Versace1230

I just put my maya RT5's on last week and the steering wheel shakes when i drive above 30mph and the back left rim wobbles a little bit from looking at in the rear view mirror. So i replaced the fronts with stock wheels and the backs are still the rt5's and the steering wheel doesn't shake anymore. Any suggestions as to what the problem could be? I thought it was the spacers but replaced those, the guy that put them on said its the tires but i have never really heard of that being an issue, i was thinking possilby the wheels weren't balanced correctly by them, i don't see how the rim could be bent when the rims are brand new, what do you guys think? Offset in front is 36mm with 5mm spacers and 32mm in the rear with 5mm spacers, a little bit of rubbing, tires are 235/35-19 and 265/30-19.

Bigdot

sounds like a typical wheel balance problem.


get it re done!

Mark

kickR

goodyear eagles?

Cee

Just ran into this on a brand new set of rims and tires for my car, front right causing steering vibration and rear left causing vibration. I purchased Toyo Proxes T1R's, by no means a cheap tire. One giant misconception is that tires and wheels are truely round, this is not the case. Hence the need for tire & wheel balancing. Sometimes a high speed dynamic balance just isn't enough, especially with the size of rims and low profile tires out there now.

What I did is take my vehicle to a shop that can "Road Force Measure and Balance" tires and wheels using a Hunter GSP9700 Road Force machine. Most Mercedes dealerships can do this for a reasonable price ($80-90 for all 4) and provide you print out results. The different here is not only are they dynamically balancing your wheel and tire, they are measuring the actual force in which your tire makes contact with the pavement. Much like your hand slapping the ground. Tires and wheels typically have a low point; on a rim this is where you'll normally see the valve stem hole. On new tires, there's usually a marking on the sidewall that will indicate the tire low point. Also, some tires will have stiffer and softer areas only visible under load. When a tire and wheel is too far out of round it will create vibrations since in essence it's like an egg rotating very quickly. If the measurments are low enough for the Road Force machine to correct, what they will do is match the tire low point and rim low point to get as close to round as possible (involes deflating the tire and rotating it on the rim as well as repositioning weights). Target for a good road force measurement is less then 10lbs out (wheel and tire). My front right was 26lbs out (borderline road force correctable, 26-27 is the limit) and the back left was 31lbs out (way out of limit). With the print out results the company I ordered my wheels and tires from will replace them.

Hope this helps. Here is a link of Authorized Hunter Road Force shops.
http://www.gsp9700.com/pub/search/findgsp9700.cfm

ultraseven

Is it typical for Eagles to trigger steering wheel vibration? I seem to feel it at higher speeds which I have never felt with the Michelin Pilot PS2's.

Nuvolari

If you are using aftermarket wheels, make sure that the wheel centeres are properly centered on the hubs. This is often achieved using centering rings. I had the EXACT problem as you and traced everything:

- The rims were brand new
- Tires were brand new and I had Michelin replace all 4 suspecting an out of round tire
- New wheel alignment
- On car balancing
- Multiple attempts to balance the wheels

After all this time and expense all I did was use these simple centering rings on the hubs and the wheels ran perfect. Do not assume that the conical fit of the wheel bolts automatically center the wheels. THEY DO NOT! Make sure your rims are hubcentric and if not buy some centering rings. They should be available anywhere wheels are sold and should cost you less than $10.

kickR

I am experiencing the same problem with my two new front goodyear eagles. I already had them balanced twice (once at mercedes and once at audi) and the audi mech told me that they were experiencing big time problems with those tires on the R32 and that they dont recommend them, regardless the good feedback on tirerack etc.

Im just now heading out to a garage that does that Road Force test and Ill let you know how it turned out.

kickR

Tires and wheels checked out with 9lbs and 15lbs.
I guess its the spacers then, although they didnt give me troubles with the contis. That will be my next try in hopefully fixing it.

Cee

What's the center bore on your wheels by chance? For the MB hub the outer bore I believe is 66.56. If the center bore on your wheel is considerably larger make sure you get some hubcentric rings or a hubcentric spacer. A non-hubcentric spacer or lack of hubcentric rings will only exacerbate the vibrations due to your wheel & tire assembly being mounted out of center and putting all the load on your lug bolts. Also, the 15lbs out wheel & tire assembly will still generate some minor vibration, especially if it's on the front of the vehicle.

kickR

I ordered a pair of 5mm HR hubcebtric spacers and hopefully that will do the trick. I have no idea though about the center bore.

Cee

It's pretty easy to measure the center bore of you're wheel. For a proper measurement you should take the wheel off and measure across the inside of it's center hub. With this measurement you can do some searches for 66.56/7x.xx (7x.xx being whatever you measure your wheel's center bore in MM) hubcentric rings. They're pretty inexpesive (@$10) and should of been provided by whomever you order your aftermarket wheels from.

Versace1230

Yeah took my rims back to the rim shop and checked the balance and found that one of the front rims was out of balance so we rebalanced them and still have the same problem. SO i guess the next step is to use hubcentric spacers? Does anyone know the exact sizes that i would need to get? ANd what company makes them?

kickR

I ordered mine from H&R which from reading many posts on this board are of good quality and measurements.

important is that theyre hubcentric, thick enough to clear your brakes, and in the 5x112 bolt pattern.

If hubcentri spacers dont help ill measure the center bore. thanks for your help so far cee.