Having a tire balancing machine ...

[Eagle]

... does NOT mean you know how to use it.

 

I've been having a shimmy in my late wife's 2000 XJ recently, showing up at about 58 MPH. It's a problem, because I'm currently working a couple of remote construction sites and have to drive 150 to 200 miles each time I go there -- mostly 65 MPH highway.

 

So over the weekend I took off the two front tires and schlepped them back to Wal-Mart, where I bought them, to have them rebalanced. No charge, because I paid for lifetime balance when I bought them. Dropped them off, walked over to McDonald's next door for breakfast, walked back and they were ready. Took them home and installed them on the vehicle.

 

And ... now the shimmy is worse, and it starts at 55 MPH rather than 58 MPH.

 

So ... anyone who is trying to diagnose death wobble and tells us it "can't be tire balance because I just had the tires balanced" ... I've got news for you.

 

Oh, and I'm certain my problem is the tires, because while I was getting the tires balanced I put a set of old, barely legal, el cheapo tires I took off a used Cherokee a couple of years ago. No shimmy with those, so it has to be Wal-Mart's balance job.

[HOrnbrod]

You still running those square Walmart Goodyear Wranglers, si?   :yes:   And Walmart is probably the last place I would go for tire balancing or anything else. But that's just me. 

[jpnjim]

I wonder if the wheels are bent(?)

 

Wouldn't be too tough to check them for runout by giving them a spin on the vehicle and eyeballing them

or getting fancy with a piece of solid wire or something as an indicator.

 

The Walmart guys probably can run a balancer,

but if there's any other issues going on, they just slap weights on it and roll it out the door.

 

Maybe you could try the Walmart tires one at a time on the front of the vehicle to see which one is the bad one.

Good luck Eagle

[Minuit]

When I was dealing with out of round Cooper Discoverer AT/3 tires I took the truck to a total of 4 tire shops, and only the last one cared enough to tell me that two of my tires were visibly out of round, and that was after I took the truck right back because it suddenly shook worse after their balancing. It actually looked a lot like this:

 

 

And of course, the tire shops just put a bunch of weight opposite the runout, and of course that didn't improve anything. Tire shops are scum. Don't trust them as far as you can throw them.

[JoeR]

As a kid and young adult, I worked at a gas station that sold a lot of tires.  As I read your post I thought of the same thing Minuit posted.  It's possible to have a bad tire and still get it balanced.  It's also possible that the Walmart guys missed it.  Give them a spin to see if it shows up.  If it persists, you can get the tires checked at a shop that does Road Force or Tire Dimensioning Balancing.

If they find something, I don't recommend Match Mounting.  Get a new tire.

 

Joe

[HOrnbrod]

Agree. If it can't be balanced with a Road Force machine, the tire is square.

[Knucklehead97]

Recently I had the tires on my Contour balanced and rotated due to a bad shimmy at about 65 MPH. I at first had them balanced at Walmart for the same reason as the OP. About 2 hours later I finally get my car back and the shimmy is just as bad, if not worse. So I take it to a local tire shop and have them check it out. Not only did Walmart not add a single weight to one tire, they also neglected to tell me that one of my rims was bent bad (added a bunch of weight on it to try and even it out, I guess?) And that another tire was wore out on the inside and had a massive nail in it. After moving the warped rim to the back, getting a new tire, and having the tire shop balance the tires and align all 4 corners I finally don't get a massage whenever I drive. Never using Walmart for anything involving my vehicles again. They also only half filled my brothers Civic when they changed the oil.