Time to involve the District Service manager.

Plus, it makes sense on the RoafForce values. 30 is still a bit high. It's on the rear and you feel it in the seat. It's that one!
Click to expand...
Yeah I agree. He claimed he’d get tires on the way before even figuring out how to get it covered as the car has basically been in a shop more than we’ve had it ourselves. What he actually does, not really sure.
 
Shop Forman should be slapped for letting 30 ride. Only a moron would. You can tell him I said that. The 23 is questionable.

I would not be happy until they were all 12ish…
 
You’re not going to like this suggestion, but I’d let all the air out of the tire. Break the beads and re apply lube. Put it in a inflater cage. Air the tire up to 100 psi. Let the air back out. Refill tire and rebalance. Some times in extreme cases we had to do this to cure some road force issues that weren’t totally fixable by Match marking tire. Many times it did work, some times it did not. I worked at a tire shop for several years over 10 years ago. We used a hunter RF balancer at the time.
 
The Critic said:
The 39 is definitely a problem. The others are borderline acceptable.

My local America’s tire has Road force elite machines. All of them perform a measurement with every tire balance. They have the threshold set to 35 and none of the techs know how to perform an adjustment. If you pay for a RF balance and the measured road force values are under 35, you just get told that they were okay. 🙄
Click to expand...
Same with 2 shops near me. Pay for RF balance and no printout. No data. Nothing but "it's OK".

Last tire I bought I requested spin balance and left it at that. No point in paying for what you're not getting. It worked out OK.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

M
Feeling ripped off after paying for road force balance
3 4 5
Replies
91
Views
10K
BrainThicknessVariation
E
Chinese Dynamic Balancers and Tire Changers Any Good?
Replies
8
Views
3K
atikovi
Malo83
Les Schwab flub.
Replies
12
Views
905
FordFETruck
skyactiv
I bought grey market tires for my VW
2
Replies
26
Views
2K
edyvw
buster
Tires for a 22 ZR2
2
Replies
26
Views
1K
fantastic
Back
Top