FY: Poll on who's got the "highway shimmy"

[golfyeti]

viewtopic.php?f=18&t=20161

[CMNTMXR57]

Simple solution. Make sure all rotating pieces from bearing/hub, brakes, and wheels/tires are "true".

Never had such a problem so I voted: No, never had it.

[Bigerik]

Nope.
Had a good highway run last night. About 5 hours on the road, and no vibration. Actually made about 25 mpg on that trip too.

[msb7144]

Not usually but every once in a while it will shimmy but then it goes away....go figure.

[2.3 turbocoupe]

Have I had the shimmy? Yes, several times. Was it ever not cured by having the tires balanced? No. Discount tire gives free balances for the life of the tire, and I take advantage of that (although granted it is a pain to take it in).

I think with the 18s, these cars are a bit more sensitive to tire balance issues. I've heard similar comments from the SRT guys with their 20s.

[00Beast]

That and it's really hard to get a 0.00 balance with stick-on weights, as the GXP wheels have no bead to pound weights onto.

[05gxp]

You can get 0.00 balance with stick on weights but only if the person applying said weights knows what the hell they are doing.

If I take you to 100 shops in the region of your choice we'd be lucky to find 10 that had somebody there who knew how to properly balance a tire (Discount/America's Tire would fall into the other 90 category).

The problem I find most often is that people are lazy and they do a "static balance" which only places a weight at the rear most edge of the wheel or directly behind the spokes. Their only balancing one plane.

If you do a 2 plane dynamic balance, which places weights behind the spoke as well as near the inner bead area, it closely replicates the balancing of steel wheels of days gone by. You are balancing 2 planes and when done properly there will be no vibrations at all (assuming that all other things are functioning correctly).

With modern computer balancers they have made it so that any moron can balance a tire but for more sensitive systems it still takes a brain to do it right.

[CMNTMXR57]

This is the problem I have with Discount Tire here. The CV8-R wheels I have on the GTO are also a lipless wheel like our GXP's, and I've had to take my right front to them about 3 or 4 times to get the steering wheel to stop shaking, and I STILL think it's still a little out of balance.

If a *dang* COATS balancer wasn't so much, I'd buy my own. :D

[05gxp]

I stock Coats balancers. The cost isn't bad but the freight would kill you.

[CMNTMXR57]

How much (just out of curiosity). I know Garage Equipment Supply, where I bought my lift has them, as well as tire changers, but prices range variably. Yea, shipping would be a killer on anything like that.

Although the place I mentioned has a manual tire changer for about $100 and manual balancer for $55. Nothing fancy mind you.