not08crmanymore

Have new tires waiting to be put on at Firestone. They don't have a road force machine...The guy said their's balances up to maybe 70 mph.What happens if you go over 70 mph?? Should I just get them installed someplace that has the correct machine?Thanks.

j_digi454

It's your call but I certainly would have them balanced properly on the right equipment.

z51vett

Road force bal the way to go and on car bal had mine done front and back on car whoa what dif.
z51vett

MisterMidlifeCrisis

That probably means it spins the tires up to 70 MPH. There's a detection threshold for imbalance on the machine, and the faster you spin a wheel, the greater the effect of the imbalance. Being able to spin it at 70 MPH means it will detect smaller amounts of imbalance than a machine that can only spin it to, say, 30 MPH, but the wheel will be capable of being driven at whatever speed you want and not limited to the speed the balancing machine can spin the wheel at.

I have not often seen the need for road force balancing with good rims and high end tires, but if you are going to be road tracking your vehicle at speeds into the 130-150 range or higher, than by all means get it road force balanced. If you don't do this, I would guess this machine will be sufficient.

Ketchum

Road Force balancing detects if tire and wheel don't match. Too great a variance. High spot of tire and high spot of wheel etc. if too great it signals this. Tire then is broken down and turned on the rim. Good tires and good wheels nothing is needed and then the balance is the same as any other electronic balance. I was in a Firestone company store few weeks back and they didn't have a road force balance either. Manager said they rarely had a balance issue.

sportcruiser

Agree with this. Roadforce balance compensates for imperfections in the tire. With older style, high profile tires, these imperfections were absorbed. With new, low profile tires, these imperfections transfer to the wheel and into the car.

If you are lucky enough to get 4 perfectly manufactured tires, roadforce will not improve a perfect situation. However, if your drive on the standard balance, and then take your Firestones to get Roadforce balanced, you will likely feel a big difference. I did exactly this (Firestone Wide-Ovals) and it's like glass. When in doubt, go with the standard balance and get a Roadforce balance only if you feel vibration.

Swiftrider08

Speed has nothing to do with balance. It's the quality of the machine and the level of imbalance that the machine can detect that matters. Out of balance is out of balance at any speed. Again, the quality of the machine and the sensitivity of the sensors is what matters.

I use to work for a company that had a sister company called Micro Poise that made balancing machines for OEM's, so I was around these things all the time and was very good friends with several of the engineers who taught me how they worked.

Not trying to start an argument, just saying to look for a high quality machine. If the Firestone store you are using will back up their balance, then I would not worry about it.

Bill Dearborn

to a certain extent. I wouldn't spend the money to road force balance a track wheel/tire combo. A lot of guys don't balance them at all. Once the tire gets hot and the driver starts hammering the brakes to slow from 160 mph the tire tends to move on the rim and destroy any balance you have. You may notice at a track event that a lot of people mark their tires so they can tell if they moved on the rim. I get mine balanced and I mark the tires and I have experienced a sudden inbalance in a wheel/tire assembly and when I checked the tire back in the garage I could see that it slipped. A pretty severe thump at 70 to 80 seems to smooth out at about 120 and up so it isn't much of an issue.

Bill

MisterMidlifeCrisis

Bill,

This is with normal tires, not R rated? I've never seen a normal tire, installed correctly, generate enough braking force to cause it to rotate on a wheel, but am always willing to be proved wrong (and learn something in the process). Meanwhile, I've also experienced a wheel that feels okay but at triple digit speeds has generated enough vibration to make the rearview mirror unusable. Hard to wave someone by if you can't see them!

BoosterClub

Doubtful unless you had bad tires. Road force balancing is not necessary for 99% of balancing. The machine was created to reduce the number of defective tire claims (by showing that it is indeed a problem with the tire and not some other issue causing vibration) and basically amounts to a defective tire detector.

It was then marketed as a "better" balance to liberate you from the cash in your wallet and help pay for that expensive machine that doesn't do anything from most people.

Most of the time even if you have your tires balanced on a road force machine, the actual road force readings can and are completely ignored, and what is done is no different than a regular balance. If a road force problem is shown and the tire remounted so the "low and high" match up, all you are really doing is putting a bandaid on bad tires/rims.

Gearhead Jim

Depends on what you mean by "necessary".

For our grocery-getters that seldom go above 80 mph, not necessary.

But we've had a total of 6 sets of tires on previous Camaros and Corvettes where at least one wheel/tire could never be made acceptable to me for balance at high speeds, by people using the traditional machines. Every one of them became acceptable after being adjusted using the Road Force balancer.

Most tires and wheels are "bad" in the sense that they're not perfectly round. Sometimes the variations will counteract each other and you'll be fine, sometime they stack up and it's horrible, usually you get something in between. The road force balancer is simply a quick and easy way for the tech to detect variations and correct them. Since I hate having the shop do trial and error work, I just use a shop with the road force balancer and they get it right the first time. What's not to like?

not08crmanymore

Good info.I don't or haven't been to the drag strip to race in a few years.I did Carlisle road course a couple of years ago and probably will again when I go and once in a while I plant my right foot to 3 digit area on the speedo,but 90% is just regular around town driving or driving at highway speeds on a trip.So I guess road force is overkill.