Over the past few weeks I've noticed my car has developed a bit of a vibration and on the way home last week on a 130 mile motorway trip I felt like at least one of the wheels were going to come off.  Not sure if it had actually got worse or if  it's because I was forced to drive between 65-75 MPH for much 9f the way,  just the range where it seemed to resonate.  Obviously this range is typical of out of balance wheels but I was not feeling any wobble through the steering.

 

Got it into a local tyre outlet on Friday and asked them to balance the wheels,  explained about feeling nothing through steering and asked them to balance the rears first and if this threw up the issue to leave it at that.  I also asked them to look out for any runout on the wheels.

A couple of hours later they called to say they'd found the rears were out and with just them done the car drove without a problem.  As well as finding them out of balance they also noticed that the NS wheel was running out "slightly". Picked the car up and it did indeed seem to be sorted.

It was dark by the time I picked it up so couldn't really have a look at it but next day checked it out and found that it had required a strip of weights about 8" long on the NS wheel.

 

So what is odd?

Well I just can't work out why a wheel should suddenly go out of balance and need so much weight. OK it is possible that the wheel had a large weight on previously and lost it but, although these tyres were on when I got the car, I have had the wheels off before and think I'd have noticed such a large weight.

It could be due to the runout in the wheel but I've not had any pot-hole moments and as I'm running 16" wheels with fat tyres I'd expect it to have been a "biggie".

Only fair to say my wife has also driven the car but she swears not to have had any "incidents"

I know some times tyres lose a bit of balance as they wear but wouldn't expect this much particularly from decent (Michelin) tyres.

 

I guess I need to try and get my dial gauge on the wheel and quantify the runout and make a decision whether to invest in some new wheels before I neXT change tyres (I'm expecting about 5-8,000 miles)

 

Has anyone else ever experienced tyres suddenly developing a large out of balance condition?  If so any idea of cause? 

 

I've had a tyre suddenly go out of balance, but it was because the old balancing weights fell off.  You could see the less-dirty part where they were.  So I don't think that's the same as your situation.

 

I've also had a large gob of something sticky throw the balance out, but it was visible on the treads and I could clean it off so I doubt it's that for you either.

13 hours ago, Gdcobra said:

Only fair to say my wife has also driven the car but she swears not to have had any "incidents"

 

I'm not a betting man, but given how much my wife fails to notice stuff, I'm putting a tenner on the wheel taking a beating.

 

Edited 11 December, 20187 yr by silver1011

3 minutes ago, silver1011 said:

 

I'm not a betting man, but given how much my wife fails to notice stuff, I'm putting a tenner on the wheel taking a beating.

 

Lol, yep, the pothole I hit recently, I sent my wife a text to warn her about it as she drives the same road to work, and of course she drove straight through it as well

5 hours ago, silver1011 said:

 

I'm not a betting man, but given how much my wife fails to notice stuff, I'm putting a tenner on the wheel taking a beating.

 

To be fair she is normally quite good with such things and it's hard to imagine hitting a pothole with the rear but not the front, although possible of course.

 

My main concernis what to do when I fit new tyres, which is probzbly only a couple or three months away.  I don't really want to put new tyres on out of round wheels so I'll be looking out for so e replacements, probably 17", although if I'm going second hand I may end up as bad as now or worse even.

 

I need to clock this wheel up and find how fare out it is.