You wouldn’t believe how many times I’ve seen vehicles on the road with tires/wheels that are noticeably out of balance. To see this with the naked eye, the imbalance has to be pretty extreme, but believe me, I HAVE seen it! I’ve seen tires so badly imbalanced or damaged that they literally bounce up and down, some bouncing so high that they were lifting off the ground!
We’ve had people come into our shop that were understandably upset about a vibration in their vehicle. This is frequently mis-diagnosed by some shops as bad brake rotors, but it usually turns out to be tires that are damaged or out of balance.
Simple tire balancing is very inexpensive or free in most cases because almost every place that sells tires offers free lifetime tire balancing.
One of the first questions we ask a customer when they deliver their vehicle to us with a vibration complaint is "When was the last time you had your tires balanced"?
No one ever really knows; we’re all very busy and the days just fly by. I mean...who walks out to their car and thinks...did I have my tires balanced recently? Just make it a routine to rotate and balance your vehicle’s tires every other oil change.
If your vehicle’s tire balance is off it can cause excessive wear to the suspension and other parts of the vehicle due to the vibration; not to mention the tire wear itself. If the balance is only slightly off, you may not even feel it because it’s absorbed by the seat cushions in your car.
Tire weights can fall off due to our lovely Tucson roads and the jarring impact from the GIGANTIC potholes here. These pothole impacts can immediately throw your vehicle tires and alignment out of whack.
If you continually get a vibration at a certain speed, ie.. it always happens at 60mph, or 45mph, then goes away as you speed up, it’s probably bad tire balance. Thats a very general way to describe the symptom but in a nutshell, that’s pretty close.
Make sure to work tire balancing and rotations into your vehicle’s maintenance schedule.
At One Stop Automotive we are happy to help, call us for an appointment and we will get you in as quickly as we can.