1996 Coupe
Ok, I'm a tight wad. I bought some cheapie Sumitomos. They look decent and ride ok until................about 64 mph. I've had them road force balanced but still have this little shake above 64 or so. These are summer tires and do ride a little rough when cold but that seems to go away after a while. My question is, can you really truely balance a summer tire when it's not quite summer yet? It's hard to tell if it's the rear or front. Kind of a all over car shake.

 

I had 2 sets of Sumitomos. No problems with balance. I just could not get them to last long enough.

 

I have a set and have had no problems with them. For the price of the tire i'm very impressed.

 

My rear 315's lasted 12k and that's with regular trips to the drags and auto-xing, the fronts are only half worn. Good tire for the money. No probs with balance all the way to 150+.

 

Thanks guys. Guess I've got some narrowing down to do then. Might be those aftermarket wheels I'm running. Didn't notice it with the saw blades and two year old Firestone Firehawks on there. The car needs an alignment. I was waiting until I lowered it and then do that but having second thoughts on lowering it now. Also, when tires are balanced aren't there usually weights on the inside and outside of the wheel? There sure seems to be an aweful lot of weight on the outside of each wheel to me. Maybe I'll try another tire store before doing anything else.

 

My are weighted inside in the middle.

 

They've been on BEAST2 since Oct, 2003. Driven a total now of about 12K miles in all kinds of weather...no problems. Especially pleased with the handling on our wet roads here in the Pacific NW. For price performance I think they are great...I don't race and our weather is rarely really "winter like" as the rest of the U.S. knows it. Our low temps are ~20 and maybe a couple inches of snow one or 2 times each winter...but it warms and melts away within a day or so. Many feel the Sumi's are summer tires and not for winter use. I'll buy them next time I need tires.

 

I've had mine for three years now with no problems. I'm in Michigan where it gets pretty cold, and even after it sits for the winter no balance problems.

 

I've had two sets of Sumitomos on my car, and for the price they can't be beat! I wanted a bit more traction so I switched to a Nitto 555 drag radial, but what I gained in traction I lost in mileage. Anyway, I never had an issue with vibration on them.

 

I had my tires (not Sumtomos, mine are Falken) road force balanced as they had a bit of shake above 60mph, the guy doing the balance came out and told me he was having a hard time getting one within the specs that the machine wanted and asked me if it was alright to put weights on the outer lip. I told him if that's what it would take, do it. I also was concerned about my "aftermarket" wheels and he told me that the balancer would tell him if it was the wheels or the tires and he said my wheels were well within specs. That put my mind at ease, but that the one tire was not as close as he would like.

In the end I guess I am OK with the results. Next set of tires is probably going to be BFG's.

 

Try finding a shop to balance your tires that will take the time to true the tires to the wheels, sometimes if you have a tire that has a high spot or out of round a bit you can switch the position of the tire on the wheel to get a better balance, actually if you've had them road force balanced they should have done that but you know how it goes some guys will take the time to go the extra mile and some won't, and if you do have a wheel or tire out of round at least they should be able to tell you which one it is, most of the newer machines will give you a computer printout of the tire and wheel assy and how much weight it took to balance and how round it is. If you want to spend $$$ on balance again just tell them what your problem is and what you expect from them. My tires shake a little when cold but it goes away when they warm up which don't take long seeing I'm in Fla. but even in NC a couple of miles of driving and the tires should warm up no matter how cold the road is. Have you checked your tire pressure? I run about 33 lbs in mine. If your tires have low pressure that can cause a vibration. Hope that helps.

 

Thanks teebee, Something like this might be my problem then. I dropped the wheels off to have them balanced when I was painting calipers and picked them up later. Nothing was said about any problems so I assumed everything was ok. (Should have took my Dad's and Grandad's advice, "never assume anything"). Thanks for the tip on the wheels! I'm sweating that one also. I think I'm going to put the fronts on the rear and maybe I can narrow it down to two. $40.00 is better than $80.00. Might just use another tire store to see if that helps.

 

Thanks for the info rich, They do shake some cold but like you say, it goes away in a couple of miles here. And I was expecting that with summer tires. Had them before on another car. Sat it was almost 80 and no problems until abouit 64 or so. Get's worse the faster I go. The odd thing is, these are basicly brand new tires. They had a shake when I got them which I was pissed about because about all of the aftermarket tire places brag about how road ready their tires are. So I just bit the bullet and had them balanced again. But it didn't seem to help. Shake was still there. I guess this is one of those bugs that's going to be hard to kill.

 

BTW, all four tires are 30 psi dead cold.

 

I have a front vibration that started the day I installed 4 new Tomz wheels and 4 new Tirerack Sumitomo tires. I tried swapping a suspected bad rim with a new one I bought from Tomz. No luck there. No one can figure out the problem even on the Roadforce Hunter machine 3 times. I think the idiots at Firestone don't know how to work the thing. I spent way too much money on this already. I should have left it be. I guess the next step is trying new tires. I'm about ready to give up and sell all four tires and rims. I will be hard for me to ever buy tires and rims off the internet again. Too much of a headache.

 

Lordy............. I didn't get mine from them but they are all probably made by the same company anyway. The tire store I use has a good reputation here. But still I'm hoping it will be something like a new guy on the machine or something like that. I think I'll do like suggested and take the car back and explain, (and stay there this time) and see what happens.

Thanks again for all of you guys help!

 

Good tire when short on cash but there are much better tires out there. I have them on my vette as we speak. Rears are due for replacement though... lol

 

I bought them after getting 11" rears. When I made this change, I had four 9.5s wheels to choose from (two lefts and two rights).

I had all four wheels put on the balance to check for empty performance (basically visual roundness). I picked the best of the four. The shop manager said they all would "balance" so it wasn't a big deal.

After a few weeks, I noticed I had some pitting on one the wheels I picked. The other (right) wheel for that side really looked better. So, I went back and had them swap it. (They did it for free).

After the swap, I had a little vibration -- that wasn't there before. Either the wheel made the difference or the exact mounting.... I considered having them swapped by re-mounting across the car. But, my hunch is that any imperfection in the wheels could also be your problem.

BTW: After I picked the first two wheels and mounted the 9.5 x 11 combo, it's the first time it was vibration-free. So I really think the wheel is the cause. Again, the manager said he didn't think it would be a problem. The wobble was hardly visible. But, I could see it.

To determine if front/rear is the problem, look at (and feel) your steering wheel. If it's a rear, the steering wheel will feel less affected than the car itself. On the highway, steer right and left. The bad side should be more pronounced when you turn away from it. If you can determine the wheel, have that tire dismounted and remounted to a new location on the rim. Rebalance.

If you put new wheels on with the tires, consider both as potential causes. Look at the rim if you try above... Or, try other balancers as suggested in this thread. And, consider looking at the wheels w/o tires mounted...

Of course faulty suspension and/or brakes can also cause this symptom, but I assume nothing else has changed with the new tires/wheels.

gp

Oh yeah, I have Sumitomos too.

 

Mine are weighted on the inside the saw blade with what the dealer called "sticky weights" I have had no problem up to 90 with any shake etc. I went with BFG gforce sport

 

Once again, Great info! Very appreciated! I'm going to try and get up there later in the week and see what can be done if anything. I've dealt with the place I'm going for years so I think they'll work with me on this. Thanks again