Best place for wheel balance?

[Spooled]

I have vibrations from my wheels at 75+mph. I know I need to get a balance, but I want to make sure that I go somewhere that will be very accurate and take care of high-speed balance issues. Is a place like Belle Tire alright, so do I need to take it somewhere special. What should I be looking for (ie - type of machine, etc.). Should I ask for a specific high-speed balance?

Thanks in advance.

 

[crispixoo7]

good question.....sry i have no answer (uhm)

i remember when i got my rims....they balanced them....drove really nice.

Went down this dark street (no street lamps) and i hit a BIG ASS rock! took my right set outta balance, went back, but they've never been the same.

oh well, everything happens for a reason.....or does it??

 

[o.g.sk8er]

Spooled, try Americas Tire...I just got a set of Rota Subzero's and they shook like mad when I first had them balanced...I went over to Americas tire, and $20.00 later my car is so smooth on the freeway...


I cant remember the full name of the machine, but it's a Hunter Tire force 2000 SUX or something like that..

Hope you can get a fast cure like I was able to...It sucks shaking at speed...

 

[Spooled]

Thanks for the tip, o.g.sk8er. I'll have to see if there is an America's Tire around here.

 

[Spooled]

It looks like America's Tire is a CA-only shop. I'm going to just go ahead and try Belle Tire since they are close by and cheap. I should probably have the runout checked while I'm there, too.

 

[o.g.sk8er]

hmmm...well, look for a tire shop in your area with the Hunter Road force balancing machine...I'm sure someone in your area has one of these...Just start calling tire shops and ask what kind of balancing machine they have...thats what I did until I found the Hunter machine close to me...

Hope this helps...

 

[girth]

Well here's where I take mine because all the local tire shops around me suck ass. You don't have one of these in your area but you 'could' ship your wheels to this guy if you're desperate enough.
http://performanceunlimited.com/customservices/cartirebalancing.html

Otherwise like mentioned above you could ask for a "road force balance" in addition to the regular dynamic spin balance. A road force balance won't do you any good though unless you have a poor quality tire that is either out of round or has a weak spot in the sidewall, so I wouldn't worry about that too much. Most shops can do a "weave test" too to test for lateral "out-of-roundess" for your tire but that also is something that is hard to compensate for. The truth is any regular tire shop can balance a tire very well as long as their machine is calibrated accurately and they TAKE THE TIME needed to do a good job. If all else fails, offer the guy doing the job some extra cash if he takes his time to get it right.

 

[BlkZoomZoom]

Road force balancing is expensive, mainly because it is soo time consuming. We just got a Road force balancer at work, the idea is cool but actually doing it to its full potential is a pain in the butt. You usually have to break the bead down and swap tires onto a different rim at least once. Then you have to break it down again to spin it on the rim. I just put a set of tires on my MSP and I didn't do it, it's not worth my time unless you can't get it to balance out, or it is asking to put too much weight on.

 

[SciFiMan]

Yes, call around and make sure they have a high-speed balancer, then ask for that when you get there. Many shops only balance up to about 65mph.

 

[Spooled]

Thanks for all the great info, guys.

 

[BlkZoomZoom]

Yes, call around and make sure they have a high-speed balancer, then ask for that when you get there. Many shops only balance up to about 65mph.

No balancer even comes close to 65mph. I believe its like 10, if that.

 

[girth]

Well, there probably are balancers that go high speed but yeah it's really not necessary. The guy where I take mine (in that link I gave) modified his balancer to work with the motor turned off -- thinking that if he spins it by hand it eliminates any harmonics introduced by the motor itself.

 

[SilverBulletES]

Bridgestone/Firsestone dealers do lifetime rotate/balance for 50 bucks. Actually it's free if you buy tires from them, but I'm trying to 20K out of my new set = 4 rotations so quite a good deal. I went ahead and got it once I got the lifetime alignments for 125. I'm -definitely- going to get my money out of those two. More like abuse the hell out of the system.

The manager was really cool and said he'd also match any price on TireRack for tires if I gave him heads up to order them.

 

[Crazee D]

Bump from the Dead....(idhitit)

hmmm...well, look for a tire shop in your area with the Hunter Road force balancing machine......

http://www.gsp9700.com/pub/search/findgsp9700.cfm

Yes, call around and make sure they have a high-speed balancer, then ask for that when you get there. Many shops only balance up to about 65mph.

Any other known brands to search for?

Bridgestone/Firsestone dealers do lifetime rotate/balance for 50 bucks. Actually it's free if you buy tires from them, but I'm trying to 20K out of my new set = 4 rotations so quite a good deal. I went ahead and got it once I got the lifetime alignments for 125. I'm -definitely- going to get my money out of those two. More like abuse the hell out of the system.

The manager was really cool and said he'd also match any price on TireRack for tires if I gave him heads up to order them.

Good to know!

(band)