It's official the tire gods..

[ericsmith32]

Hate me. Beyond hate worse than hate if you get the picture. Couple weeks ago I drove my sisters Focus for a week fixing various stuff. Well it shook a small amount so I took it to get it balanced. All be if it didn't shake worse than before! I guess when they did the rotating they put a bent one up front. Originally I thought it was the mud that was caked on there.. next time I'll check before I have a balance job done. Well I think I finally isolated the rim that was bent.. still shakes of course. And I should mention on my dad's Festiva that I'm doing the same thing to apparently had a slipped belt in one so had to change that out.

And now to the torment of my life. Back last year when I got my Festiva I went ahead and did the metro 13 inch upgrade. Let my dad have my old 12's which were new. Figured it would be easier on the auto. Man do I regret that decision as it was riding real good with the 12's the 13's have shook ever since I've got them. Originally I thought it was the tires nope I've replaced all 4 with new 155/80's. I've also replaced 2 rims that were bent. Still does the 60- 65 shake but doesn't at 55 or 70. So either I go to slow on the highway or fast.

I guess I'll pick up at couple 12's from dad a try to isolate which tire it is. Not sure what else to do. Walmart has checked their two and Firestone has checked their two.. one bent rim a piece but the other one(s) checked out okay. Anyone concur that the tire gods hate me?

[FestYboy]

sounds like you have tire guys that are clueless... go somewhere else.

[sc72]

Hey Eric, Festyboy is right, skip the lifetime balancing that you payed for at wallyworld and go somewhere else. If you do go back watch and make sure the tire machine reads 0 on the second spin. Good luck

[perucho]

Doesn't sounds like off balance wheels/tires. I bet you have out-of-round tires. Unfortunately it's very common for cheap tires. On the focus, they probably put an out of round tire on the front when they rotated them and that's why you felt the vibration worsen.
If you bought the tires locally, have them check at the place you got them for roundness (very easy to see when they are spinning on the balancing machine). If they are bad, they should replace them. That's why I've stopped buying tires online. I just have the local shops match the better online price and I get the benefit of having them replace the tires if they won't balance.

[Aaronbrook37]

http://aircooledtech.com/tools-on-the-cheap/balancing_beads/

An interesting read regardless of whether you agree with the technique.

[muddevil01]

Hey Eric have you checked all the components on the car you have changed tires,wheels,had them balanced yet the only thing that has stayed constant is the car and it still does it. If you put the 12s back on it and it still does it then it would tell me to look else where for the problem hope you get it fixed

[econoaddict]

I have been through the vibration shake issues.

http://www.fordfestiva.com/forums/showthread.php?t=31684

[Nerd Racing]

Sometimes I wonder if a lot of excess vibration issues are transmitted directly from the engine because we don't have a Harmonic damper on our engines. Just solid pulleys.

[perucho]

^ That feels totally different. Have you driven a car that's supposed to have a harmonic damper and has been replaced with a solid crankshaft pulley?

[Nerd Racing]

Yeah my BP Aspire had the stock aspire crank pulley which is undamped and a BP normally has a damped pulley.

I design performance viscous crank dampers for a living, you wouldn't believe the plethora of vibrations that are caused by cylinder firing and transmitted through the crank.

[ericsmith32]

As far as the life-time balancing you guys are right. There are good tech's are Wally world and firestone but are hard to fine. But some can spot a bent rim... usually the middle-aged ages. I wish I could nail down those guys and ask for them each time. I've even had bad luck with the one man shops. I got rid of a set of good rims once because a guy didn't know how to balance them right.

Don't know about the out of round tires but I've had several with slipped belts. I'm pretty sure it's a bent rim on the Focus since the alignment was off. It didn't shake with the 12's and nothing has changed since then. I brought one good 12 back home with me. I'm going to swap it in the place of one tire till I figure it out. Well I'll start on the back and those two are good put those two on the front.. a 12 and 13 mixed on the front probably wouldn't be good. Justin I'll probably be needing one more of those rims sometime. Maybe the Mazda's just didn't agree with the Metro's *lol*.

[ericsmith32]

Update Update! The Festiva is now a smooth rider! Took four different rims but finally she's riding smooth. Bit the bullet and got another Metro rim with a good older style Douglas 155/80/13 and slapped it on. Riding good finally.. I'm not even going to bother switching the new Douglas on it. It actually had 2 good ones I think the other one is going to the car to the crusher unless you take a mallet to it.. probably bend it that way. Justin probably won't mess with those other Metro rims for now.. those are the newer style with the bigger hub. The older 13's are both hub and lug centric but the 12's isn't.. talk about odd.

[mattman]

used to work for a tireshop an most the problems where guys not getting the machine on 0 before starting the balancer or they didnt get the right size weight id go somwhere else an have it checked

[BrianFestiva]

Hey,
I nkow you have the problem fixed but a good way to see if you have a tyre out of round would be to jack up the car till the tyre is off the ground and mount a texter/marker on moveable vice and spin the tyre, while its spinning slowly push the texter into the tyre untill it hits. then see where it makes its marks.
Could prolly make up a better jig than that if you have the equipment but that should work.
Brian