I just had my OEM all seasons put back on and my winter tires taken off. I am noticing some vibration in the steering wheel around 70 mph. Does anyone know what may be causing this?

 

That's usually indicative of an alignment problem but that should not happen if you just change tires.

 

Vibration means one or more of your tires are out of balance. An alignment problem doesn't cause vibration, it will cause the car to drift left or right and will do it at any speed.

Its not clear if your snows are on their own wheels or if you had them removed from the wheels and your summer tires mounted. If its the former, then check if either a weight was knocked off or if they mounted a wheel that was on the right side to the left side (I don't know if these tires are directional). If its the latter, they either didn't balance the tires, or they balanced them incorrectly.

Definitely take it back and have them check what I listed above.

 

BTW, I forgot to mention that if you don't have the snows mounted on their own set of wheels, you really should do that. Not only is it an easier and quicker change over, you also avoid problems like this, and you protect your nice OEM wheels from all that road salt.

 

I am real senstive to unbalanced wheel induced steering wheel shimmy. I have taken cars back to have tires rebalanced at least 10 times for that reason with various cars. 9 times of out 10 they "carefully" rebalanced the wheels and the problem was fixed. Unfortunately, the guys who balance tires probably are not into perfection quite like a Lexus driver.

 

Thanks for all of the input! Nospinzone, you are right in your assumption that it was not a separate set of rims. I usually do this but there has been so many discussions about not putting on any other rims I have been a little hesitant. Next season I will probably devote a set.

Thanks again!

 

agreed..
y can't they just spin it ONE MORE time to get it 0/0..
i watch them.. and they are "ok" w/ 0.25/0

 

You should take it somewhere that has a Road Force balancing machine. My Lexus dealer has one. It's the best machine on the market in my opinion. At least I haven't found anything better around here. The other balance machines suck. I've had to take my wheels back several times with a regular balance machine. Now, I will only go where they have the Road Force machine.

The reason most shops don't have them, it costs $12K.


Craig

 

I also forgot to tell you, if their machine is not calibrated, it won't balance your wheel. It will show that the wheel is zero, but it will not be balanced. A good shop will calibrate the machine once a day. Most of the tire shops never calibrate their machines.

Craig

 

Good to Know that about the calibration at the shops
Thanks for the info

 

http://www.redwoodgeneral.com/balance.htm

You're welcome, here is a site that tells more about the Road Force balance.

Craig