The best explanation as to odd vibrations. The being able to balance a square analogy is perfect. Cheap tyres can often be balanced, but if they are poorly manufactured with hard points in sidewalls this will only ever show at high speed. I now know what has been causing my problem, thanks 👍🏻
Great explanation! Adding to it? A proper “balance” corrects the static and dynamic balance - side to side shake of the assembly. Roadforce corrects the up and down “hop” by matching the high and low spots of the rim/tire assembly. Suggestion? Perform a centering check. If the rim is not perfectly centered on the spindle? You will get inaccurate results - like trying to balance an egg. The machine has this feature built in…
The story of my life at Discount Tire. I have mag-style wheels, and they can never do it right bc they don't center on the spindle. My dealership, on the other hand, has the top-of-the-line Self-Setting Hunter balancer. They can get it perrrrrrfect. Discount is trying to tell me my wheels are bent..... Just because I'm a girl, doesn't mean I'm stupid. I know my car VERY well.
What an excellent video. Great info. I just bought 4 new 20” continental terrain contact HT for my f150. First it had a strange vibration at 45 and then over 70. Went back they said one tire visually had a hi spot on the tread. They replace that tire. The 45 vibration is gone but the above 70 is the same. They do not have a road force balance machine and they keep telling me they can not guarantee anything over 70 mph? Sounds like excuses to me.
If it's tire related, the machine can measure it. If it's something like a driveshaft, obviously the machine can't see that. Based on when it started, request road force balanced and ask for the road force variation numbers for each. Sometimes techs don't really understand what those numbers are.
@IHcubcadet there may be a spec, but we don't commonly test like that although there may be a spec. There is an electronic vibration analyzer that can identify different frequencies and determine if it is at a driveshshaft frequency vs say a tire or even a flexplate frequency. They are all turning at different speeds. If we determine it to be driveshshaft related we would most likely send it to a driveline specialty shop that can balance a driveshshaft on their machine.
I have had a very mild annoying vibration in the passenger seat at highway speeds for a long time. It's a 14 Ram 2500 with 33" Nitto Terra Grappler G2 tires on the factory 20" rims. I had it balanced today on a Hunter Road Force machine. It took the technician about 3 hours, they were very difficult. Happy to say it rides perfectly smooth now! Will be posting this on the Ram forums too. The vibration in these trucks is very common.
Honestly its common on any trucks with oversized tires. Probably took a long time because they had to dismount tires and phase match them. But again, proof this procedure works. Thanks for the feedback.
@@paulkelley86 Absolutely. Thank you for your quick reply. That's exactly it. He had to move the tire on each rim about 3 times and put a chalk line where it was previously to try to find where the tire and rim marry in harmony. Actually had me concerned because it took so long but the proof is in the pudding.
@@paulkelley86 It had the vibration with the factory Firestone Transforce tires which had me concerned when I Nitto tires on and it still had the vibration. It seems anything 31" and over needs a road force balance
I am having the same problem with my tacoma. I have BF Goodrich ko2. I took it for an alignment and they told me it also needed a to rebalance front tire. They did and when got mg truck back going 65-78 miles per hr my passenger seat starts to Shake like its going to Fly out the window. I took it back and they cannot balance the tires. I’m so frustrated. Any advise where i can take it or do? My truck is only 2 yrs old and it drives like crap.
@@Lexibeez8907 Google tire shops in your area, I'm not sure if you are in a remote area but call the tire shops and specifically ask if they have a road force balancer and an experienced technician that knows how to use it. I'm just curious, do you know if your rim is bent from a pothole or something?
Thanks for this video. I had a weird highway speed vibration problem that I couldn't figure out, and I insisted a tire shop put them on their road force machine. Even though they balanced just fine, they failed the road force test.
Yes sir, we see that every day. All the students leaving here will be trained but more experienced techs/mechanics are not necessarily up to speed on the latest tech.
Great explanation. I frequently try to explain this to dealership personally and they look at me like a deer in headlights. It’s really bad when it’s a perfectly round wheel or a tire with multiple high road force spots. Trying to explain that they need to warranty the tire and try again seems to be like speaking a foreign language. 20”+ LTs are the worst.
The story of my life at Discount Tire. I have mag-style wheels, and they can never do it right bc they don't center on the spindle. My dealership, on the other hand, has the top-of-the-line Self-Setting & Centering Hunter balancer. They can get it perrrrrrfect. Discount is trying to tell me my wheels are bent..... Discount got pretty dang close last time; it was nice. Not perfect, but nice ride. Now?? Here I am, sitting in the waiting area.... again..... today..... Just because I'm a girl, doesn't mean I'm stupid. I know my car VERY well.
You ever run into a situation where force is high and the prediction can’t make it better? This happened on light duty (3/4 ton) truck tire. Force was 50 and prediction want to move tire 90 degrees to get to 49lbs vs 50 😮
I have some advice not that anyone asked. If you have a decent amount of lube on the beads, you can pinch the tire with the bead rollers and turn the wheel inside the tire to match mount. Also if you want a good balance, turn off Smart Weight or at the very least turn on Smart Weight technical mode. You're welcome.
I balanced a few tires the traditional way and the machine called for .75oz on the inside of the wheel. Not bad. Then i did a roadforce and match. Called for 1.75oz 🤷♂️ I would have preferred less weight.
I just replaced my Ram 1500 tires that had 22,000 miles on them with new ones and they shake like crazy I've had them Road Force balanced 2 times.. they last about a week and a half before it changes..
I don't know if you still have this problem but make sure you go easy on the tires for the first 500 miles after any service that requires reseating the beads, sometimes a lot of torque will make the tire spin on the wheel because of the assembly lube
stock wheels and i have ZERO vibration even at 80 mph .. Purchased a new set of wheels and tires, got vibration at 65 mph and a slight wheel hop on idle speed on the front side. Took the wheels and tires to 3 tire shops to all of them say the wheels and tires are fine. Took the wheels and tires to 2 places that are specific to bent wheel repairs and both said the wheels and tires are fine. They said my suspension has issues. Odd how my suspension works PERFECT with the stock wheels and tires but acts up when i put the new wheels and tires on ...
Brother I have the same issue with my 4runner. Brand new 2023 got aftermarket wheels and vibrates at 65mph.took off the wheels and put back my oem wheels and it's fine now
@@abrahamfonseca6198 one shop told me to mix the stock oem wheels. Put the front stock oem wheels up front and the new aftermarket wheels in the rear and go for a drive and see if the vibration is gone or still there. If the vibration is gone then the rear aftermarket wheels and tires are good and can stay there. If the vibration is still there, then you know its the rear set, then have to find out which one is bad. Either flat spot on tire or warped out of round wheel. Or they balanced one or both or all 4 wheels wrong.
I’m going through this now. The Toyota dealership is trying to warranty through nitto and replace all 4 tires. I’m now thinking the technician didn’t know what he was doing with road force balancing
Very possible. Request road force balance. I believe the road force balancer is a required tools and equipment for all toyota dealers. Sometimes people learn one way to do things and don't always know the latest and greatest tech. It also may be an issue of pay, the techs often get paid a fixed labor amount whether they basic balance, roadforce balance, or even spend a ton of time phase matching to really take care of the customer. It is possible to get toyota to pay the clock time on that rather than the book time, but the dealer needs to know how to navigate that "z" time process. Advocate for yourself, there is a lot of problems in automotive biz.
I just had a set of Toyo AT3 put on my 05 4runner. Thing rode like crap, took 4 trips to the tire shop to get the road force right. 2 tires the yellow dot is 180* out from the valve stem. Other 2 are pretty close to valve stem. I had a really bad vibration in the 15-20hrz range. It was a loose vibration not a tight one like a bearing.. The vibration is 90% gone but its still there. I have a feeling the vibration will be felt through the wheel when rotation time comes. The tire shop (Les Schwabs) put the 2 180* out ones on the rear.. Should i be worried about it? before the last rebalance i called Toyo and they was not to happy with Schwabs!
Ultimately what matters is the road force variation reading on the assembly. If they are dismounting and re indexing 180 degrees that sounds like a guess. The dots are a guideline but with the correct balancing machine (road force) the machines instruction supercedes the dots. And yeah if the roadforce is excessive on the 2 rear, a tire rotation to the front is going to bring your vibration back.
I know you posted this 9 months ago, and I'm in the same situation as you my friend. I bought the AT3 for my Envoy, had it balanced 5-6 times so far with 1 tire being replaced 2 weeks after purchase due to it being out of round. No matter how smooth the surface is, I still get a vibration similar to yours. I had a set of Yokohama Geolander A/Ts prior to these Toyo's and never had a vibration issue up until now, and I'm coming up to 10 months of ownership.
@@supersaiyenunlimit2 I am so about ready to take these tires back.. The vibration kinda went away during the hot summer days but now the temps are blow 70* out the tires have started to vibrate again! Thanks for the reply!!
@@MrDan1509 That is exactly what I'm experiencing as well, they're tolerable when it's warm or hot but once it's under 60* it's definitely noticeable. I do regret not returning them under Tire Racks 45 day policy if I knew this was going to be the outcome or went with something different. Hopefully they get better as they wear but I'm doubting it.
@@supersaiyenunlimit2 Dang, i knew i was not the only one. I buy my tires from a tire shop that will buy them back no questions asked even if there's only 1/4 tread life left. Paid a few hundy more than i would have at Discount Tire but Discount warranty sucks!
Wait so roadforce identifies hard spots on tires ? And Not road damage ? are run flats notorious for hard spots? Dealer trying to tell me I hit a pothole on causing the 75 lbs force point.
@@luileo2 it measures variations. So a bent wheel or broken belt inside a tire would both contribute to high road force. The issue is "taking it to me" doesn't work. I teach the classes, not run a business. In the spring semesters I could use yours as a class demo but deep into transmissions currently
50 is probably overkill, especially for my truck but they are load range E so they can take it and I commonly tow over capacity. To be honest probably not a good idea. I recommend running what the tire placard in the driver door jamb calls for.
The problem with balancing beads is that you really have no way of verification. You can't measure if they are working on a machine. Personally I recommend road force balancing because I can see objective numbers displayed and know how it is going to ride before road testing
So say my shop balanced my all terrains they showed me how the tires were perfectly balanced one thing I did notice they didn’t use the roller they only spun the tire and road forced matched… I get on the road and I’m still getting vibration, so would this mean I need a road force balance instead of the regular balance I got .??
@@paulkelley86 yeah steering shakes back and forth from 55-75, I feel like im being delusional at this point, how much road force is acceptable in an all terrain even though it’s a P metric size .?
@ThatMGM4RNR I typically try to get it as low as I can but if it's a car I would get under 15 and if it's a truck/suv like your 4runner in your pic probably under 23 would be reasonable. It kind of varies but the vibration will be proportional to the variation. If it's something borderline I may run it, but if you have like 50, I would deal with that which sometimes means getting a new tire or tires. I won't live with it, and I'll spend the money.
@@paulkelley86 yeah I drive a 4Runner, I’ve ruled out that it’s not the wheels since they are hub centric, they are aftermarket though, so would you suggest I get a road force balance at this point since the regular balance didn’t work .?
Alejandro, I had excavator the same experience. Paul I don't think they even knew how to use the road force balancer. My dots were all over the place. But because the roadforce was not above 20 they didn't care. Then they only put weights on one side. Now for match mounting does that cost even more than the road force balancing. As the wheel came down and they said it was road force balanced. I had a flat fix shop redbone the tire clean the wheel then reinstall with red dots at tire stem. In a hunter smart weight balancer. Still have a vibration. New tires too. Going to check a mechanic as I hit a pot whole at 55mph on the left front then it made a bubble. 5/32nds on the others. 2 years old. Good video. Not a truck tire but that is a good balancer if people know how to use it. I feel a vibration at 50-60mph. Looking into this any insights?
There is a lot of information I would need to share to fully answer this but in short: don't worry about the dots if they are road force balancing. There are 2 possible dots. One for heavy spot on the tire, which we commonly line up to the valve stem hole to save a little bit of wheel weight weight. The other is the most firm spot on the tire, which the road force balancer measures. It that stiffness exceeds spec, the machine flags it and has you measure rim runout, then possible phase match/match mark, and rotate the tire to align the stiff spot to a slight low spot in the rim. That will lower the overall road force variation of the assembly. The machines measurements of the wheel and tire assembly are more important that the tire measurements at the factory, which is where the dots originate. As for your issue, still sounds like excessive road force of the assembly, or balance. If the machine is out of calibration it could be an explanation. A quick check would be to rotate the tires front to rear. If it was a front tire shaking the steering wheel that would lesson and maybe cause a slight shaking of your butt in the seat. NEVER had a tire vibration not show up on the road force machine. The machine will detect and issue and show out of balance or excessive road force variation. If everything was good (20 may be a little high depending on P or LT tires) then I would look into a driveline imbalance. Most of those I experience are more notable under acceleration rather than mph ranges so that's not my feeling on yours. Maybe try a place that employs someone more focused on actually fixing problems. Not sure if it's a skill level/education issue, ethical issue, or a money/business issue but all of these are common in this industry.
@@paulkelley86 does weren't even close and the tire was never moved as it maybe had 16lbs. But the guy wasn't sure if the number anyway. I'll try somewhere else. Thanks I'll read again later. It seems to be deminishing. The tires were moved to different spots after the second rebalance. But it's only been two weeks.
Dude you have bent rims. Road force balancing is a gimmick truthfully. I know some people are gonna get mad at that buts its true. If I've mounted and balanced 1000+ tires and never needed a single road force balance in that time its not required. It just isn't. 95% of the time a vibration that can't be balanced is a bent rim.
@@fuckjewtube69 no one claims it is required. The FACT is, it's a tool to fix either stiffness variation in a tire, or minor wheel runout. 100% guarantee there are tires with stiffness variation, so your fix is what? Replace the tire? That's a fix but a hassle for a customer if you don't have it in stock. Running the road force algorithm, I can predict and possibly fix the variation in the assembly within a few minutes. Just because you have done 1,000 or 100,000 tires doesn't mean you know anything other than how to do repetitive tasks, so I'm not sure I would brag about that. Better yet, why don't you make a video about how roadforce is a gimmick, and you can get some views for yourself.
@@paulkelley86 You have probably a 100x higher chance of having bent rims over an actual road force problem why waste so much money on a machine to potentially fix such a rare negligible problem. We have 2 of these machines in a 30 bay shop and no one ever needs to use it to fix a vibration problem. Therefore it's a gimmick. Yes with those odds get a new tire lmao. Also I'm not bragging about how much tires I do, I'm saying I've done enough to know this machine is pointless to have and I was responding to the guy in the comments why would I wanna make a video?
Of course it's a K02 🤣 I don't know how many times I had to take them to the shop and telling them to road force them and they said they don't need them you need balance beads and once they finally did it the issues went away
Hey Paul, Can you recommend a shop with hunter alignment and road force balancing machines that actually know how to use the added features or if they know how, they actually perform them? I am in the San Bernardino area. I have gone to les schwab because of their hunter machines but they say they cant get all the vibration out of my tires and when I mentioned to them about rotating the wheel on the tire, they said its only for extreme cases. Plus they cant figure out my road wandering issues. They say steering and suspension components are perfect after bringing my truck back to them. Took it to another shop and they said my track bar bushing is bad so I am replacing it and ball joint myself. It seems as if les schwab isn't being thorough and just trying to get me out the door. I can not, for the death of me, find an honest and knowledgeable alignment shop
Its more like measuring the force and displaying that number. Then if it is a reasonably low road force number you do the balance. If the road force is too high it will predict if phase matching the tire will improve and tell you how much to expect. Then phase match it. Then verify the road force measurement after phase match. Then balance.
Seen a video where they did two measurements with 180° apart first and then matched the tire and wheel. How can the machine know the high and low spots in one go 🤷🏻♂️
The older machine has arms that measure the wheel, and the roller that measures the tire. The newer machine has a laser measuring system that measures everything as soon as you spin it. Back in the day we measured with dial indicators.
@p__jay I can assure you that what I demonstrate here is correct for this machine. I'm not sure what you saw, the machine has had a lot of updates over the years, and a lot of people have different ways of doing things. This is how hunter recommends on this particular machine. And we have fixed hundreds of vibrations.
@@paulkelley86 I've seen those icons green and also red n only time.ove seen em red is when I also had a issue with the balance I got ...is it better to make sure they r green or why does it go from green to red if it doesn't.matter?plz explain more bc I have a horrible vibration right now
@@bengleckl1877 when red it means you have weights countering other weights and you are wasting money. THAT IS NOT THE CAUSE OF THE VIBRATION. focus on the road force number, or if you don't have a road force machine, now you know why you are stuck. Any non road force machine is blind to variations in sidewall firmness, which causes just as many vibrations as out of balance.
@@paulkelley86 I went to one of the only road force elites around here and dude don't know what he's doing .usually I go there just to get the orientation of tire right and balance again somewhere else ..like I got multiple clumps of weights on my rim instead of just two (behind spoke and outside edge ) they are passenger rates tires. First it said about 32 lbs but he got em down to maybe 17 but they were also 2 -4 psi over what they should of been so I'm hoping when it said 17 it was more like 14? All I know is yokahoma go15 are smooth as butter and I hoping all over the place and feel like I got an electric toothbrush vibe going on .
@@paulkelley86 when he said they were ok I remember the red icons being full and other tires they were green and half way so I am assuming I need a diff balance or maybe I have one tire that's a little over the spec .
Cypress college in orange county CA, but my students end up all over socal, they can help you out! But really you just need yo find a shop with the road force capability and request it, we fix stuff like that all the time.
@@paulkelley86 thanks for the info I’m in Los Angeles and I’ve been to a lot of shops but most turn me away when they find out I have beadlocks. If you know any shop please let me know.
@samuelwinningham4487 well, it's a community College so I can't charge since the equipment was ultimately purchased with taxpayer funds. The way we can do it is to use your tires as a lesson. I am not teaching thst class at the moment but we have someone who is, and I'm sure he will demo it for his class. The first step is to come by. Parking lot 2, all the way to the back. Thst class runs 7am to 1140 am Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.
Im buying new wheels after new tires are "nalanced" but they shake off and on on the highway. Shop says everything else looks good, no play in the wheels. Say wheels are all bent
That's exactly the purpose of this machine. If they are bent, they should be able to measure the out of round with a dial indicator or at least show you while spinning on the machine. This machine will do all of that and can even give a printout for the customer. Been there as a tech partner, turns into a lot of guessing and trying to blow the customer out the door without the right equipment
@@paulkelley86 Can alignment cause rough ride? The steering is straight. Shop thought maybe it was CV. We're talking 2005 Toyota Avalon I bought with 120000 mile LOL. When I threw new tires on the first time a couple of years ago they did the same thing, one the techs did something with weights and it worked! But when rotated they were horrible and had to do that again, the tech doesn't work there anymore and the manager doesn;t know what he did.
@@rgbsax alignment caster can cause a shimmy but not typically and based on the tire rotation I bet the worst balance (or runout) tires were on the back till they got rotated to the front which brought it back stronger. CV cause driveline vibration which is under accel but lessons on accel.
