Ok, well the wife just called (she took the car to get the tires road force balanced....)

Bottom line is that they said all FOUR tires failed, AND TWO of my four new rims failed!  What that means is that those items are so far out of whack they cant get them balanced/pulled together!  The tires Im not that surprised (although all 4 is a bit disappointing), but the fact that 2 of my 4 new rims are out really is upsetting.  All stuff bought from Coker, by the way.  To be fair, the tires have a few thousand miles on them, but car has had several alignments; not sure why they should be trashed already......

So I know Coker has a lifetime warranty; Im now trying to figure out if i should get 4 new coker tires under the warranty (they woudl be prorated) or invest in 4 new ones from Diamondback or similar.....  I really dont want to do business with coker after all of this, BUT 4 new tires isnt in the budget for this summer....Id like to think that if i get 4 new cokers and get them road force balanced they would be ok, and stay ok, at least for several years (we put about 3k-4k miles/year on this car)?  Thoughts?

Also, the balancing shop said to just get 4 new tires now, and let them see if they can get them to work with the 2 "bad" rims.  (we didnt get a printout that showed how bad they were....).  Im wondering if i should just get 2 new rims anyways to get it all done at the same time?  Problem is I dont know if coker will warranty the rims, and even if they do, there is time/expense in painting the bloody things.  Does it make sense that they can use the existing rims, or am I/he dreaming? 

Thanks again for everyones help!  I REALLY appreciate it, and look forward to opinions/thoughts!

Ron Grove

Wauconda, IL

I have never heard the term road force balancing.What is this procedure?

 

Paul,

Boonville,MO

Coker was great about giving pro-rated value toward a new tire. But, they never offered any compensation for the shipping & grief involved, when 4 out of the 5 tires they sold me failed.



Diamond Backs have given me 40K mi. of quiet, trouble free service (so far), and the whitewalls clean up nicely.

6 VOLTS/POS. GRD. NW INDIANA

Yes, I was going to do diamondbacks until i found out about the coker warranty.  Now we will see if they stand by the tires when they get them or if they try to discredit the claim with something like "they werent really bad" or similar.....
Also, the shop said that they didnt recommend replacing the 2 rims now because they couldnt be 100% sure that the rims were bad... the tires were that far out of whack.  Im hoping that the rims are ok.  we will see!

Ron Grove

Wauconda, IL

Road force balancing is a method used (on a special piece of equipment made by Hunter) that tries to even out high & low spots, lateral runout, and weight offset between the rim & tire.  Think about it as putting the high spot on the tire opposite the high spot on the rim.  Others here have explained it better; you can google "road force balancing" and go to hunters website for more info...

Ron Grove

Wauconda, IL

Ron:

When I was showing my '57 Bird, I had a set of NOS Atlas tires that were 16 years old when I bought them, still in the wrappers, at '61 price.  They ran OK for a little while, then started to lose air and vibrate a little.  So I got another set of wheels, put modern local tire store radials on them, and used them as my drivers.  When I wanted to show it, I changed wheels with the "correct" tires in place.  You could do something similar if you are so inclined.  I, too, am skeptical that new tires from the same place would be any better than the old ones.

John - "The Hoosier Hurricane"

Does anyone know of a place in Wisconsin that offers road force balancing? Gary

       

Gary, 55 Vicky, St. Germain, Wisconsin

 

Where in wisconsin?  Place in grayslake, IL (not far over the border) does it for $15/wheel!  Thats the cheapest Ive EVER found it; most places charge $45 to $55/tire.

You can go to hunters web site and they have a lookup to find local dealers by zip code.

Ron Grove

Wauconda, IL

Norhtern Wi., I'll check Hunters, thanx. Gary

       

Gary, 55 Vicky, St. Germain, Wisconsin

 

It does sound like one of the wheel bearing races is out of round. Maybe a burr was raised when it was driven into place. That might explain why the nut can be tighten at a certain place in each rotation. Would that cause a shimmy?

My first car, a 54 Custom would go into a terrifying wobble at 50mph if a bump was hit just right. Although I'm certain that there were other problems balancing the tires stopped the problem.

Sometimes the upper A frame arms bend toward each other, front to back and are no onger a tight fit on the bushings. With all the work that was done to the car it sounds doubtful that this was overlooked.

http://ford-y-block.com 

20 miles east of San Diego, 20 miles north of Mexico