What is road force balance worth to you?

[wapacz]

Well instead of making a new thread. I figured I would ask one more question in here.

What do you guys think of going to a dealer to get tires. I ask because I found out one of the local GM dealerships has a road force machine with all the latest stuff(straightrak road force touch). Their Prices include balancing and installation. Which actually makes them 14 dollars cheaper a tire than belle tire and 5 dollars a tire cheaper than discount tire.

 

[Carbon]

What is the dealer going to charge to re-balance or rotate those tires? DT will do that free, I think.

 

[wapacz]

Originally Posted By: Carbon
What is the dealer going to charge to re-balance or rotate those tires? DT will do that free, I think.


Another local gm dealership does free rotations with an oil change. Seeing as I go about 10 k per oil change it usually lines up pretty good. As for rebalanced I have never needed to get a set of tires rebalanced.

 

[Carbon]

Originally Posted By: wapacz
As for rebalanced I have never needed to get a set of tires rebalanced.

Have you ever gotten a tire repaired?

 

[john_pifer]

Bought a set of Michelin LTX-MS2 at Sears for my '07 Tacoma a few years ago. They couldn't get them balanced to save their lives.

Sent me to a shop that had RoadForce Balancing, and that took care of it - for a while. Then the steering wheel shaking came back.

I've learned to live with the steering wheel shaking at certain highway speeds. I don't have the time to harangue at Sears about it.

 

[SubLGT]

Originally Posted By: CapriRacer
Just so we are clear:

Road Force balancing isn't balancing at all.

It's measuring the uniformity of the tire and wheel assembly.

Uniformity? Think "Out of Round" and you'll be very close.

What it does is measure the amount of "Out of Round" and if it is excessive, the machine can measure the wheel and determine if matching the high point of the tire with the low point of the wheel will result in an assembly that is "Rounder".

THEN it does balancing as we think of it.


And if your wheels are high quality and have only a tiny amount of lateral runout, then Road Force match mounting may not be effective, because there is no significant low point on the wheel to counteract the high point on the tire. In which case the only option is to replace the tire and hope you get one with better concentricity and uniformity, or buy some cheap, out-of-round wheels that can be matched up with your out-of-round tires.

 

[CapriRacer]

Originally Posted By: SubLGT
And if your wheels are high quality and have only a tiny amount of lateralRadial runout, then Road Force match mounting may not be effective, because there is no significant low point on the wheel to counteract the high point on the tire. In which case the only option is to replace the tire and hope you get one with better concentricity and uniformity, or buy some cheap, out-of-round wheels that can be matched up with your out-of-round tires.


I fixed that for you.

 

[SubLGT]

Thanks for that correction!

 

[SubLGT]

Wish I had a local tire shop that was as thorough as what this Miata owner experienced when getting a road force mounting and balancing:

"………...Put a set of new Hankooks on my 94R for winter use and took them to a very old school tire shop (you know, the ones with garage pinups on the wall and the technicians all still smoke). They advertised Hunter Roadforce and thus my reason for choosing them.

First thing they did was remove the old tires and then mounted the bare wheels on the machine to check for high/low spots in the wheel (the valve stem hole is "supposed" to be drilled at the low spot but it doesn't always happen. The Chaparrals wheels were surprisingly very much "round" and balanced with some minor differences. The tech marked on the back the high and low spots and the degree of difference.

He then mounted all four tires and put them on the machine and found the one most out of round. He then dismounted it, mated it to the wheel with the most difference. Then he used the giant calipers on the machine to again measure rotational differences which were noted in the printout.

Then, before any balancing, asked me to go drive the car for twenty miles to fully seat the tires and allow for any cord expansion/contraction to take place. Then he put each wheel on the machine to balance it. He turned the sensitivity way up because they were going on a Miata. Mounted them all on the car and then asked me to come back after 200-300 miles of driving so that they could double check everything and make any necessary adjustments.

Bottom line - smoothest ride at all speeds I've ever experienced (and remember, this is an R package car)

Went back after 260 miles of driving and they once again put all four tires on the machine and measured the roundness, made a couple of very minor adjustments on two of them (which involves breaking the bead and slightly rotating the tire to get it perfect) and rebalanced all four of them (only the two that were adjusted needed minor weight changes).

They apologized for having to charge $125 (this included mounting the new tires and new valve stems) but they had four hours into the service (and they did, was there for every minute of it).

He said that the vast majority of shops skip the 20 mile "seating" drive and thus often get unsatisfactory results. They won't even mount and balance loose tires because they want the car there to do the seating drive. I don't know how much of a difference it made as the tires weren't actually balanced during that drive so there was some shimmy.

On top of all this, it's a lifetime balance and they said feel free to come back every six months to check if I wanted. ……………."

http://forum.miata.net/vb/showthread.php?t=486109

 

[CapriRacer]

Originally Posted By: SubLGT
.....They apologized for having to charge $125 (this included mounting the new tires and new valve stems)....


So for this guy, RoadForce balancing was worth $125!!

 

[KenO]

Originally Posted By: stephen9666
Road Force balancing won't be necessary in most cases. From reading about it, RF can help find problems, but won't be needed most of the time.

I suspect most shops that have them don't use the full capability unless they're trying to track down a problem, as it takes extra time.

And I know a little about what I'm talking about. I worked in a tire shop in college and I've installed and balanced hundreds of tires. We didn't havea RF balancer, and normal dynamic balancing was fine in the vast majority of cases.



Exactly this. Most tire techs won't evne know how to properly use the roadforce data, let alone be willing to take the time to take the tire, break the beads (after marking wheel & tire according to what the RF machine says) rotate the tire on the rim, re-seat the bead,a nd put it back on the balancer for try #2.

 

[SubLGT]

I came across these interesting posts at a Corvette forum sating that road force balancing has fallen out of favor at Discount Tire.

"………..I was just at Discount Tire, and know that pretty much all of their stores (including this one) were equipped with a Hunter 9700 road force balancer. I asked if they would use it, and the guy said they got rid of it, as did most of their branches, because they just aren't very useful. He was helpful, and found me a branch that still had one, but his view was that road-force balancing doesn't really achieve very much, and he wouldn't personally bother even though he's had his car up to [speed in excess of lawful maximum]

He said that modern rims (provided they're OEM) don't allow for much change, reducing the need for and usefulness of road-force balancing, and that by the time you get up to speeds where it could matter, it still doesn't matter, because the forces involved are so far removed from what the machine actually operates with, and dwarf its influence over anything, that again, road force balancing is just not useful……………"

"………...I have friends that work at Discount Tire and these guys are into racing. Over a year ago when they got rid of the Hunter equipment I was surprised. When I asked about it almost all the guys (and not just the manager) were pretty much united in their low opinion of the Hunter. They felt the Hunter was a great diagnostic tool but not exceedingly helpful for what they routinely do.

Even with the variety of mounting problems they face daily they seem to be resolving them just fine without the Hunter. I'm always impressed with Discount Tire...they go the extra mile for a customer. IMO if they felt the Hunter was a genuine benefit for the customer they would have kept it. I'm sure the Hunter road-force balancer is beneficial for certain situations but even without it I've never had a problem with Discount Tire balancing my tires………………."

…………...Discount tire told me on the phone that had a Hunter so I went to their shop. When I picked up my wheels, I saw junk all over the machine. Turns out that have one but don't use it…….."

http://forums.corvetteforum.com/c6-corve...ger-useful.html