Tire Balancing

[scootter]

Tom,

I have the same issue with my car around the same speeds. I also know of a few other Superformances as well with the same issue. I bought Michelin PS2 which are basically the top of the line$$$$$. Funny thing about my shimmy, is it is not a constant shimmy, but rather shakes for a couple seconds, kinda stops then start again for another couple seconds. I've been rotating the wheel one pin drive at a time, one side at a time to see if it gets better. I did get better. I still need to rotate them a few more times.
I had the same issue with the Goodyear F1 Super car tires as well. I had one shop balance them on the car old school style.
Good luck.

Scott

[wanab5150]

My F1 Supercar tires were awesome in the "no shimmy" category but aren't nearly as sticky as these Nitto's.. Yours are not made anymore and the only choices I have are Nitto's, Kuhmo's, or Mickey Thompson unless I want a DOT Drag Radial.

On a happy note, I took the car to Linville Tire, a speciality front shop in Sacramento and I found "that guy" I was looking for. He put both the fronts on the balancer and immediately stated, "these are both out of round", then showed me. As I mentioned I measured .083 OOR on the worst but the other three were right around .075. He said this is unacceptable from Nitto. Additionally, one of the fronts has 4.4oz. of weights on one side and 1 oz. on the counter balance side.....That same tire on his machine shows the tire was off by 4oz on one side and 2 oz on the other with the previous weights still on the tire. He could only guess that the tire would need just an oz. or so to be in balance if the old weights were stripped off and they were re-balanced.

The long and short is I talked to my dealer and he agreed to give me my money back and I am buying the new ones from Linville. He said they have sold hundreds if not more of these Nitto 555G2's and never seen them this out of round. He checked the rim for runout and said no question it's the tires.

I have an apt for Monday for four new ones with what they say is a guaranteed balance and true tires. I hope he's right. He does sound like the kind of guy we all look for that knows more than how to push a button. Also he didn't try to sell me new tires but told me to go back and have my old dealer swap them out....problem is I'M ABSOLUTLY SURE his balancer is tweaked and the operator had no idea what exactly the machine had 7 settings for. He always just used setting number 1. Even if I did just swap them I'd have to pay someone else to balance them.

Monday at noon I'll know either way.

[Gaz64]

I somehow knew this would come down to poor service from your previous balance job.

Radial and axial runout of the tyre and then the rim, is the first thing to look at while mounted on a balancer.

[wanab5150]

I got a new set of 4 Nitto's from another dealer. Visually on the balancer the runout is undetectable to me but the tire guy said the rim had the slightest bend in it when he spun the wheels alone. He thought it would make no difference in ride. The other tires were very out of round compared to these....I couldn't see any run out really, but he said the rim might change the road force in that spot and there's nothing they can do about without getting a new rim. He described it as ..."think of a wheel having 5 springs holding the tire away from the rim. Even though the tire may be round and have no run out, one of the springs (the out of round spot) has a different spring rate that is slightly softer because it's not sprung as tight as the others in that one spot."....A picture is worth a thousand words alright!

The ride is nearly perfect except right at 70 it gets the very slightest vibration that comes and goes. I can't feel the rears at all and i drove on all kinds of crappy pavement between Sacramento and Roseville.

He told me to bring it back and he would spin the tire on the rim and/or switch the front tires on the rims and see if there was an improvement. If there is no change, it's so minimal I can live with it..... The difference is night and day and I'm very happy to have found this place. I took the bad set back to my long time tire guy and he refunded my money on the spot.

This ordeal has been quite stressful and time consuming but I'm glad there was a solution and surprised that 3 of the 4 tires were seriously out of round....not even counting the rim. I assumed runout was common but this guy says not in this era of tire tech. He runs across OOR tires all the time but it's usually just one of the batch....interesting!

I go back Thursday morn to see if the very slight vibration can be eliminated....If not, I'm still good....Not this anymore..

[Gaz64]

Good to hear a happy result.

[eschaider]

Good detective work and follow through Tom!

Congratulations on the win.


Ed

[TexasSnake]

Great that you were able to work out most of your wheel and tire issues. If you ever want to correct your out of round rim problem without the expense of purchasing a new wheel I would give Cliff Jacobs Automotive a call. He is located in Cinncinnatti, Ohio and specializes in high end wheel repair. For more information do a search for Cliff Jacobs Automotive check out their Facebook page. You would have your car off the road due to shipping and repair time but from my experience they turn things around quickly. If the defect in your wheel can be corrected they guys can do it. Based on my experience the shipping and repair cost will be at a fraction of what you would pay for a new wheel.

[wanab5150]

Me and my OCD.

After driving about 50 more miles on different road conditions the ugly vibration raised it's ugly head worse than after the 8th wheel balance. As I mentioned the dealer blamed the remaining vibration on the out of round wheels which in my opinion was minor as you can see as you watch the wheels spin on the tire balancer.

Regardless I decided the vibration was too much and took the wheels to Wheel Pro in Sacramento for truing or straightening. $125 a wheel is the price. I had the tires removed and took them to Wheel pro and had them spin them up with a dial indicator so I could see how bad they were...Surprise...the worst wheel was a rear with .035 runout which will be brought to tolerance of less than .020 (pretty easy as per the wheel guy). The worst of the other 3 wheels was .017. As he said ..."I'd like to take your money but these 3 are well within spec and no way can the .017 be felt".

I called the dealer regarding the findings and he was, lets say, reluctant to believe me. I had him call Wheel Pro and a few minutes later he called me back and recommended trying a set of Micky Thompson Street Comps. he already has rears but the fronts are coming from ??????.

I am really tired of this back-and-forth to the tire shop thing. I sure hope it was just that the Nitto's didn't like my car. While waiting until next Monday for the tires to arrive I used the dial indicator on the hub backing plate and outside measurement of the studs. All were within .003 at the flange face and .005 at the stud. I measured them before with a "herkey jerkey" dial indicator so I bought a new nice new smooth one.

I'm thinking about going to the doctor and getting some Zanax for the next week until I get them dialed in!!!!!

[Ron61]

Tom,

Getting all of the vibration out can be a royal pain. I found a place in Red Bluff that did great on mine and they worked on it for about an hour and only charged me $40. Now I don't feel it on a good road but we don't have any of those around here so it is hard to tell if it will last. I had it done last year. Good luck with yours.

Ron

[wanab5150]

For all to have read my thread it is finally done.

The first set of Nitto's were out of round something terrible and he gave my money back as he didn't know what else to do to cure the shake. I went to another dealer and got a second set of Nitto's which were round but the dealer said my rims were bent. In reality, the one rim was straightened but probably was not necessary. it was only straightened .010 into tolerance. The other three were fine. (wheels never the problem)

With the confirmation from the rim repair guy at Rim Pro, the dealer was satisfied but had reservations about the Nitto's since the rims were really never the issue in the first place. He allowed me to get another brand (Micky Thompson Street Comps) thinking the Nitto's were just a tire that did not work on the 2400 lb. Cobra. Well after 5 balancings on the first set from the first dealer (which were actually out of round) then 9 balancings on the second set of Nitto's at the new dealer...then the bent rim repair, the Micky Thompsons were balanced and shook like a Mother....just like, but not better or worse than the Nitto's. I did not go back to him for any more balancing.

I got to a point that I was thinking I would have to live with this shake and vibration, but on the way home I stopped by Les Schwab to talk to someone and see if I could coax them into taking a ride and give me any suggestions.

Long story short, the Les schwab guy asked me questions about the balancer and what kind of cones they used or did they use something else. He described their method as ridiculous for wheels like mine and said if he couldn't make it better I didn't have to pay......He then Road Forced Balanced them.

There were double the weights necessary on three of the four wheels and the forth wheel was rotated 180 degrees and used half the weights than before. When I test drove it I was finally relieved. It rides and drives perfect with not a hint of vibration of any kind............Thank you Les Schwab........ below is what he wrote on the bill.


Notes To Review
With Customer:
ROAD FORCE MEASUREMENTS: LF 7, RF 18, LR 26, RR 8
FRONTS WERE BOTH OUT 1.25 OZ
BOTH REARS WERE OUT .75 OZ BUT HEAVILY COUNTER BALANCED WITH ABOUT 12 OZ OF
TOTAL WEIGHT ON EA WHEEL. LR WAS ROTATED 180 DEG AND NOW TOOK TOTAL 4 OZ
AND ZERO OUT, RR TOOK ABOUT 3.5 OZ AND ZERO OUT
*ALL WERE BALANCED WITH CONE ON INSIDE AND CUP ON OUTSIDE

[eschaider]

Which Les Schwab store did you go to Tom?

Ed

[Gaz64]

So the first two dealers must have had the same rubbish balancing machine like I mentioned in post 10?

Glad you found an expert.

[Shootnride]

Tom,

Can you share which dealer you went to and possibly the name of the tech that did the work.

Thanks

Ted

[MFE III]

Interesting, glad you resolved the problem.
I had never heard of Road Force Balancing. Googled it and saw this explanation.
http://www.tirereview.com/when-is-it-overkill/

[wanab5150]

For you two asking which shop I used it was, Les Schwab 5610 pacific St. Rocklin, Ca.......916-315-8615.

I met Brandon Rodriguez who volunteered to ride with me the also allowed me to drive the car into the shop and remove the wheels after he jacked it up for me. The Schwab near Costco wouldn't allow me to bring the car in the shop at all. I had to take the wheels off at home and truck them there for balancing.

He did the front tires first and had me test drive it to make sure there was an improvement so when doing the rears we could see where the problem was. With just the fronts done the ride and vibration was still all over the car but much less that before. It's interesting that the steering wheel still had a mild shake with the fronts done.

After doing the rears, all the shaking went away. I believe now that the frame is so stiff that if any corner is off on these light cars, it will cause the whole car to shake.....mine did.

I will say that I Road Forced at least 6 Goodyears on the Cobra with perfect results. I now know the first set of Nitto"s were out of round and therefore could be balanced but because of the out of round issue, the car vibrated. The second set of Nitto's were balanced by the dealer 9 times. Those tires were true and straight ( I saw them myself) but had I had them Road Force balanced instead of continuing to rely on the dealers 9700 balancer, they may have been fine...........In the end the balancer was the problem. It you read the insert from Schwab, you see that he used half the weights as the dealers machine also.

One thing he refers to on the balancer is........CONE ON THE INSIDE...CUP ON THE OUTSIDE........Remember that...It's how they mount the wheel on the balancer. He said cone on the inside and cone on the outside will give a false reading. Wish I knew that before.

[Gaz64]

So now my question is, "Did you get to see the wheels spinning with zeros on the machine, then remove them, then refit them to the balancer and they spin up at zero again?"

I argued this point to a balancer rep.

Gary

[wanab5150]

No. I didn't want to open my mouth after 15 unsuccessful balances. Evidently it worked as it is supposed to. Not like the POS my dealer had.

[Shootnride]

Originally Posted by wanab5150

For you two asking which shop I used it was, Les Schwab 5610 pacific St. Rocklin, Ca.......916-315-8615.
I met Brandon Rodriguez

Tom,

Thanks for the information. I will be speaking with Mr. Rodriquez.

Ted

[wanab5150]

I don't know if you Sacramento/Bay Area guys know about this but we've go 50 cobras going to Tahoe tomorrow and will stay through Monday. Here's the info.

Copy and paste in Google snakes17todo

[ront49]

Anyone have issues with the valve stems not being long enough to securely go thru the wheels? I have a BDR with 15" wheels...the tire shop guys pulled out the original stems to replace them with new ones when I had new tires installed. The wheel was approximately 9/16th inch thick where the valve stem went thru which was too deep for any of the shops stems. We couldn't find any stems that had more threads or a deeper rubber valve that would securely seat in the wheel. They pulled a standard rubber stem thru without lubricant and said it'll work...any ideas on this?