Road Force Wheel Balance

[moonwink]

https://www.hunter.com/wheel-balancers/road-force-touch

This is a shout out for Hunter's Road Force "Vibration Control System" GPS9700 wheel balancer.  I just had my tires balanced on this machine yesterday at the Purcell Tire & Service Center in Fenton, MO.  The difference is remarkable.  I had problems finding someone with the balancer that would balance the tires on my motorhome but Purcell's main line is big truck tires and they gladly provided the service.  The cost was $30/tire (I could have saved $2/tire if I'd just brought the tires in which I'd had to do with a few other tire shops in the past not willing to allow class A MHs in their service area).  I opted to let them handle the whole job.  They rotated the tires and adjusted the tire pressure while they were at it.  My tires were made by Dunlop (Goodyear) and are 4 years old with about 20,000 miles on them - we bought it 3-1/2 years ago with these tires on it at the time.  It has always had a slight vibration that came and went.  I tired having the rear tires balanced last year with no success.  I tired a set of "CentraMatic" balancers with no success.  I'm not a fan of the ceramic crystals so that wasn't an option.  Using the website I linked to above, I searched for a location near me.  The closest shop within a mile of my house refused.  Purcell is only about 10 miles on I-44 from our place so I called them next.  

The GSP9700 has a roller that presses against the tire while spinning it to see if there are any hard spots on the tire.  If it finds any, (it also checks the wheel for truness at the same time) it has the technician rotate the high spot on the tire to the low spot on the wheel and checks it again.  If the result isn't within spec, it will reject the tire or wheel or both.  The result is a "new car ride" and I love it!

I first heard about this balancer after I bought a new 2001 Residency MH on a Ford chassis that came with a balance problem.  Ford issued a TSB covering the fix but when I called the MH Assistance center, I was told the nearest dealer equiped and willing to do the job was 125 miles from me in central Illinois!  One of the problems with the early V10 chassis was the wheels were neither hub centeric nor lug centeric and 4 sets of alignment pins were needed to properly center the wheels on before tightening the lugs - Ford made the lug holes in 4 different sizes which was the reason 4 sets of pins were needed (this was remedied by the time the 2002 chassis was produced).  It came with Goodyear's G670RV tires and they went through several of them and a few wheels trying to fix it.  They were never fully successful in eliminating the tire bounce but I'm sure some of it came from a defect the Henschen tag axle which was never addressed. 

[wolfe10]

Another, "much better than standard" approach is to:

 

1. Check tire for run out.  If not correctable to less than .035" run out, TRUE THE TIRE.

2. Then, spin balance on the rig (front tires).

Both are becoming "lost arts", as Bubba with 15 minutes of training can't do it.

[moonwink]

Brett, That was going to be my question - where can you find anyone to do that sort of work?  It's hard enough around here to find anyone that allows class A MHs on their lots for service.  The shops that sold me tires 10 years ago won't even give me a quote these days.  I haven't seen a spin balance (on the vehicle) since the 1960s.  Same goes for "truing" tires.  The St Louis Metro Area isn't the biggest in the nation but it should be big enough to support that sort of work - if it was available.  Better stick with the latest technology.  I'm sure if you look at the Hunter machine and see it action, you'll agree it's the best available.  Using the link I provided, you can find the location of the nearest locations that have one.  You'll notice that most new car dealers use them (but don't bother to ask if they'll check your MH tires).  It requires a special adapter to mount the MH wheels because the hole for the hub is so large.  The balancer itself runs over $10k to start and the adapter is about $500 more. 

There's a Ford dealer that I bought tires through about 12 years ago and had them balanced (at $50 a tire! and I had to bring them the old tires off the vehicle because they don't work on MHs) told me last year they wouldn't sell or mount the tires anymore.  They would check them on their balancer but if the tires needed to be broken down and turned on the rims, I'd have to take them to another location to have that done.  They now charge $75 each time they check a tire (break down the tire and rotate it - that's another charge).  Almost the same thing with a Firestone company store where I bought 4 Bridgestone tires a year after working with the Ford dealer above.  They no longer wanted to deal with me.  The price for the tires had doubled and said they'd need to jump through hoops to get them if they could get them at all. 

I found a "Big O" dealer about 100 miles down I-44 in Rolla, MO who had a great price on Sumitomo tires but they only offered the crystals/beads for balancing and acted like they didn't even own a tire balancer.

[manholt]

I take it, you have a Ford chassis, gas, class A?  I wish you would list what you have.

[moonwink]

How's that Carl?

[jleamont]

16 minutes ago, Moonwink said:

How's that Carl?

He must be on mobile, I have notice when on mobile the signature doesnt display on your phone. I am on a PC at the moment and I can see your signature 

004 Safari Trek 31SBD
Ford F53-V10 20,500lb Chassis
Koni FSDs, Rear Trac Bar, Rear Firestone Air Bags, Cheap Swaybar Fix
Tires Balanced with Hunter GSP9700 Road Force Vibration Control System

[moonwink]

I just added a signature.
It took me awhile to find where I add it.  Not very intuitive.
I thank Carl for encouraging me to get with the program.