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If you have wheel balancing issues in NJ- Read!

6K views 26 replies 11 participants last post by  Cmonkey713 
#1 ·
I installed the goodyear forteras and hade them installed about 3 weeks ago and from day one I had that infamous shimmy at 70+mph. I brought my car to Euro Tire in Fairfield NJ this morning to get an alignment and told him about the issue quite a few people were having. Bill from Euro Tire stated that you don't need the road force balance machine to correctly balance the combo. He said he will take a look and fix my issues. all I can say is that the truck now drives like it should have from the factory. Its lowered on Road magnet with SRT reps. If you have any shimmy issue and having issues getting resolved, bring it to Bill at Euro Tire and he will take care of it.
 
#2 ·
So for folks who are not near NJ...what did your new friend Bill do to correct this? (I never had the problem with the OEM Forteras, but some folks have)
 
#5 ·
Agreed. These guys are very pricy but every time I bring a vehicle there, I leave with no issues. For 4 wheels balanced and 4 wheel alignment on truck being lowered. It was $250 but well worth it after driving with a shimmy for over a month.
 
#6 ·
I just called Euro tire as I am 30 minutes from there. I mentioned your experience with Bill and also mentioned your post on this forum about the dreaded shimmy. He was quite appreciative of your recommendation of him. I have an appt this Saturday morning to balance my tires. During our conversation he mentioned that sometimes balancing on a non road force machine is needed for these types of issue as you need to spin the tire at high speed to properly balance the wheel/tire and eliminate the shimmy. That's what he will be doing to mine and that's probably what he did to yours. Thank you for posting this. I really hope he resolves this for me. He quoted me $20.00 per tire. Keeping my fingers crossed.
 
#10 ·
Well, I might as well try. One thing that was never done was balancing these tires on a regular balancer. All the balance attempts to get rid of the shimmy was with a Road Force balancer. If it doesn't work this time its only $40 ($20 per tire) out of my pocket. The obvious next step would be to demand that the dealership replace my tires with a new set. If only they would let me choose Michelin MS2'S.
 
#11 ·
Well, I might as well try. One thing that was never done was balancing these tires on a regular balancer. All the balance attempts to get rid of the shimmy was with a Road Force balancer. If it doesn't work this time its only $40 ($20 per tire) out of my pocket. The obvious next step would be to demand that the dealership replace my tires with a new set. If only they would let me choose Michelin MS2'S.
vnbWK2,

Do you have vibration in your floor board through out car when driving 70MPH+? If you do, then I would recommend balancing all 4. I had a vibration throughout and it is now gone.
 
#13 ·
Update: Unfortunately I still have the vibration so I basically wasted money on the re-balance. The dealer is replacing my front rotors tomorrow under warranty since I also get the vibration when applying the brakes. I doubt bad front rotors are the cause for the vibration (without applying brakes) at 65-70 mph, but at least I'm getting new front rotors. Might just be the damn tires (bad belt?) after all? But I question ALL 4 tires being bad???
 
#14 ·
I'm getting the shimmy in the wheel and through my floorboards and passenger seat over 70, but I'm running srt reps and lower profile tires, so I can't return to the dealership. I've had the front tires balanced and replaced one wheel the shop said was "bent".

Anyone else have a solution to this? The fronts weren't road force balanced, and I'm in the midwest so I can't go to NJ.
 
#15 ·
I'm getting the shimmy in the wheel and through my floorboards and passenger seat over 70, but I'm running srt reps and lower profile tires, so I can't return to the dealership. I've had the front tires balanced and replaced one wheel the shop said was "bent".

Anyone else have a solution to this? The fronts weren't road force balanced, and I'm in the midwest so I can't go to NJ.
If I were you I would try taking it somewhere with a road force balancer and having all 4 road force balanced first. you can take it back to the dealer have them do it if they have a road force balancer but they will just likely charge you.

if road force balancing doesn't work then pursue other solutions. road force balancing fixed it for mine.
 
#16 ·
I have the same issue with my new 2014 GC RWD 5.7. The factory balance was awful, started to shimmy at 50 MPH. The tires have been balanced two times now at Discount Tire and it helped but still not right. So I took it to a high-end tire shop that had a Hunter 9700 Road Force balance machine. Balance is now good up to about 68 MPH but seems pick up the shimmy after that. They say the tires are round with no defects so the only thing it can be is still a balance issue. Back it goes on Monday for another look at the balance. Hey vnbWK2 can you find out specifically what you guy Bill did. It sounds like he did trial and error and worked with it until he got a zero balance reading, can you please verify for us.
 
#24 · (Edited)
Hey vnbWK2 can you find out specifically what you guy Bill did. It sounds like he did trial and error and worked with it until he got a zero balance reading, can you please verify for us.
They put my Jeep on a lift one foot off the ground and had all four tires spinning to see if they could visually see any tire out of round. They were all good according to them. Then they balanced the tires by adding weights, spinning\checking and doing this a few times on each wheel. Its better but the shimmy still appears intermittently, which is the frustrating part.
 
#17 ·
It seems this 20" wheel with the foteras is hard to balance. I took mine to a private shop that had a hunter 9700 and all they did was make it worse. The next stop was the dealer and they re balanced all 4 and that completely resolved the issue and they didn't even charge me. The first shop charged me $40 for a poor job.
 
#19 ·
I have 20inch SRT reps with General GMax directional tires on the front and Nitto NT 420S asymmetrical tires on the rear.

I just talked to the shop and he said because I'm using different tires on the front and rear of a 4wd it could be causing the issue? I'll see if he will road force balance them next week and see if it cures the issue.
 
#20 ·
Today I spent six hours at a high end tire and service shop to see if they could fix my shimmy problem which comes in about 68 MPH. What happened was after a Hunter Road Force 9700 machine balance it was a little better but not fixed. They checked the OEM Forteras and found that three of the four were out of round. They contacted Goodyear and were credited with a new set of Forteras which they installed and Road Force balanced. Another road test and things improved but still not right. The guy wanted to install a new set of Bridgestone's which would cost me another $300 over the credit for the Goodyear's. At this point I would try anything so on go the Bridgestone's. After another Road Force balance and double checking the balance on a Hunter non-road Force machine, we road tested again. Still no good. These guys are really good and said it must be something in the suspension or hubs. They found TSB 27-003-14 on this very thing calling for hub replacement. They reinstalled the second set of Goodyears and recommended we contact the dealer and have the hubs replaced under warranty since the GC has only 1900 miles. I will let everyone know how this turns out after the dealer replaces the hubs. :mad:
 
#27 ·
What they did on mine was install a set of top of the line Bridgestone's on the OEM 20" wheels. Before mounting the tires they checked the run-out on the wheels just to make sure the wheels were true. Mounted and Hunter RoadForce balance. Not much change in the shimmy. After determining the wheels and tires were good that's when they narrowed it down to the hubs. Have the wheels and tires been checked for out-of-round and true? if not, that's where I would look next. I know how much this irritated me so I set out on a mission to fix the problem. Please let us know what you find.
 
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