70MACH1OWNER

This whole issue is peeing me off. I have to believe the my problem is a flat spot issue since it goes away in a mile or two. I am still going ahead and get a good alignmet job and check the balance on the Steeda wheels to see if it is correct. It's the safest thing to do right now!!!!!!!!!
Scott

Fman67

Hopefully it helps...but i've been there and done that too...balanced...rebalanced...took to great shops with calibrated machines...they were spot on...still shimmies at low speed...when cold. If its flat spotting...it did it with two different brands of tires...i have another car that sits long periods of time...and it doesn't shake...and the wheels and tires are balanced by the same shop...it sucks...my dads 'Vette sits in the garage for weeks,,,and it never shimmies..he has Goodyear F-1's

blkstang06

I dont believe those Nitto's you have are flat spotting!

mikes rx

Flat spotting will occur with almost all tires...just some are worse than others, or occur sooner than others.

I had two sets of Bridgestone G009's (for two different cars) that would flat spot after just a few days, even in warm weather.

blkstang06

Yes Mike! I understand all about the principals of tires flat spotting! but this shimmy has nothing to do with flat spots! truth be known it has more to with inferior tie rod ends and ball joints!

mikes rx

I was directing my response at Fman67.

But, either way, there seems to be too many different situations going on in the same thread. So, in response to all the other threads:

If your car has been sitting for a while (~1 week or so), and you initally get a shimmy that goes away after driving the car a couple of miles, it's more than likely just flat spotting. All tires do this, just some worse than others. It's just the nature of the beast.

If you have a shimmy that's continous no matter how long you drive for, it's more than likely NOT flat spotting, and could be a number of other things that have already been mentioned.

RadBOSS

Go back to message 18#. Read the 1st URL listed. Go to a tire shop that has that equipment. Get the wheel tires checked and balanced that way.

70MACH1OWNER

I know the routine also. I am going to have the car aligned this next week to clear that as a possible issue and then I am going to take my new Steeda wheels and Nitto tires to check the balance on them. It is the only way I know how to track down my issue. It is almost like I have 2 things going on... with the stockers the shimmy is only for a mile or two when starting out then it goes away.( Maybe flat spotting) With the Steeda wheels and Nitto tires it seems to be more of a constant shimmy ( like the tires are out of balance) I will find out what the problem is and report back with my findings.
Scott

blkstang06

Thats my plan also!.............

RadBOSS

It still sounds like you are still not recognizing other possible issues beside wheel balance and you might be chasing your tail in pursuit of the holy grail of a perfectly balanced wheel tire assy. Tires are not like perfectly machined parts and homogeneously uniform in distribution of materials or properties. In terms of o/a dimensions, they are not exactly high dimensional tolerance either. They do however have specified limits. A top-notch wheel balance will not address those possible issues. Measure the circumference of your tires the next time you take them off and see how precise they are. And by tire design the lower the aspect ratio, in my experience, the more sensitive the tires seem to be to structural and dimensional variations. Some has to do with quality of manufacture. There is bound to be some variability, and some are better than others.

I have not had many tires over the years that so called 'flat spot' after sitting static (flat spotting by the way is a term that usually refers to what happens to a tire as a result of complete wheel lockup and a long skid ... then you have a real flat spot that will never go away). If they do take set after sitting, it usually goes away as the tire warms up from constant flexing as a result of tire rotation and the surface irregularities of the road. If it does not, it must be an extremely cheap and / or poorly manufactured tire - IMO

70MACH1OWNER

Hey Paul,
I do understand that there may be 20 different things that can cause the problems I am having. But so far all I have done is bit*h about it and other than changing back to the stocker wheels and tires nothing else. It is a logical process of elimination in my mind to track down the issue. Once I check the most obvious causes I will move on to the more obscure possiblilties. It's the only way I know how to proceed. I am just picking your guys brains and am trying to learn from others experiences on this board. And I appreciate your imput greatly.
Scott

RadBOSS

Scott

Well it will be interesting what you learn as you go thru the process of elimination. At least you have ruled out the rest of the car so far.

Paul

blkstang06

..........

70MACH1OWNER

So far that's true. I will report my findings and results.
Scott

70MACH1OWNER

Well I have possibly found out the issue with my new Steeda Pentars and Nitto's 555's. As I reported earlier I had a constant shimmy with these from the first time I put them on. I loaded all 4 in the pickup and hauled them to what is considered the best tire shop in the area and had them checked for run out and balance. I am happy to report the the wheels and tires run extremely true but the balance on all 4 wheels was off quite a bit. If this proves to be the issue with them I will have a bone to pick with Steeda. I have the stock wheels and tires on the car and she is scheduled for an alignment on Monday. After the alignment I will drive her for a few days with the stockers on to see if it helped any. If not I will then have them re-balanced to see if I can correct the issue with them first before putting the Steeda wheels back on. I am sure Steeda will not doing anything about my $60 balance bill today if that proves to be the problem. So much for their fancy pansy state of the art "road force balance machine"
Scott

mikes rx

Was I the first to call that????? (EDIT: no, RadBoss was)

But, hopefully it all works out. What kind of weights are you using? Stick on weights do come off from time-to-time, so that might have been the reason for the out of balance.

In terms of Steeda: I doubt that they will do anything (based off my experiences with them for other stuff). But, it wouldn't hurt to try.

But, you can use this as a good time to get LIFETIME balancing on your rims/tires from that tire shop. Like I said, if you are using stick-on weights, they're more likely to fall off than hammered on weights. (Obviously, only you can determine if it's worthwhile to get the lifetime balancing or not).

Also, you may want to see about using hammered weights on the inside only (if your wheel can accomodate it). That's what I did with my GT500's, and for my SVT 10th anny's on my past mustang (the 10th anny's allowed outside hammered weights, but my tire guy was able to balance them with just inside weights, which made it look MUCH nicer). But, that way, you have hammered on weights that, IMO, are more reliable.

So, take the bad and turn it into a good.

blkstang06

Steeda charged for balancing?......Steeda's HAL9000 must have been having a bad day!.... Even though my FR500's where counterbored I pulled those rotor clips and my shimmy seems to be gone!

70MACH1OWNER

Hi Mike,
Yes you called it. It will be a week or 2 before the Steeda's go back on the car to see for sure but I suspect the balance was the problem with them. The Pentars wheels can't use the hammered on weights at all. They can only use the glue on type. I did check to see if it looked like any had fallen off from Steeda but there was no evidence of that. I can't say for sure it was a bad balance job by Steeda for sure yet...but that is what it seems like. And your right... I am sure Steeda will not do anything about my balance charges but it will make me feel better if I can bit*h about it.
Scott

blkstang06

Hey, Oldmach1dude! You might as well complain about Steeda's balancing! you complain about everything else!.......

70MACH1OWNER

Ohhh... It was a package deal. So I am sure they covered their costs in the package some how. I don't want to beat them up to bad since I haven't put them back on the car yet to prove it yet. But you can see where their weights were and where the new ones are and there is a big difference. Time will tell I guess. I'm glad you seem to have fixed your problems by removing the springs clips. Maybe the c'bore's aren't big enough to clear them. But since YOU only paid 200 bucks each for them you can't complain.

Scott