wheel balance with HunterGSP9700/Silverstar

[97tbird]

First, a tip:
If any of you are having problems getting your wheel balanced correctly, look for a place with the following machine:
Hunter GSP 9700 wheel balancer.
This one uses a road-force method, which can identify a lot more than a normal balancer could.(uses a moving roll of trmac-like thing against the moving tire at high speed; I had troubles with my tires/wheels, and this machine did the job)
read more about this at: www.gsp9700.com
you can also search for a place that carries the machine on that web-site.
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Now, a question:
has any of you upgraded the oem headlamp bulbs using these:? Sylvania SiverStar
Any comments on those? my lowbeam on one sid eis out, and I'm considering thses.

Thanks for any feedback.

 

[DEWFPO]

I tried the Sylvania Silverstar last year in one of our vehicles low beams at first and my wife and I liked it so much we changed both high and low beams on both our cars since. Prices have come down since I have done this. Wal-Mart sells them now at a very good price.

The wattage is the same, however the light is more 'white' (with a slight blue tint). Not HID or Xenon intensity by any means but as much an improvement as was halogen over the previous yellow bulbs.

DEWFPO

PS I concur 100% on the GSP9700. It's the only way to go on balancing.

 

[Mike_dup1]

The only shop around here that has one of those balancers is charging $25 per wheel to balance tires.


SilverStars are good lights, I just added them to two of my vehicles and I would never go back to the others. Granted there are brighter ones out there but about 99% of them are not legal for use on the highways, Silver stars are in every state.

I cannot find any high beans one though. Walmart does not have them and according to the manager there, he cannot get them. I went to every parts store around here and not one had anything other than el cheapo light bulbs.

 

[cangreylegend]

OK for you guys out in the west end of Toronto, I hear Costco uses this machine somewhere in Missisauga. Anyone confirm this? This would actually "make" me buy tires at that particular branch.

 

[97tbird]

Mike:

Thanks for the response (and all others);
What kind of car do you have? did you try to search for the part number on the sylvania web-site? perhaps you can get the part no., and have a shop order it.
www.sylvania.com
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cangreylegend,
go to www.gsp9700.com and you can search for a shop in your area.

 

[eldawg4100]

I like the silverstars a lot. I cant find any yellow light when they are on!

Some 80/100 watt aftermarket bulbs are cheap, and have a thick blue coating which makes them colored. They need all that wattage to overcome the coating. they always blow out also! All those rice rocket bulbs never work more than a year.

 

[CapriRacer]

Just for clarification:

The Hunter GSP9700 measures the loaded runout of the tire / wheel assembly using a small diameter wheel (7" or 14" depending on the model) at slow speeds. It does a pretty decent job of defining how much the tire contributes to the vibration vs the wheel and can be used to get a better match of the high point of the tire to the low point of the wheel - IF THE OPERATOR DOES IT CORRECTLY! Most operators do a passable job, but I haven't seen an operator do it 100% yet, but then I'm not really into this on a regular basis.

The machine has some other limitations as well, but this forum is not the place for a complete discussion.

 

[Robbie Alexander]

quote:

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Originally posted by CapriRacer:
-*-*-*-*
The machine has some other limitations as well, but this forum is not the place for a complete discussion.

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Well man post on in the section that it should be in. I for one want to know more about the alignment issue.
I just had my tires aligned on a Hunter this saturday, and so far, it seems to be real good. I will not know for several weeks. I have had nothing but problems with alignments since the last several years... After going to this shop in Houston, My truck with improperly worn tires, runs straight (mostly) and feels great...

 

[SHOZ]

I had a troublesome set of tires that no one could balance. Finally took them to a shop with one of the Hunter machines. They were no better at getting them balanced.

I finally balanced them in the drive way one at a time with one front tire on the ground and the other spinning. By using stick on weights and moving them around 90 degrees, then narrowing the exact place down you can balance about any tire.

 

[CapriRacer]

I'd be happy to post more, but where?

BTW, we are talking about Hunter's balance machine. I don't have the expertise on their alignment equipment.

 

[Ken4]

I am not too overly concerned with the best machine for wheel balancing. When I made a chalk mark on my tires at the tire valve stem. After a few days, I noticed the chalk mark was no longer aligned with the tire valve stem. Point is, even if you balance your wheels perfectly, i.e. 0 grams L - 0 grams R, the tire will slip on the wheel and you would very quickly have lost your perfect balance.

 

[Robbie Alexander]

quote:

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Originally posted by CapriRacer:
I'd be happy to post more, but where?

BTW, we are talking about Hunter's balance machine. I don't have the expertise on their alignment equipment.

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Well maybe in General-off-topic or
maybe here in this section...

As far as the Hunter, Well all the places I have gone have had it... It's not the machine that gets the car aligned, it's the tech.
It's not the Wrench that fixes the car it's the monkey behind it....
The thing with the Hunter over other systems... is if you know what the heck youre doing, then in almost every case, you will get it right the first time and very rarely have to redo the alignment over and over.... but wheres the tech?

 

[LubeOiler]

I used to do wheel balanceing with a bubble balancer. How much better is the Hunter and if the bubble type works why pay so much more if its a short term thing anyway. I bought a set of new tires and the (rip off)dealer told me your rims must be bent. I went to the place I purchased the rims and they had the Hunter balancer and said the rims are true and not bent or out of balance. I went back to the tire dealer and he used a lot of 4 letter words on the phone over the balance problem. They gave me a new set of tires and every thing was OK. So even brand new tires were so bad they wouldn't balance.

 

[9c1]

A bubble balancer will balance a square wheel. That doesn't mean that wheel will operate vibration free. The Hunter GSP9700 will find the out of round condition, as was said, in the hands of a skilled operator.
Hunter has a new machine that not only measures road force, but also measures the track angle the tire wants to take. The sideways push as it is rolling. Another good thing, but another complicating factor for the operator.
The time I sought one out in my area (three years ago) the charge was $7 each to balance already mounted wheel/tire assemblies. I brought the assemblies to them, no mounting or lug nuts for them to mess with.
Terry

 

[tdpark]

The Hunter GSP tire balancer is great. I know alot of people on the Odyclub forum who have had trouble with wheel balancing on the 2nd generation Odysseys and when they had the road force balancing, the problems went away or the machine confirmed that it was not the problem. I have an odyssey and I only go to tire places that use it.

I had my minivan aligned on the Hunter alignment maching and there was noticeable improvement in the handling and how the car tracked.

In terms of the silverstars, the only problem I have had is that they tend to burnout quicker than regular bulbs. I had them on my last car and I had to replace them about once a year. Same with the PIAA hyperwhites.