Road Force # Limit

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I put new Pirelli Scorpion Verde A/S Plus tires on my '13 VW Touareg with stock wheels and size 265/50R19. I've been to Discount Tire 4 times to get it to balance, each visit wasted an hour. I get vibrations from the seat and steering wheel at 60+mph. I've done the TSB for how to mount the wheels properly several times. On the fourth visit to DT, I set up an appointment for a Road Force balance but they decided to try another combination of weights instead. Did not work. Not satisfied, I took it to a mechanic who checked the drivetrain and Road Force Balanced the SUV with better results but still present.

Numbers:
LF 21#
RF 24#
LR 30#
RR 31#

These values are after the tech match mounted and Road Force Balanced.

I went back to Discount Tire and they agreed to replace the two tires that are above 30#. Should I try to get them to replace all four?

Thanks
 
In my opinion all look high.
Different vehicles are sensitive differently but I think my Volvo S40 did not like anything above 20lb.

Krzys
 
All are within the limits of SUV application tires but you or the vehicle may be more sensitive. If all 4 have the same date code you may want to select a different tire.

If your wheels are true(<0.010"], there's not much correction that happen. Did he report runout measurements of the wheels?
 
I think Hunter considers 26# to be the limit, but you should really be seeing values in the mid-teens.

For example, I had all 4 tires road-force balanced on my parents' Altima. They were Michelin Premier A/S. The road force values were between 14-17.
 
I had a similar experience with Bridgestone HL Alenza + on an Odyssey. Five return trips to DT over 10k miles and they still couldn't get them right. They agreed to replace them with full cost credit toward a new set and waived the mount/balance cost for the new tires. I'm now on Yokohama Avid Ascend. They have their problems but at least they got the balance right after one return visit.

Overall, I'm not confident that the techs at DT do a very good job with the balance. At my last residence (where I bought the tires mentioned above) the closest DT rarely balanced tires very well. The next closest did okay but sometimes failed. A local indie always got them spot on with the Hunter.
 
I went through this exercise with my Suburban. 4 new tires, rode like poop, turns out 3 were bad. I had to go through a total of 12 tires before I got an acceptable reading. This was via Tirerack and they were very good about supporting me, and paid for the extra labor. They even called Hunter and had them come out and check the calibration on the road force machine (it was fine). The tire company rep called me and asked for numbers off of the tire , and issued a quiet recall and pulled off a few hundred tires from the market. I was never told what the specific problem was, but obviously some manufacturing line defect. I seem to recall that Passenger tires had a limit in the 20's, and LT tires were 80. Above that they were considered unacceptable.

I have to say I was very pleased with Tirerack, because in hindsight I have run into this problem before, and the tire shop would not do any more other than rebalance the tire using a regular machine, even in the case of a major out of round problem. Another time, I had a major argument with a tire shop long ago where new tires were going flat. I kept taking them back, they kept "fixing" the problem. Normal driving was fine, but sometimes when the car was parked a random tire would go flat. The last straw was when my wife was driving the car and the tire went flat while parked at work. She did not notice until she started driving that the tire was flat. She had somebody help her to put the spare on, but the flat tire had damaged sidewalls. They were really fighting me on replacing the tire, and insisted somebody was letting the air out of my tires. I pointed out the 3+ returns I had about the tires going flat, and insisted that they replace the tire on their dime, and fix the flat problems. They kept it for 2 days and monitored it, and called me back and said "we figured it out, replaced your tire and rebalanced all the other tires". The manager gave it to his most experienced tech and told him to either prove I was wrong, or figure out the issue. He finally realized that the initial guy who installed the tires used the wrong wheel weights, and every subsequent tech that looked at it just used the same style weight. The prongs were too long, and cause slow leaks at the tire bead when the tire was at rest with the weight on the bottom.

Another time- tire had lots of high speed vibration. I kept bring it back to be rebalanced. They would do the work, but it would never be right. I finally insisted on watching them balance the tire- it needed about 3 oz of weight in one spot. I insisted that they take the tire off the machine, put it back on and spin it again. It was still out of balance. The results kept changing and he wanted to just do a balance once and send it out, and I refused, so I went and complained to the manager to get somebody else that was experienced to review it. The next guy checked the changing balance results, then proceeded to bounce the tire off of the floor. He heard something and said "something is inside the tire". He must have had really good hearing, better than me. He dismounted the tire from the rim and found a 3 oz truck weight inside the tire. Whoever mounted the tire initially either did not check the tire and resulting balance, or purposely tried to mess with me.
 
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Wow, I'm sorry you guys had to experience these hassles yet, at the same time, I'm glad to know I'm not the only one who has these kinds of problems. My last 2 sets of tires were not satisfactory. Odd vibration problems and slow leaks. -Very maddening. I bought one set at TireRack, the other Discount TIre and the local installer wanted no part of fixing and diagnosing the problem.

In this day and age, I would think tire manufacturing problems would be solved by now -but I guess not.

Ray
 
Originally Posted by BryanTDI12
I put new Pirelli Scorpion Verde A/S Plus tires on my '13 VW Touareg with stock wheels and size 265/50R19. I've been to Discount Tire 4 times to get it to balance, each visit wasted an hour. I get vibrations from the seat and steering wheel at 60+mph. I've done the TSB for how to mount the wheels properly several times. On the fourth visit to DT, I set up an appointment for a Road Force balance but they decided to try another combination of weights instead. Did not work. Not satisfied, I took it to a mechanic who checked the drivetrain and Road Force Balanced the SUV with better results but still present.

Numbers:
LF 21#
RF 24#
LR 30#
RR 31#

These values are after the tech match mounted and Road Force Balanced.

I went back to Discount Tire and they agreed to replace the two tires that are above 30#. Should I try to get them to replace all four?

Thanks


Yup, replace the rears. That should make the seat vibration disappear.

The steering wheel? Those numbers look OK, but let's see what happens. If the steering wheel vibration doesn't disappear, then ask to do the fronts as well.

Please note: There are 2 things you are going to be fighting.

1) That you take a greater risk of getting high value tires the more tires you change - SOoooooo - do 2 at a time and make sure you know what the numbers are! That way you can place the 2 best where the vibration seems the worse to see if it disappears.

2) Human beings have a weird memory thing where they will feel vibrations that aren't even there. Sort of like amputees who still feel their missing limbs. Be very much aware of this and be sure you're actually feeling a vibration, and not a bump in the road of the same frequency.
 
Originally Posted by BryanTDI12
I took it to a mechanic who checked the drivetrain and Road Force Balanced the SUV with better results but still present.

Numbers:
LF 21#
RF 24#
LR 30#
RR 31#

These values are after the tech match mounted and Road Force Balanced.

I went back to Discount Tire and they agreed to replace the two tires that are above 30#. Should I try to get them to replace all four?

Thanks



RF numbers can be artificially high because of tire flat spotting. Which is why it is recommended that the vehicle be driven for 10 miles, then immediately put up on the service rack before checking road force.
 
Originally Posted by RayCJ
Wow, I'm sorry you guys had to experience these hassles yet, at the same time, I'm glad to know I'm not the only one who has these kinds of problems. My last 2 sets of tires were not satisfactory. Odd vibration problems and slow leaks. -Very maddening. I bought one set at TireRack, the other Discount TIre and the local installer wanted no part of fixing and diagnosing the problem.

In this day and age, I would think tire manufacturing problems would be solved by now -but I guess not.

Ray


Was your local installer on the TIrerack approved list ? They really stepped up and helped me, but I had a long and happy relationship with my local shop as well.
 
Originally Posted by rubberchicken


Was your local installer on the TIrerack approved list ? They really stepped up and helped me, but I had a long and happy relationship with my local shop as well.


Yes, they were on the list but, it was a small business and they looked like they were struggling to stay afloat. I brought it back twice and each time it was taking longer for them to service.

Ray
 
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