s2kdriver80

Around a year ago, during my morning work commute, my front passenger wheel ran over a huge rock on the highway that surprisingly didn't blow out my tire. It was the loudest tire impact I had ever experienced. When I arrived at work, the 16-inch OEM wheel was clearly bent along the lip where the rock hit the tire (but I guess not enough that air could leak out). I had it fixed and the shop even polished it up, making the then 14-year-old OEM wheel look showroom new.

Ever since, the car/steering wheel would vibrate slightly when driving above 75mph. I put it off as it wasn't too serious and just didn't have the time to deal with it. Now, that I think about it more and more, it's starting to become annoying.

I just got brand new tires and will bring them to Mavis to have them mounted and balanced sometime next week. No wheel/tire is perfectly round, hence the reason wheel weights are used. Now, I'm assuming there are limits to how much asymmetry wheel weights can correct, and if the wheel/tire is way out of whack, the weights wouldn't be able to correct the imbalance - is this correct? If so, would the balancing machine let the operator know if the asymmetry is too extreme and thus by implication, reveal that the wheel is still unacceptably bent (and conclude that the shop didn't fix the wheel correctly)?

I'm hoping the above assumptions are correct, as it would be easy then to rule out a bent wheel as the cause of the vibration above 75mph if the Mavis guy doesn't see anything wrong (and can conclude something else, like maybe a wheel alignment issue).

Thanks!

kwakhead

I'd have them run it on the balancer without a tire & put eyeballs on it. The balancer should let you know but I'd still watch it spin.

Car Analogy

I worked in a tire shop while going to school. The balance machines will not give any sort of too bent to use type info. It will just have you add lots and lots of weight until it balances.

But a really bent wheel you can visually see wobble as it spins on the machine, that and when it says to add a huge amount of weight should alert a decent tire guy that something is not right.

Even though good techs are hard to come by, its easy for you to tell after the fact by looking at how much weight they had to add to the wheel. Safely jack up that corner, and look at how much weight added to inside rim and also look behind the spokes for tape on weights.

Did they rebalance the wheel when the tire was remounted after the bend fix? How much weight is on there now will give an idea if its bent or not.

Lastly, there is this more costly wheel balamce called road force balance. The machine has a wheel that presses against the tire as it spins to simulate real life tire deflection. It measures tire high spots, and also measures wheel high spots. Then it calculates of it could reduce overall tire deflection if the tire was removed and remounted to wheel im a different spot. Aligning tire high spots with wheel low spots. Can dramatically improve, but not 100% eliminate, vibes from bent wheels and outta round tires.

Sounds like it could be worth the cost for you.

s2kdriver80

Thanks for the informative reply. I'm assuming they rebalanced the wheel after they fixed it. Wouldn't that be like a restaurant serving you steak without a fork and knife? It seems like going through all that work to fix the bent wheel and polish it, and then forget to balance it again would be a half-assed job. Though it could be a possibility. I'll ask if the Mavis shop has this "road force" balancer. Hoping it's something else other than a still-bent rim. Maybe it's a wheel alignment issue, or a la My Cousin Vinny, maybe there's mud in my tires lol.