2000Spirit

Getting ready for some new Goodyear GS-D3's and have been going back and forth on which balance type to use. I read some posts on the internet some say Road Force others say it's a waste of money. Looking for direction from those who have been there!

Road Force - simulates road conditions, better for extra wide tires, provides better gas mileage. Not good with some exotic tread shapes. more expensive. Requires mounter to balance, breakdown rotate tire and re-balance multiple times.

Dynamic High Speed - Better "All Speed" balance, more forgiving with rims that are not perfect, works well with all tread designs. Best used with standard width tires. Weights are place in multiple places to correct and wheel issues.

These are most of the comments I have seen and it appears some think Road Force is just a way for the tire mounters to make some extra money. The road force is an additional cost about $50.00 over the dynamic.

I am sure some of these statements contain Just try to work my way through it.

My greatest concern is smoothness though highway speeds and not to waste money on snake oil. Opinions?

gbrtng

Those Goodyear tires are very round and should not need more than a couple of ounces to balance. They are Z-rated, right? Just do the spin balance and see how the vehicle feels.
Do the road force thing as a last resort.

ZRWHAT

There's a reason they charge more for the Road Force balancing, it simulated real world driving conditions on the tire, yea, you can balance a tire and it would probably be fine but with the cost of hi tech tires these days, I'd spend a little extra to make sure the tires were right. If done correctly, nothing better as far as balancing and avoiding issues later down the road.

Regular balancing is equivelent to about a 35 mph spin test on the tire/rim combo. Figure at lets say going @ 125 mph, just 1/2 ounce out of balance can multiply into several pounds of imbalance at high speed which equals instability and heat. Heat is the death drum roll for tires..

If it were me, I'd go the RF route and be done with it.

Jagdpanzer

I bought a set GY D3s from Tire Rack a couple of years back and had them mounted on the OEM A-molds my 94 Z came with by a local tire shop who gave them just the regular spin balance which I watched them do. The tires felt alright driving around town up to 55 mph however, on the open highway above 60 mph they road a lot rougher than I expected for a $1k set of tires. About Six months afterwards I picked up a set of chrome aftermarket A-molds with a Michelin Pilots mounted up which had recently been road-force balanced with a Hunter GSP9700 machine http://www.gsp9700.com/ and boy what a difference. So about a month ago I took the wheel set with the D3s on down to a local shop with a Hunter GSP9700 machine and told the guy to do his best. Normally he charges $28 a tire for the full road force balance procedure however, he said he would work with me if they did not have much remounting involved. Turned out only one tire had to be remounted so I got by with a $75 bill. The difference was amazing. The D3s now run smooth as silk around town and at highway speeds well in excess of the posted limits. No question I'm sold on road force balancing. Your mileage my differ.

lite blue

That road force balancer is an amazing machine, with a qualified operator. It will tell him where to mount the weights, to hide them behind the spokes on the wheel. He has to use a built in pointer to tell it where one of the spokes are, and then tell it if the wheel is a five spoke, six spoke, or whatever.
Also, it will compensate for out of round wheels, out of round tires. It will tell him how to rotate the tire on the wheel to use the least amount of weights.
It's a damn cool machine!

Aurora40

Presumably the RF balance costs more because the operator may have to remount the tire for optimum balance. However, I could imagine some shops charging the extra, but not doing that part of it.

FWIW, the Ferrari dealership near me used (was a few years ago I had tires mounted there) a regular balancing machine for all the cars they see, including their Grand Am racecars and Challenge cars.

I had my Goodyears mounted there initially. They did a great job except for using cheap chinese valvestems that failed within 6 months or so. The tires were quite smooth even at super-legal speeds. When I had the valve stems replaced by a different shop, I decided to have them road-force balanced as well. I did not notice any difference.

That said, I would and do get the road-force balance done whenever I get new tires on any of our cars.

81c3

Had alot of problems with a 525i concerning wheel balance vibration issues. I went and had it RF balanced, all fixed. Any performance cars I own get RF balanced. My 95 pick up, it gets done the regular high speed balance method.

2000Spirit

Here in New Mexico it's amazing some of these mounter even know how to put the wheels on the balancer. Looks like the RF is the way to go. I imagine I need to find out a little bit more about the process and watch them to make sure they take the time to break down and balance again. I hope Discount Tire will do the right job.

My next question what determines when the operator must break down, rotate and rebalance? What should I be looking for when the work is done?