My '87 has new Yokahomas on it. I had a front end alignment shop balance them. I took it down the highway and it had a shimy. Brought it back and had them rebalance all four. Onto the highway...same thing. Brought the car back and had them redue the balancing for the third time in one day. It was much better but still there. Went to Firestone and had them balance all four. The car is smooth except between about 58 to 85.

The car only has 21k and is in pristene condition. I don't expect a bent wheel. In fact, the car was dead smooth on the original tires. I had it up to 130 and it was perfect. As soon as the new tires were installed I had the shimy. Would 'high speed balancing' work? Who does that type of work in Massachusetts?

 

my tire shop can't balance a f-in tire either
I got tired of going back.
FURSTATING !!!!!!!

 

find a shop with a hunter tire balancer, the diffrence is night and day... I was amazed

 

Sorry to say it's hard to find good help and harder to find a good shop.

 

some tire shops have no clue what the little colored dot stands for....dot need to be as close as possible to the stem opening. if the tires don't balance on the second try then i think they need to be broke down and remounted and then rebalanced. i do my own tires. my fronts were difficult. balanced perfect first time but had shimmy on road. broke em down and started over then shimmy went away.

 

My Yokohamas did the same thing when I first had 'em mounted. Car was smooth as glass before, and had a shimmy afterwards. If you can get them "road force" (aka "computer ride-match") balanced at a shop with a Hunter, that'll help.

 

and....

 

I thought I was the only one!!!!
Even on the hunter road foce rim match blah blah blah they sucked!
Tested original meats and no probs.....went back and the owner tells me about his seminars w/goodyear and hunter which recomends a dual plane balance instead. They work good now, but overall external wgt. went up to 2 1/4 oz.total a side. Bottom line is, I need one of those machines or some one who really knows how to operate it, so Im not a hostage to this crap.....just cant justify the dough

 

So after reading this thread. I'm not the only one with this problem. Maybe I should be looking for a corvette specialty place in Massachusetts that works on primarily vettes. Anyone know of one close to western Mass? btw, thanks for all the input.

 

The same thing happened to me a few months ago. After a few attempts, it worked out okay.

 

I agree with the "road force" balancing...find a shop with that machine...hopefully they know how to use it...pricey but the only way to go...

 

I found a shop with the Hunter, same BS.... They don't know how to use it, but they manage to charge me $25 each, and claim it's a bad tire.

 

The balancer you are looking for is a Hunter GSP9700 road-force balancer. Many GoodYear tire shops have these as well as larger GM dealerships. A helpful hint would be to make sure the wheels are clean outside and backside,set to the correct pressure and most importantly:
drive/warmup the tires for several miles before bringing to the shop so that flat spotting due to storage/parking is reduced to a minimum.
The balancer can detect rim or tire runout,and can recommend tire to rim matching. It can also detect out of round and help compensate for it with weight. Also try requesting an experienced technician and explaining to the service writer your concerns fully,including past attempts to correct the concern. Just my 2 cents.............
Jim B. aka VP

 

One suggestion. Before getting them rebalanced, have them marked to the rim with chalk. Break the bead and rotate the tire so the tire mark is 180 degrees from the wheel mark. Re-inflate and rebalance. Ask for a mid-plane balance that is used for flangelss wheels. This places the weight at the center of the wheel on the inside surface. See what the ride is like. I would also recommend the tire force machine balancing from Hunter.

Good luck,
Dino

 

You guys have given me some great advice. I'll be calling some shops this week to find out who has the correct machine. I'll spend the money to get the job done. I need this car to run smoooth at any speed. this slight shimey is driving me crazy. I get into this really neat car and as soon as I get to cruising speed....there it is #$%@###

Thanks again guys!!

 

I know what you mean. When I first got the car I put it up on ramps and greased all the fittings. Did all the other maintenance things then took it for a ride. All of a sudden I have this little shimmy. Didn't have it before. Drove back home and started looking around. Found a wad of grease pushed through one of the tie rod ends had dropped onto the inside wheel flat. It was enough to give me that shimmy. Wiped away and the shimmy was gone.

Thanks for your 2 cents. I'll be following your recommendations.

 

I thought i had a balance problem,had tires balanced and rebalanced,turned out i had a tire out of round.

 

I strongly agree with the advice someone gave about getting the tires up to temp before going into the shop, especially with these Yokohamas. Although my tires are correctly balanced now, on cooler mornings on the way to work, I get a shimmy right at 63mph. Usually, by the time I get to work and the tires are warm, it's gone.

 

Follow this link to find a Hunter Road Force balancer near you.

http://www.gsp9700.com/pub/search/FindGSP9700.cfm

 

One problem with buying the tires and then going somewhere to get the "road force" balance: if one of the tires can't come into the specs of the Hunter Road Force machine, don't expect the shop to exchange the tire they didn't sell.

Some tires can't be brought into spec.
This is more than a balance, it is a vibration analyzation.
It is a process of matching the tire imperfections to the rim imperfections to have them cancel each other out. It involves differences in sidewall stiffness around the tire and out-of-round conditions. Oh, yea, they do happen to balance the wheel and tire at the same time, but that isn't the only thing done.
If you buy the tires from the shop that has the gsp9700, there is a good chance they will just go back and pull out another one if one doesn't come into spec.

A tire that may not come into spec on the Hunter machine for your wheel may work well on another wheel. So, it will be difficult to take it back to a tire store and say there is something wrong with it -- because there isn't.

A bulging sidewall tire that is balanced on a regular machine may work well on a luxobarge with soft suspension, but don't expect it to work on a performance vehicle with a stiff suspension and vertical non-absorbing sidewall tires.


Tom Piper