Can a wobbly tire be balanced out?

I have 50% left on my Duratracs and recently developed a bad vibration.

I got them rebalanced with a road force balancer and finger plate adapter (simliar to Haweka adapter).

On the road force balancer, one particular tire is very wobbly when spinning. But after the tech added the weights and rechecked the balanced, the road force balancer said "OK" despite how wobbly it still looked on the balance recheck. I thought the road force balance would for sure say bad tire or wheel.

Rebalanced 2nd time, it still looks wobbly on the road force balancer and giving the "Ok" message. It doesn't vibrate as much as before but I can still feel some.

Not sure if they can do any better with a wobbly tire or wheel? The tech think it's more of problem with the tire than the wheel.

With 50% tread, it seems of a waste to buy new tires.

 

The tire may have a broken belt.

 

That sucks. If I get a new tire under warranty with 100% tread that will be a big mis match.

 

Lots of guys replace Duratracs at 50%. The sipes only go that deep anyways. Just a thought, I know cash isn't easy to spend but Duratracs in my experience are not a tire you want to run down to the wear lines.

 

That means your tires are likely bald and you need new ones anyways.

Are you sure it isn’t the wheel that is the problem?

 

I don't know if that is the problem, I have seen it happen. I just threw that your way as something to consider.

 

It can but it requires lots and lots of rebalancing.

I got a crap alignment done and before I could get it fixed it egg-shaped one of my 255/85R16 BFM's. It's been a process but it's getting rounded out again.

You could always have it shaved too.

 

3rd time rebalancing today and still not any better. Still can easily see all of the lateral runout (wobble side to side). They even rotated the tire to a different spot on the rim and still the same.

It’s time to get rid of these garbage tires.

 

It’s the crappy duratracs IMO. Mine have gave me a fit on stock off-road wheels. Just a junk tire when it comes to road noise, smooth balancing and ride quality. My nitro trail grapplers did 100 times better than these all around. My buddy always told me that good years are only good for a year! I believe him.

 

Simple, buy the road hazard and drive a screw in the sidewall and get a free replacement when you get your next set. I’ve been swapping mine out one at a time doing this.

 

That's worth reading just to watch #8 get hammered big time. And you're right, the OP needs new tires.

 

Good Lord haha

 

OP just out of curiosity, are you running aftermarket wheels?

 

This has to be an all time low for the I've seen here on TW.

 

Don’t be jelly you didn’t think of it. Sansio pays for the tire. It’s like insurance for tires. Who has to be the wiser if the screw was picked up in the road or if it was guided there by a power drill. I still have to pay the 30 bucks for the road hazard on the new tire. Plus mount and balance.

 

The worst thing to do when you are in a hole is to keep digging. But whatever. I'll gladly throw your kind a shovel.

 

Care to elaborate on what’s so bad? I work for the company I buy my tires from and management doesn’t mind road hazarding them out for me. Sansio pays for the tire replacement, they get commission on the tire sold, and on the road hazard warranty sold, and it counts as another unit out the door.

 

When I first bought them 2 of the 4 tires were out of round and couldn’t get a good balance. Fortunately Discount Tire had great customer service because they mounted and road force balanced several Duratracs at their warehouse until they found some that had minimal road force before sending me replacements.

After that I was riding good for 30k miles until now. The lateral run out looks so bad this one tire that I don’t think it can be ever balanced correctly.

The other compliant I have is that Duratracs have horrible wet traction.

 

I probably could get a warranty replacement but the tread life will be too big of a mismatch with the other 3 tires.