Water gets trapped in the inside barrel I bet. I have iForged on my Firehawk and I have heard of the same issues with them (I don't drive the car in the rain so I can't speak from experience). The way the inside barrel is shaped it actually traps water and doesn't let it out, which causes an out of balance wheel.

 

JRHAWK,

That is a strange one. I don't like the "Each lug probably tightened another 1/4 turn or more over my previous tightening" part. There is no way that there should be that much "loosening up" after 30 miles of driving. I'd be checking torque with another torque wrench and looking at the wheel studs very carefully for possible stretching maybe due to a previous over torque with an impact gun. I'd be worried about the wheel lugs breaking.

 

yeah, it's definately strange! I bought the car new and this is the first and only time the wheels have ever been removed. The studs are in great shape and the lugs spun right on w/o any issues. I am currently using the cheap lugs that came with the wheels, but I have some McGard's on order.

 

JR, it's unlikely but it sounds like you didn't get the lugs seated the first time you torqued them. That's the only way other than what Walt suggested that you'd need to tighten them a quarter or more turn. Unless you put on some lubricant... No, no one would do that, would they?

 

nope. no lubricant....lol

I don't know. Everything was properly seated to me. I have been swapping wheels for decades, so I am pretty sure I know when a wheel isn't seated properly.

 

Not doubting your word or experience at all. It's just hard to imagine that large of a loosening up. Hmmm...

 

OK, I jacked the front of the car back up and removed the wheels, checked all the studs out, wiped clean the mating surfaces and put them back on, this time using the OEM lugs. The lugs spun right on like they should. Torqued them to 100 ft-lbs and took a 100 mile ride to dinner and back and I didn't notice anything. I re-torqued them when I got home and they didn't budge. Don't know what the deal was, but I will keep an eye on it and see if my on-off vibration comes back. I wish we had freshly paved roads around here, as that's a nice place to test vibrations. With older concrete highways I can't tell if it's just the road I am feeling through the wheel or if it's a tiny vibration. The few times I ran across smoothly paved overpasses at speeds high enough, I didn't notice anything at all.

I did, however, spin both front wheels and I could see the tire moving up and down a bit on the wheel. They were both road force balanced and tested out at the high teens..which isn't too too bad. I wish I had a dial caliper or something that I could measure the runout of the wheel.

I didn't mean to sound like I was offended by what you guys were saying....lol I am pretty sure both of you know more than I do when it comes to these cars. I was just trying to point out that this wasn't my first time changing wheels, as you never know who you are talking to on these forums (from your POV).