Hawkeka Adapter / Road Force Balancing in DFW

Does anyone have a connection at a Discount Tire or any other stores that actually have and know how to use the Haweka adapter for the Tacoma’s? Or just someone who gets it right on their truck every time? Local DT store is clueless.

 

Well, I guess I can answer my own post here, LOL.

After reaching out to Goode’s Offroad for a recommendation, he turned me onto Discount Tire off Forest Lane. I worked with Luke Lukaszewski who is the manager for that location, and he promptly raised the bar for what customer service and professionalism is in my book.

After the Discount Tire in Las Colinas completely botched the road force balance of my new Falken Wildpeaks and the manager got extremely defensive as soon as I started politely asking questions about the flange adapters, final road force values found on the tires etc, Luke told me to come in and that we will go over each tire together, on their new Hunter machine, together with one of his senior techs who is most familiar with the machine.

Long story short, every tire that DT Las Colinas installed was balanced incorrectly, and we got road force values way down for 3 of 4 tires, sometimes dropping as much as 20lbs of RF weight - and Luke immediately arranged a warranty replacement for the one with an excessive road force value. In about an hours time, I went from nearly pulling my hair out at how bad the truck rode after the first install, to damn near perfect. (it will be once the last tire comes in on Monday)

Luke and his senior tech personally went over every tire, had no problem with me hanging out with them right next to the machine to see the results and initial finding from first balance, and finally they torqued every lug nut correctly and in pattern with a torque wrench, not going ham with an impact like at the other store.

From here on I will happily make the drive to this store and work with Luke for every tire I need, and I recommend all of you in the DFW area to do the same for your Tacoma or 4R. I attached Luke’s card - Tell him FlyingViking with the army green Tacoma sent you!

 

I've never road force balanced my tires - does it make a huge difference?

 

In the case of my tires, and from what I’ve seen in general from Tacoma owners - massive difference. Not worth seeking out if you have no vibrations already, but it can definitely mitigate a lot of imperfections on larger tires like 33” and up.

 

yes road force can make a huge difference.

 

we have a road force balancer at work.. made a massive difference on my coopers. Took less weight than the non road force and it drives smoother