A word of caution when replacing tires!

I recently had new tires installed at a firestone. I replaced the tires with the same Bridgestone Dueler HT 265/65/17 that were on it when I purchased my truck because the ride was great. After driving home from firestone The truck had a bad shimmy at 50+ MPH. I called the guy at Firestone and told something is just not right and its not a very smooth ride. He rebalanced the wheels and still no improvement. I then heard about road force balancing and thought to give it a try. I took it to another shop and had it done. It helped alot but still had vibration at highway speeds.
I then contacted the dealer and asked them if there were problems with balancing Tacoma alloy wheels, She explained to me that there is a tool called the Haweka adapter kit that must be used on Toyota 5 and 6 lug wheels to mount the wheel properly on the balancing machine. Without this adapter the wheel does not sit on the cone balancer properly causing inaccurate balancing.
Well Folks, Just drove home from the dealer after having the tires rebalanced for the fourth time and this time it was done right. Smooth ride, no shaking in the steering wheel and no vibration in the seat at highway speeds.
So if anyone out there needs new tires and you have the factory alloy 6 lug wheels make sure the shop doing it is using the Haweka adapter kit on their Balancer. It will save you a ton of problems.

 

ty! rep sent

 

Ah yes, the old hub-centric vs. lug-centric debate.

Marc M

 

YUP. I'e known this for years. It only applies to the factory wheels. I'd recomend getting all your tires road force balanced on a Hunter 9700 machine. FYI, most tire kingdumbs and tirespluses have the machine, however they charge more than a local Ford or other Dealership. The dealerships also have better techs. I use a local Ford dealer for all my tire, balancing and alignment work on toyotas and Suzki's. Lowest prices in town, awsome work. Pretty sure my local Toyota dealer has one... just haven't gotten around to trying them out. maybe next time.

 

Thanks for the info!

 

With all the new memers this is a great thing to bring up. Way to go.

 

think this would apply to my ivans? If i remember right, they have a slight shimmy to them

 

Hub-centric is nothing new... but good that your spreading the word.

 

I went through the same problems a few years ago with BFG AT's and won't use any other machine now. Hunter has a store locator on their website.

http://www.gsp9700.com/pub/search/findgsp9700.cfm

 

How much did they charge you?

 

thanks for the info!

 

The dealer charged me $ 65.00 to rebalance all 4 tires. The funny thing is the service rep that I talked to new what the problem was as soon as I said,I just had new tires put on. Toyota has service TSB out for this that I was not aware of. I thought I could go any where and get tires, would'nt you?

 

Do you know the TSB for the tires?

 

The TSB number is SU002-96, and states, To improve the accuracy of dynamic off-car wheel balancing on all OEM toyota five and six lug wheels, a precision wheel adapter kit must be used. For the greatest accuracy and repeatability, Toyota recommends using the Haweka adapter kit.

 

Thanks-I added to your rep...

 

As long as we're on the subject of mounting tires, make sure you tell them which side of the tire to mount, OWL in or out. Ask me how I know....

 

Good to know!