Car Shakes at 60+ mph

ngd298

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'11 Mazda2 5MT, '05 Silverado 5MT, '87 RX7 Sport, Grom, Ninja300
I got new Sparco Assetto Gara 16x7 wheels and General G-Max AS-03 tires (205/45-16) about 2,000 miles ago and I have had them balanced 3 times over the past month or so and road force balanced yesterday and the shake doesn't change at all, it still shakes over 60 (the shake is worse at some speeds than others). The car was also aligned a couple thousand miles ago. I don't know what I should check next, and I don't know if I should take it to the dealer because of my Eibach springs, any suggestions/ideas?
 
I don't see the Eibach springs being a dealership problem as they are the same springs Mazda uses on the 2 for their lowering kit.
Also I agree with Brian. If you didn't use Hubcentric Rings you should try that.
 
Sometimes you get a guy that dosen't know what he is doing make sure they cone it from the back and do an alloy two dynamic balance. The road force balance does two important things for you it notifies you if you have an out of round tire as well as tells you exactly where to locate the wheel and tire together to use the least amount of weight possible. I always recommend hub rings but also sometimes you cant dynamically balance a wheel you can only do a static down the middle because the assembly will start to counterbalance itself so if all else fails try 1 single tape down the middle .
 
lock nuts? Some Miata drivers have reported that using 4 of the same lug nuts vs 3 + 1 lock nut got rid of their vibrations.
 
Road force but what were the final numbers. And how much do these wheels weigh? I would not go over 15 lbs. And lock type lug nuts create vibration if they weigh a few grams more than the standard ones. Math is easy to do here.
 
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I don't agree with the lock nut thing...I've never experienced that. It does seem like it could throw off the balance, but it doesn't. My vote would be that rings are needed or the guy doing your balance is missing something. I once had a vibration after new tires and took it back FOUR times before they got the balance right. Re-torque your lugs too, that one's too easy not to check. I do that automatically since I just don't trust other people to never make a simple mistake.
 
Yeah I agree with eyeballs the wheelock thing just sounds like a monkey flew out of someone's mouth somewhere. I've mounted and balanced thousands of wheels and tires and have yet to have seen wheel locks cause any kind of vibration whether it be mcguard, gorilla, spline or any other type they're all pretty close to being the same weight unless you have some ridiculously large lock nut. Also if you have hub rings make sure they didn't accidentally stack two on top of one another sometimes when your tires are rotated or when guys aren't looking they may accidentally stack hub rings and that's detrimental.
 
A real quick story 1 time we had a guy who kept coming in for balancing over and over and over again. Then 1 day after we had balanced his wheels we watch the guy as he was leaving he went around his car any put these huge valve caps on. We walked out and educated him. To our surprised he had these huge skull valve caps they must've weighed 2 grams each.
 
Hey everybody, thanks for the help. I have 54.1 mm hub rings, and I tighten the lugs one at a time in quarter turn increments with the car in the air so they are centered pretty well. I watched them balance the tires all three times and each mechanic balanced them properly. The lug nuts are all identical and brand new, also all of the suspension parts and bolts are on tight. I put the front tires on the back and the vibration has been reduced quite a bit, so I'm beginning to think one or more of the cheap "made in brazil" tires may be to blame. With the better tires up front and the vibration at a somewhat tolerable level I think I'm just gonna run them until the fronts wear out and then get some S-Drives, BFG's or michelins.
 
Those are tires you list are in order. Good, Better, and Best. :) . Yeah it pays in the long run to stay away from cheapo's! No (Wan Li's) here.
 
Seriously, I have spent $160 on balancing alone, so no more cheapo tires. I should have learned my lesson when I bought $70 Walmart goodyears for my truck a few years back. 9,000 miles and about 6 or 7 flats..haha
 
I don't agree with the lock nut thing...I've never experienced that. It does seem like it could throw off the balance, but it doesn't. My vote would be that rings are needed or the guy doing your balance is missing something. I once had a vibration after new tires and took it back FOUR times before they got the balance right. Re-torque your lugs too, that one's too easy not to check. I do that automatically since I just don't trust other people to never make a simple mistake.

I definitely agree here. Balancing is easy to get wrong. Really easy - I would have that checked by another party first. I also have had three types of locking lugnuts on different wheel sets over the years and never a vibration problem, so I doubt that is the culprit. Check balancing, and do check your lugnuts all around just to eliminate the easy potential problems first.

Edit: Nevrmind - I see, gladly, it seems the problem is resolved ^_^
 
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Well, last night I was driving home from work and the shaking is back. I guess the bumpy road disguised it when I said that I thought it was doing better. I think I'll take it back to the Chevy dealer and get them to do the road force balance again and make sure the rim isn't bent, because it has to be in the wheel or tire since it instantly started shaking as soon as I got the new wheels and tires. If it still shakes I am going to call General Tire and get them to replace the tires and see if that helps.
 
Sometimes a slightly bent axle can give wierd balancing problems that come and go. Need to jack up each wheel and spin them. Some care needs to be used :)

JJ
 
since it instantly started shaking as soon as I got the new wheels and tires.

To be absolutely sure it's due to the new wheels/tires, try swapping your original wheels back on if you can. It would suck to go through all the work of replacing wheels/tires, thinking they're defective, just to find out the problem is with the car.
 
The three times they balanced the wheels, did they ever check roadforce? It only takes an extra 20-30 seconds per wheel to check roadforce.
 
Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but i think before they balance the wheel and tire with the weights they spin it while the machine rolls a cylinder along the tread of the tire and measures how round the tire and wheel assembly is, and part of the wheel exceeds 18-25 pounds of force in a certain area they break the tire down and rotate it on the rim to try and make it more round. I also think there is another wheel that rolls along the edge of the rim to make sure it isn't bent.
 
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