"Road-force balancing"

[Johnny5]

Originally Posted by Paul Workman

I had an "Ah HA!" moment a couple weeks ago.

For some time - ever since I bought the last set of tires (Nitto 555/555Rs) I had a slight, just perceptible vibration that would happen between 80 and 90 or so mph that seemed to be at the front. This was in spite of several trips to the tire shop to verify balancing.

I'm familiar with the process (I used to "do tires" in a previous life), and they allowed me to look over their shoulders as they checked the balance. But, still the vibration persisted. (Alignment and bushings were checked too in the inteim.) The only thing out of spec was we found a 1/8" wobble on the LR A-mold wheel.

Discount Tire offers road force balancing at no charge, perhaps since I was buying new tires? It did take longer to do so, but all 4 were right-on when finished. And NO vibration!!

The take-off (old) tires were not checked for road force compliance, as were the new tires. So, I can only assume the persistent vibration went undetected in spite of balancing which may have been caught had the tire(s) been road force balanced in the beginning? I'm going to guess on the affirmative. AND,from now on...

i bought my tires from discount tire direct but did not know they offfer the road force balancing as i paid extra at a shop to have it done. where do they do that? do u have to go to specific shops?