Shimmy / Road Force Balance

i admit i like to argue about stupid shit as well

LOL... that's for sure... but you still have way too much ego. Calling yourself "ingenious" proves that.

If I had a dollar for every time you have mentioned on this site... that you only get 14mpg because you thrash on your car... I'd be a very wealthy man.

Over exaggeration of course... but you still made my point.

And you were doing so well recently behaving yourself. (rolleyes). :)
 
And your Discount Tire story is anecdotal evidence at best.

I checked some cutomer review sites on the web... and DT actually gets pretty high reviews.

While most of the time people only leave bad reviews on such sites (which is normal... and very few take the time to leave positive reviews... DT is one of the nations highest rated tire stores.
That doesn't mean that they aren't ripping customers off, just like the rest of the big chain stores. Most people have no idea that they aren't getting what they've paid for. And a customer shouldn't have to be an expert and watch over these places to make sure they're getting what they've paid for.

We get it though. You like Discount Tire. That's great.
 
Ok... so somehow I glazed over part of your post and missed this:

The force measurement is performed with the rim+tire off the vehicle. RFV is for the rotating assembly *alone*.

Back in the day... RFB was done one wheel at a time... on the car (starting to show my age).

It was a big heavy machine on wheels. You jacked up the wheel, and it sat on 2 rollers.

The rollers were motorized... and spun the tire. There were meters/gauges on the machine that gave readouts... and showed where to put the weights.

LOL... just call me grandpa sonny. :) That's part of the reason I was mentioning the wheel bearing. (rolleyes)
 
That doesn't mean that they aren't ripping customers off, just like the rest of the big chain stores. Most people have no idea that they aren't getting what they've paid for. And a customer shouldn't have to be an expert and watch over these places to make sure they're getting what they've paid for.

I am sorry if this has been your experience. It doesn't seem to be the norm.
 
I am sorry if this has been your experience. It doesn't seem to be the norm.
It's not my experience, it's how they run their company. It's not a local policy to skip force matching unless the force measurement is over 35 lbs. It's the company's policy. Period.
 
Ok... so somehow I glazed over part of your post and missed this:



Back in the day... RFB was done one wheel at a time... on the car (starting to show my age).

It was a big heavy machine on wheels. You jacked up the wheel, and it sat on 2 rollers.

The rollers were motorized... and spun the tire. There were meters/gauges on the machine that gave readouts... and showed where to put the weights.

LOL... just call me grandpa sonny. :) That's part of the reason I was mentioning the wheel bearing. (rolleyes)
This isn't showing your age, it's showing your misunderstanding of the topic being discussed. RFV has nothing to do with static (up and down) and dynamic (side to side) balancing. Static and dynamic balancing are corrected with weights. Road force balancing is not and never has been corrected with weights. In addition, road force balancing has been around for 30 years.

Like I said, please educate yourself before continuing to discuss this topic. You're just making yourself look bad.
 
LOL... that's for sure... but you still have way too much ego. Calling yourself "ingenious" proves that.

If I had a dollar for every time you have mentioned on this site... that you only get 14mpg because you thrash on your car... I'd be a very wealthy man.

Over exaggeration of course... but you still made my point.

And you were doing so well recently behaving yourself. (rolleyes). :)
Not ingenious, ingenuitive, it means i can figure shit out.

I definitely have ego, because i have lots of experience and only say things when i know what I'm talking about. Unlike you that just argues with no frame of reference. I've talked to prolly 10 different discount tire stores in multiple states and you've talked to one and you know more than me, yes ok buddy, lol.
 
Not ingenious, ingenuitive, it means i can figure shit out.

I definitely have ego, because i have lots of experience and only say things when i know what I'm talking about. Unlike you that just argues with no frame of reference. I've talked to prolly 10 different discount tire stores in multiple states and you've talked to one and you know more than me, yes ok buddy, lol.
Well clearly vocabulary/grammar is not some "of the shit you can figure out"...
Ingenuitive = (nonstandard) Possessing ingenuity; ingenious.

As to the original topic I would add that many of the wheel speciality shops around me (the kind that deal with high end wheel tire combo's @ $10k+ on exotics - think HRE Wheels) have given up on Road Force Balancing and gone back to traditional methods with experienced techs. Too many issues with the machines and no material improvement in outcome.
 
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As to the original topic I would add that many of the wheel speciality shops around me (the kind that deal with high end wheel tire combo's @ $10k+ on exotics - think HRE Wheels) have given up on Road Force Balancing and gone back to traditional methods with experienced techs. Too many issues with the machines and no material improvement in outcome.
Then the guys running those machines had no idea what they were doing. This isn't a theoretical topic. It's basic physics. There's a reason that Tesla, Audi, etc (and your "exotics") all do road force balancing right off the line.
 
Then the guys running those machines had no idea what they were doing. This isn't a theoretical topic. It's basic physics. There's a reason that Tesla, Audi, etc (and your "exotics") all do road force balancing right off the line.
Im simply stating what I've been told and the people at these shops - i.e. Grand Prix Performance - know what they are doing and have done it a very long time. I never said RFB doesn't have validity its simply the machines have been known to have reliability issues and there is an aspect of both "art" and science in balancing. Ive RFB my 20" Senta's on my LS over the years, and at times havent, I cant say that I've noticed a dramatic improvement either way. The biggest difference in outcome in my experience has been between tires - my prior Conti DWS plus's had less vibration vs. my current BFGoodrich Comp A/S plus's no matter how they are balanced. My 20" HRE's with Michelin PS4's on my Porsche are RFB so Im not against it as long as the expense is reasonable...
 
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I'm not really sure what else to say to it being an "art". The Hunter GSP9700 is the most common road force balancer out there and it shows the tech *exactly* where to mark both the wheel and tire. If the shops you're getting your tires from can't follow such simple instructions, you might look for another shop.

Whether or not you notice a difference with road force balancing vs not has zero bearing on whether reducing RFV will reduce vibration. It's simply a fact.

As I explained earlier in this thread (which is probably easily lost given all of the bickering posts in it), a lot of places aren't even doing the proper force matching unless the force measurements are sky high anyways. So it's likely the shops you are using aren't bothering doing the proper force matching either. It takes time, and no one seems interested in doing things the right way these days when it eats into their profit.

If your tires and wheels didn't have chalk marks on them when you picked up the car from a road force balancing, then it's highly likely that the shop didn't bother force matching.
 
Im simply stating what I've been told and the people at these shops - i.e. Grand Prix Performance - know what they are doing and have done it a very long time.
That's the problem these days. These "good ole boys" aren't interested in learning anything new. They've been "doing X this way for 50 years and that's how they're going to keep doing it". The irony there is that road force balancing has been around for over 30 years. It's not complicated, and the machine tells them exactly what to do. But it's very similar to what we're seeing in politics these days, your regular Joe thinks he knows better than that engineer, scientist, etc who has dedicated their entire life to studying something. It's pretty sad to be honest where things have gone.
 
Well in the case of Grand Prix you would be incorrect as they where early adopters having a Hunter machine back in the early 90's (believe they still have it). I've watched their techs in the past RFB and as you state it does take time to do properly. Regardless, I dont disagree with the majority of your commentary. I would simply say, in my experience, tires have had the biggest impact and with Stance Coilovers combined w/ a heavy 20" wheel/tire combo all vibration on an LS is noticeable. They are fussy in this regard stock and its exaggerated with mods.
 
What I meant by it taking time is they must dismount the tire and rotate it. Measuring RFV is dead simple. The following video gives an idea of how easy it is. Keep in mind that Hunter didn't just make road force balancers. They also made regular spin balancers. So the machine you saw may have been just a regular spin balancer.

 
Well clearly vocabulary/grammar is not some "of the shit you can figure out"...
Ingenuitive = (nonstandard) Possessing ingenuity; ingenious.

As to the original topic I would add that many of the wheel speciality shops around me (the kind that deal with high end wheel tire combo's @ $10k+ on exotics - think HRE Wheels) have given up on Road Force Balancing and gone back to traditional methods with experienced techs. Too many issues with the machines and no material improvement in outcome.
Lol, this ain't English class boy. Notice the lack of punctuation and capitalization, no one cares but you. If you fail to understand the message i can dress it up for you a little next time son. Sorry for confusing yer simple mind.
 

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