CJITTY

looking for any feedback if you believe that their high speed on car balance is better than the standard off car balance? Thanks

Rob Daddy

I had them do a high speed balance a while ago on my Escalade a few years back but they did it off the car due to the size of the wheels. i dealt with the one in Austell. I also had them do an alignment & everything rode perfectly afterwards.
I prefer the off the car balance that way you can look the wheel over thoroughly to see if there are any bends in the wheel or damage to the tire.

CJITTY

interesting, I thought the whole purpose for doing on the car high speed was to account for the rotors, hubs, wheels and tires as they would rotate on the road and spin them up to 120mph for the most acurate balance possible? My tires and wheels spin perfect on the hunter road force balancer, but that only gets me to about 70mph..after that, I get that slight shimmy..wheels are exact hub bore size as oem so no hub rings needed. My rotors are slightly warped so i'm wondering if that is causing some of this, but my oem wheels didn't seem to shimmy. I know having bigger wheels and thinner sidewall tire will give me more "road feedback", but I get that slight floorboard and seatback vibration, and not always consistent either. So does Butler have an of car machine that spins past 60mph also?

Rob Daddy

I don't know what speed the Hunter road force machine spins at but I would have them do a Road Force balance first off the car. Or just put the OE wheels on & if the vibration is gone you know its in the wheels. Atlanta roads can be rough so don't rule out a possible bend or a slung weight.

CJITTY

thanks, like I said, I had road force done and that was an improvement, but still a slight vibration exists. there are no bends in the wheel or issues with the tires, because that was checked also..both are new and I have not hit any potholes..yet. I have read that when going with larger wheels, esp 20" or greater that perfect balance can become an issue with some cars and wheel styles. Oem wheels are ok. I was also reading that many balance machines are out of calibration and balance can be off by more than 1/2 oz

mitsuguy

iTrader: (2)

On the car balancing = waste of time and money...

Just because the machine says the tires are fine doesn't mean that they are...

I'll give you a few years of experience here to help ya out...

Vibrations can come from all sorts of things, including rotors... Sadly, they don't come from rotors that are out of balance - the weight is too close to the center and doesn't affect shake unless it is very very far out of balance... Same with hubs... the farther the weight is away from the center, the more it affects the balance, thats why wheels and tires are balanced off the car - because the stuff that stays on the car just doesn't matter...

Calibration on a machine is not something that can just randomly be off. The reason a balancing machine is calibrated is because it makes it more accurate in where it tells the technician to put the weight. I have proven this theory many times when co-workers argued against me.

There is also no such thing as a high speed balance. All balancers spin at relatively the same speed. If a tire/wheel assembly is balanced at 30 mph, it is also balanced at 60 mph. Just because it spins faster doesn't make it any less balanced, however, it may make an imbalance more noticeable.

Some vehicles are very sensitive to over sized wheels and tires. That being said, however, I would bet your problem is tire related. Just because they are new doesn't mean they are good. Also, I've seen problems getting very low profile tires mounted completely and properly on the wheels. One other potential issue I have seen is that when a tire is mounted, a soapy, water based lubricant is used to mount the tire. Extra is used on low profile tires to make them easier to install and less likely to be damaged. This can lead to the tire slipping around the wheel. Not common, but I've seen it.

The road force machine mentioned above (Hunter GSP9700 and its variants, 9710, etc) are very good at finding these tire issues, though it is only as good as the tech using it. Sometimes its a matter of switching a tire from wheel to wheel, sometimes its a matter of turning the tire on the wheel its on. Neither are very fun to do with low profile tires, so many techs are reluctant to do it, but, thats how you get results. It is also very important that the wheels/tires are being mounted to the machine properly. The proper way when having this sort of problem is with the appropriate sized cone on the spindle behind the wheel and tire, and a 5 finger simulator on the front. The simulator has 5 cone shaped fingers that simulate the force of 5 lug nuts pushing on the wheel lug holes.

One last thing - get the brakes fixed. In some instances, I have seen warped rotors cause a vibration even though the brakes have not been applied.

CJITTY

thats some great feedback..thanks! i am getting my rotors handled tomorrow by my mechanic and see if that fixes my brake pulsation as well as non braking vibration..the slight vibration comes and goes, its really strange. The road force did not detect an out of round tire or a defect, but like you said, it may not catch it. The wheels spin up true also. I did see them use the five finger simulator thing also. So, the high speed thing is sham? There is no benefit to balancing on the car with all the other spinning components like hubs and rotors factored in? Some people on the net have sworn by it to fix their issues, even folks with slightly bent wheels? But then again, we all know if it is on the internet, its gotta be true lol. Again, thanks for the reply..great info!

mitsuguy

iTrader: (2)

Most likely if it fixed their issue, it was because the real problem didn't get caught when they were balanced the first time...

There is one on-vehicle thing that works great, even for heavily out of round tires and that is on-vehicle shaving of the tires... This removes tread however, and I can't recommend it for 99.999% of issues, but every once in a while it is a viable option...

The other potential issue, is that if you were to have this special balancing done, you could never rotate your tires...

LexFather

Ask for Geordie at the Butler in Alpharetta and tell him Mike from SELOC sent you.

I've gone to Butler quite a few times, pricey but they do a great job.

CJITTY

Did you do the high speed thing?

CJITTY

wow, tire shaving?? yeah, thats pretty extreme. I initially got the tires and wheels mounted by Discount Tire..didn't like balance, took it back. they said they were not balanced right. Then, after a couple weeks, still felt like they could be better, so I was headed on a road trip to Florida and stopped by a Discount Tire in Stockbridge on my way out..they said "Tires were out of balance significantly"..had them rebalance them..got about 2 miles down the road, here we go again..so, found my sweet spot at about damn near 90mph and got to Jax Florida. Next day, took it to Discount tire there, gave them my story and they threw them on the road force balancer..took their time and had their best guy on it..could not find any issues with tires or wheels at all. Suggested if i was having warped rotor issues, that the possibility may exist that could be causing an issue, if not then..suspension issues. But, didn't have this issue with stock wheels. So, still having intermittent vibration which i think should not be there on this car. Got appt to get rotors and suspension looked at tomorrow and see if anything else may be going on..hopefully getting rotors turned may make a difference. By the way, these wheels are hub specfic at 60.1mm, like OEM and the wheels are designed to be used with stock lugs. no play on hub all..we'll see tomorrow..thanks again for the replies guys

CJITTY

just a quick update. Had my front rotors fixed this morning. my left front was in real bad shape as far as warping goes (same corner that had the caliper failure a few months ago) so, got those fixed and hit the highway..i had noticeable improvement with normal hwy speed driving (way less vibrations) and when I brake, the vibration is totally gone now as expected with fresh cut rotors. Since I still felt some vibrations, I took the plunge and let Butler Tire high speed balance them on the car...took them a little over an hour, but I can report that my car feels like it rides on glass now! Very happy!! So, either the three discount tire stores in two states (one did used road force) didn't know what they were doing or the high speed balance is the truth.. My car feels expensive again on the road!!

mitsuguy

iTrader: (2)

alright, just so you know, you can NEVER have the tires rotated or balanced by anyone other than them, on their "high speed balancer"...

if you do have the tires rotated and/or balanced, and it doesn't vibrate, then, your money was wasted there...

CJITTY

I understand that I just can't rotate them without the balance being impacted. I might of had three different guys at discount that just didn't get it right, who knows. This is not my daily driver, so rotations will be far and few between..i have 3 road trips coming up, total round trip for all will be about 2K miles or so, so that was driving most of my decision to get the best balance i could. Next rotation will be a long time from now (another 6K or so), i just hope the balance stays true until that time comes around. I had balances last me a long time before on other cars. Based on my research from reading blogs and forums, its about a 60/40 split on people who believe in it high speed on car balance vs those who don't. All i know, my car is ridin' like it is supposed to now, so I'm good.

carbongs

iTrader: (13)

Butler has always taken care of me and several other ATL members here.

I've had 0 issues with those guys. Geordie is the man!