Discount Tire! lol

 

They're little "tabs" stuck on the inside of the rims.


Thanks for all your input and help fellas!

 

That's the point with the Hunter machine. (My son is a Technician at a Lexus dealership and they have one.) I watched him balance my snow tires. Very different from what I used to do mounting and balancing tires many years ago.

The point is that there are many ways to "balance" a tire. Remember good old fashioned "bubble balancing?" Better than nothing, but not always perfect. And some folks used one weight where others would use four - for the same condition. Lots of ways to "balance" a tire back then. Some of them even worked!

Then came "dynamic balancing" where the wheel was actually spun. And, weights were placed strategically on both the inside and outside of the wheel as directed by the machine. Better, but still not good enough - in some cases.

When Ford introduced the (then) new 2004 F-150 with a significantly stiffer frame, they found out that any minor imablance condition transmitted right back through that stiff frame - right to your butt. Part of the fix was ordering all of their dealers to get the (then) new Hunter Road Force machine. Not only does it spin the wheel, it runs it up against a drum - simulating the wheel / tire actually running on a road. And even when the wheel is "balanced," the machine will give you a "road force number." The higher the number, the more likely you are to experience some feeling of vibration - even though the thing is actually balanced.

So my point here is that bigger tires don't always mean vibration problems. If you get a good set and they balance properly - with a low road force number - life will be good. My son did my 305 / 20's and they met that criteria. Nice, big, meaty tires with zero vibration issues.

 

Surprised, since even their website talks about too low a pressure. Unfortunately, just like dealerships, you have good and bad.
If these were P series tires, 35 would be correct, but for even LR C tires, 353 would be too low.
Definitely make sure to have the tires road force balanced. Without that, you are just chasing ghosts and will never find the problem except by luck.

 

Interesting. What is the "road force number"?

I just went to discount tire and they said they had/used the "hunter balancer system".

 

I'll have to check with my son on that one. Maybe on Hunter's web site?

 

My son was out snowboarding, so I found this on my own:

http://www.basstire.com/roadforce/

 

Wow. That's too deep for me. lol

 

When they do the road force balance, the tire/wheel is checked and given a "rating". The lower the better. From my own experience, Ford considers anything 25 or under okay. Higher and they will replace the tire. Had to have one of my OE tires replaced. The balance system will also tell them how to shift the tire around on the wheel to get a better balance.

At least this is the way it was shown to me, and the value that was shown on the machine. After shifting my one tire around, the number went from about 30 to 23, which made it acceptable. It definitely made a difference on vibration.

P.S. - Just because they used a Hunter machine, does not mean they did a road force balance. If they did, then they should give you then info on how each tire came out.

 

^^^ gotcha

 

Sounds like a rim is bent

Or another thing that happened to my 05

Check your brakes. About a year ago I had warped rotors and I didn't know my brakes were sticking and would cause a viration/wobble going down the road and for the life of me I couldnt figure out what was causing it. They would only stick intermittenly...some times a week would go by and other times it would do it all day 2 days in a row and at different speeds.

I guess a way to check would be get going to a decent speed 50+ and slowly increase the pressure on the break peddal until you come to a stop and if you feel an increased wobble thats what it probably is

just my .02

 

Now that i got my Toyo MT 35s on, i can respond to this.

only vibration i have is at low speeds such as coming to a stop, accel from a stop, and turning corners. it is very minimal and actually not as bad as i expected from such an aggressive tire. at 70, smooth as glass with that slight "hum" sound that is normal with aggressive tires, and again, not as bad as i expected.

i agree with the others, you either have incorrect pressure, bad alignment and /or worn components. id go for that second opinion.

 

i agree, all the tire shops and oil changes i get keep changeing mine back to 32 wich is what the data plate says but that is for stock size. I have to keep telling them that stock is p rated and mine are e rated and per manufacture they said for mine 275/70/18 bfg all terrain to put 50psi, i called there support people and they did a formulate base on my old tire size and truck recomended tire preassure. If i have 50 psi you should have about that or more. Not 35, once you fix that you will feel like your getting down the road with out the feeling of pulling something.

 

Yupper! In fact even some tire store managers don't seem to understand this. I had one Firestone Winterforce tire on my other car that my son road force balanced last year after I complained that the tire store job left a shake. He found that although it was technically road force balanced, the road force number was 43.

We went back to the tire store and the manager said "there's not a tire on this planet that I can't get to balance." My son then offered that "Apparently this one is from Mars then." (Nice work son!) He then went on to totally level this guy with his knowledge of the whole road force thing. We ended up going to another shop and getting the tire replaced.

 

So where can I go get this road force test?