Car vibrations with aftermarket rims/tires despite hub-centric rings

[chinadan]

I recently upgraded my Tiida w/ 17" alloys on 215/40 Goodyear F1 tires.

I have also loweed the car w/ slightly stiffer springs but the problem existed beforehand.

Now, the car exibits 2 fundamental resonance modes at 87 mph and the other at 107 mph. The car has always been rattling at top speed but the cruising speed aroud 85 mph have always been normal.

The hub-centric rings have a minute play (maybe 0.2 mm) and the wheels have been balanced twice.

Am I looking at a typical upgrade problem or is the car just "shaky"?

[CodeRed]

When do you ever need to go 107MPH in your Tiida? But other then that did you get a alignment after you lowered the car?

[matt_a]

When you had the tires mounted on the new wheels, did you have them do a standard spin balance or did they do the better "road test" balance? By "road test" balance, I mean they use a machine which actually places a load on the tire and wheel as it balances. It ususally cost more but it gives a much better balance. Also, did you have a 4-wheel alignment done? If that is out of adjustment it can cause a vibration similar to bad balance. If you check those things and you still have the vibration, it might be possible that you have a bad wheel. That's been known to happen.

[Ever Victorious]

Also, a similar problem happened to me with a set of sport tires that had belt damage inside the radial. It took a long time of driving on it to actually get a visual indicator as to what was happening, but once I saw it I pulled over at the next tire shop and had them replaced.

[chinadan]

aaaaah, think brand new country with brand new toll freeways...some stretches deserted.

You can do it any time you like...and i like it a lot:)

thanks for the tips though. i have not done an alignment but will do it after the tire shop had a chance to respond. road tests are sifficult to come by, so they mostly do balancing. i think I saw the tire wobble, not the rim.

[matt_a]

...road tests are sifficult to come by, so they mostly do balancing.

I hope you didn't misunderstand me when I called it "Road Test" balancing. They don't actually drive your car. It's just a better machine method that many tire shops offer now. Here is an explanation of what I meant (this was cut from another article):

One of the best methods available today is called road or radial force variation balancing. This requires the use of a special balancing machine equipped with a roller on a robotic arm whose purpose is to exert rolling force onto the tire/wheel assembly. What this equipment does is measure how round the tire and wheel are under a true load. The data collected from the test is valuable because sometimes a tire may be “out of round” and still appear to be perfect. Once the machine determines the high spot (section of the tire that exerts the most force on the road) it digitally recommends an index position of the tire in relation to the wheel. Basically it tells the mechanic to spin the tire on the rim until the highest spot on the tire is even with the lowest spot on the rims run-out.

[chinadan]

Matt, I got exactly what you meant but was too lazy to type more elaborately on my PDA...

A similar test setup is used to do destructive testing of tires.

So far (and I am still discovering) I have not found a decent outfitter that has such capability but that would literally take the problem to where the "rubber meets the road"...

Thanks for your suggestion through, I will try to communicate this to the local mechanics...

[CodeRed]

Make sure all your lug nuts are tight... Get an alignment or you can kiss those new tires away real soon.

[chinadan]

Will do as soon as wife, work and weather align...but I still have a hard time grasping what alignment could have to do with vibrations.

Isn't alignment all about the attitude of the wheel relative to the road and vehicle? My car runs straight as an arrow and I see no abnormal tread wear. Which aspect of alignemtn would I be looking for specifically in terms of vibration?

Toe-in, camber...?

Thx.

[CodeRed]

There is 3 anglescamber:

Caster:

Toe:

If one of them is off it could be wearing your tires unevenly or even making that noise.

My car ran straight but my caster was off so it wore my tires all weird.

Get an alignment first, mabey your wheels rebalanced with load applied.

Update us.

[COVersaSL]

IMO if the hub-centric rings have play then that is most likely the problem.