KO2 Balancing Issues

They did the road force…changed nothing

 

Did you get them to print out your results? If you have stock rims and the previous tires didn't vibe there is no reason your new tires with a good balance and road force under 30lbs will. If your running aftermarket rims (I won't lie didn't read if you do or not) that is where I would lean. Like I said I had ko2's in a 35/12.5/17 and no vibes after I balanced and road forced myself. I often fix a lot of the tire shops jobs because for some reason they just can't do it. If you have a bad tire on the other hand the road force print out will be needed to get you another tire as it will show as being over 40-50lbs of road force. I wish you luck man but I don't see any reason why they will vibe if someone with a room temperature IQ balanced and road forced them to spec. Do you have aftermarket rims?

 

Another thought to keep in mind is if the truck sits for weeks at a time no matter what you'll get a vibe as the tires will develop flat spots. I often have to correct this because I work on cars that sit over winter and are only driven during the nice weather and they have horrible vibes. How it's corrected is by driving them and getting the tires hot and while they are still hot I road force and balance them.

 

I have the 265/70/16 C wall Ko2's on mine. The first shop installed them with dynabeads. 3 times back to that shop and they couldn't not get them balanced. I ended up taking the truck to a different shop with the Hunter Road Force machine. They took the beads out, preformed the road force balance and they are smooth as glass now. The second shop said that these tires at this size aren't really big enough for the beads. They are really for swampers. Hope that helps!

 

THIS ^^^ The shop i initially brought them to for the mount/balance did a pretty lousy job. Felt fine under 40 mph, but once i got up to 50-75 range, i got the same thing you are talking about. I brought it to Discount Tire (not all places can do it) as soon as got time for the road force. the first thing they said when they finished was, "that was the worst balance we have ever seen". It was a night/day difference after road force and now it glides down the interstate. Im running 285/70/17 (E) KO2s BTW. +1 for road force.

 

I've been speaking with Dustin quite a bit. He's been VERY helpful since the day I bought them. The new wheels are hubcentric, and the wheels have only seen hand tools vs air tools. I've been adamant each time I've visited the shop for a new balancing that they only tighten the lugs by hand.
A lot of great info in this thread. Thanks everyone for the advice. I'll give the road force a shot.

 

I have same size, same ko2s very smooth ride but my wheels are the 18 pro wheels

 

Does this look like too many weights to you guys? Mine has a slight shake in the steering wheel between 55 and 60 but smooth at any higher speed

 

That is a lot of weight. I am an ex Schwaby and I never had to add that much to any mud tire. But if you are only getting vibes between 55-60 then you are doing alright I guess. I get vibes between 42-47, 62-67, and around 75 with my 32" Kumho MT's... I'd love to have your vibes ha

 

I had my KO2s put on at Delta Tire on Vets across from Lowes. Haven't had any issues with mine. They use the weights that stick to the inside lip of the wheel, but I'm not sure if that matters or not.

 

It's best to use balancing weights on the inside AND outside of tires but some guys don't like the look of them. It is harder to get the tire balanced without weights on both sides of the tire though.

 

Ive been researching the shit out of how much weight is too much. Apparently it shouldn't take more than 1 percent of the weight of the wheel and tire combined to balance it. Those big you see weights are 30 grams each and the smaller ones are 22.5 and 20. All together that's definitely not more than one percent of a 53 pound tire plus however much the wheel weighs

 

No info about if your lift is cheapo. I've got 30,000mi on KO2s with no vibration.

 

Yeah i went to I-10 tire off causeway. Rough looking little place but ive heard alot of good reviews so I went there and im positive they don't have a road force balancer. I called delta today actually and im not going to be able to go in until Monday to have it looked at

 

Look for a big difference in the amount of weight on each tire, if one has a shit load more weight, they had problems with that tire. My money is on one tire being out of round, or a belt not in the right place. Happened to one of my MTR's, was never able to balance that one tire. Keep rotating the tires around if no balance weight difference, you'll be able to tell where the trouble tire is.

 

I was going off my personal experience is all and the above amount of weight is more than I ever had to use even with much larger MTs. I might have came close a few times, but that was with bent steel wheels with junk/horribly worn MTs.

 

I was at Discount Tire for a rebalance last week and was told every local Discount removed the road force balancers last year.

When I bought the Yoko Geolanders two years ago Discount had to road force them after the basic spin balance to stop the shimmy, worked great. This time sans road force they shimmy.

 

That seems very excessive. Either the tire is bad, or the wheel is bad.

I have maybe one of those weights on 2 of my wheels.

 

I thought they were too much myself but altogether they don't weigh more than one percent of the wheel and tire weight

 

No lift, the suspension is stock.
I went back to a different America's Tire to try one last time. It's actually much better as far as I can tell. They made a mess of my wheels and didn't clean them up, but at least it's on the backside of the wheel and not super visible. Don't think I'll be buying tires from America's Tire any more.