cerino2000

See post number 77 for outcome.

I bought some aftermarket wheels for my rear widebody install. Since I am only doing the rear, I had to get Z06 size/offset for the rear and standard C6 size/offset for the front.

Since putting them on, I noticed that I had a shimmy in the front wheels. Originally, it was at about 50 mph.

I took it back to the dealer and had them balance them, since they have a RoadForce machine. The guy forgot to run the roadforce test on them but got them to balance none-the-less. He test drove it and said I should be pretty happy with that.

When I left the dealer, I noticed that they did in fact get the shimmy out at 50 however, above 60 mph, it is still there. It is slight however it is enough that if you are resting your hand on the top of the steering wheel you can see your hand shimmying.

Thought I might be **** about it until me and a buddy switched vettes. His was smooth as silk and he could feel the shimmy in mine confirming that I wasn't nuts.

I dropped it back off at the dealer today. He called me late today to let me know that they balanced fine, and the road force machine says it was fine too. Now they want to check the run-out on the rims. Going to cost me about $140.

If you have ever had a belt broke in a tire, you know how that feels and I told him its obvious that it is either the tire or the rim. If its tires, they are the factory tires so I expect them to pay for that. If it is the rims, I expect that I will have to take care of that. If the runout on the rims is fine, then they need to replace the tires. If the runout is bad, I will be paying for the entire ordeal.

I talked to Bob at House of Wheels last week letting him know and he said they will stand behind the product so hopefully he will be prepared to overnight me new rims if they determine that the runout is bad. The dealership was concerned about how long it would take to get new rims. Called him again just a bit ago and will likely hear back before too long.

I will know more in the morning after they determine what the problem is.

Seems to me that it could be caused by tires, rims, or alignment. Dealer says they don't think so on the alignment since the balancing from last week cured it at 50 mph.

So the question is: Has anyone else gone through this? If so, what was your experience, the cause, and the solution?

AORoads

sorry to hear about it, tho.

cerino2000

Thanks. The entire rear widebody has been a battle from the beginning and I expect nothing easy in getting the things I want the most. Wish life was different, however seems this is always the case.

Chadzilla500

I am having the exact same issue right now with mine.. excpet mine do it at 75mph. I have had the rims off and over at discount tire 3 times and everytime they rebalance them and change the weights around???
Im almost ready to give up and buy a new set of tires!!!!!
if anyone has any soloutions ... lets here it!

z06Bigbird

Aftermarket rims are known for poor balance and a shimmy. Guess where many of the bad ones are made????? A neat little country call CHINA.

Wayne O

You did remove the little rotor retaining clips? That's a long-shot but I'm guessing they could cause a slight vibration.

It could be something other than wheels and/or tires. Hopefully they'll get it figured out. Let us know what they discover.

cerino2000

Well that's where mine do it at as well is 75mph. Actually, anything in the 70's.

I told the dealer that if when checking the rims they show to be within specs of runout that I want new tires and they have agreed. If it's the rims, then it will be costing me some money and misery. Depends what I hear back from House of Wheels on how miserable and even then I have to hope that the ones that they send are true.

I would have thought that they (Factory Reproductions, the manufacturer) would have checked all this prior to selling them so avoid people of this PITA.

Right now as it stands, I have the cost of mounting and balancing, a second balancing, and if it's rims, an additional $140 for them to test that. I don't have a warm and fuzzy fealing about it right now.

Sadly, if it is rims, and it can't be fixed, the only other cure would be to get new high dollar rims which the thought of just kills me cause I see that as money you will NEVER get back. I think I would rather finish the widebody and get some GM wheels instead. I think it is ridiculous to have to spend so much money on rims.

cerino2000

By whom? I did a search and came up with hardly anything.

AORoads

I agree. Considering the fact that many complain on the forums, I have not found many to complain about their wheels, no matter where made, are consistently or constantly out of balance.

That's been my experience, that wheels are a-ok. Of course, many years ago, I went through 17 junk yard wheels run on a machine to test them for balance, out of round, etc. until I found 4 that were fine. All of them were steel wheels. All of them were....made in America. But, they were junk yard wheels.

Patman

I have the same problem with the aftermarket chrome wheels on my C5. I took them to the best shop in town with the most expensive balancing machine and they showed me first hand that it would be impossible to get a perfect balance on these wheels. They got it to an acceptable point though, where it's only barely noticeable, but they can never completely eliminate it. They said a lot of aftermarket wheels are like that, something to do with the way the wheel mounts onto the car, it cannot be centered properly like the OEM wheels.

MySea6

Make sure your new wheels are 'hub centric' as opposed to lug centric. Hub centric load bear against the hub. This is true for all C5 & 6 wheels.

I remember when all of the 'Mototsport' repro's came out and no one could keep them ballanced. Then rather than redesign the wheels, the manufacturers began to ship with this funky plastic ring to tighten the wheel to the hub.

Also, whoever said that all aftermarket wheels suck? Who do you think manufacturers wheels for GM? and they are not all made in China.

cerino2000

I actually considered this. When they plate them, that would cause some plating to occur on the actualy mounting surface. I can only imagine that a process has to be done where they mate to make sure that the surface is perfectly flat. I was going to question this but thought I would be considered a nut case for suggesting this.

cerino2000

Patman, what exactly did they show you?

RJ111

I bought a set from the same place for my 03 Z06,and had the same problem.The one wheel needed so much weight,the tire shop did not even want to mount the tire on it.And it's such a pain to send something back and hope for a credit,I just sold the wheels and bought a set from ccw.And I have seen a few post about a bad experience with wheels made in China.

mkiv808

I have Factory Reproduction brand on my car.

At first, there was some vibration at/around 70-80.

After a few thousand miles on the tires, the vibration is GONE. I can only conclude it was the tires breaking in.

Just a thought.

Also, try and find a balancing shop that has the Hunter Roadforce machine. You can find an installer here: http://www.gsp9700.com/

Dooce

I worried about runout etc. on my vette so got chrome oem wheels instead of replicas. But I did have replicas on my Audi and they had the same problem. I had the wheels balanced & rebalanced but the vibration about 60mpg didn't go away.

It turned out there wasn't any wheel wobble, but there was wheel "bounce." It was mostly fixed with the addition of a plastic spacer that fit just inside the center hub of each wheel, which served to align the wheel & prevented the slight bounce. Maybe this is your problem too.

Good luck in fixing the problem.

Patman

They showed me the rims spinning on the machine and how they were slightly warped (both side to side and up and down), and they also mentioned that thing about them not being hub centric as well (I couldn't remember the terminology until someone else mentioned it after me)

Patman

I believe that is the machine they used on mine, and even with the rims being slightly warped like they were, they still managed to get the wheel/tire balanced good enough that the vibration is now very slight.

cerino2000

They do have one of the Hunter RoadForce machines. He did mention that this machine allows you somehow to know exactly where to position the tire on the rim for the best balance.

Those of you that mentioned the little plastic spacer, where did you get this?

cerino2000

Well, heard back from dealer. They simply reiterated what the said yesterday. They roadforce balanced it. Evidentally the roadforce spits out some kind of a number. Anything up to 20 is within specs. Mine were 5 on one and 10 on the other, or within specs so they have said "since it didn't do it with your factory rims, and everything else is the same, it must be your aftermarket rims". Not sure what I am going to do now. Might just live with it.