Wheel Balance problems - bit of a long one I'm afraid.

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sportyreptile

Active Member
Joined
Jan 15, 2004
Messages
685
Location
South Wales
Car
96 W210 E36 AMG
I've had four new tyres fitted recently at my local tyre shop, he gave me an extremely good rate for Continental Sport Contact2's however it would appear that their "standard" wheel balancing machine is just not good enough for a W140 S class.

I drove away and immediately noticed the steering wheel wobbling away between 50 and 55mph, this died down above 55 but when I hit 70-75mph I got a low frequency drumming type vibration right throughout the car. I spotted this straight away as out of balance rear wheels as when I bought the car the rear tyres where completely shot and the car displayed this characteristic. The steering wheel wobble was obviously a front wheel balance problem.

Took the car straight back to the local guy, asking him to rebalance both front and rear wheels. This he did and said they were "spot on". Again on first drive they obviously were not "spot on".

So taking a deep breath I ventured to the local Kwik Fit ( I know, don't all shoot me at once ) place...."can you balance my wheels better than the other garage can?" I asked. Sure they can, their balance machine can go down to 1 gram weight whereas a standard one only has a tolerance of 5grams.

I now have a lovely smooth ride back again between 50 and 75. So, credit where credit is due....and I was the first to jump on the "monkey with a spanner" bandwagon..... but Kwik Fit really did sort me out, and they torqued the wheel bolts back up correctly!

Anyone else experienced problems getting their wheels balanced to their satisfaction?
 
Good result!

Like I've said before, if you get a good Kwik Fit, then there's really no reason to avoid them. I've got no problems giving my car to the local bunch.

PJ
 
Sounds like your Kwik-Fits are actually populated by people who know what they're doing.

Our local one is staffed by monkeys...their MoT test for shock absorbers is to lift the car so that the wheels are at maximum droop, and then wedge a tyre lever under the wheel and wiggle it up and down.

They then go "Oh look, it's moving a little freely, your shock absorber is knackered", and look completely confused when you explain the concept of "outside of operating range" to them.

I've had problems getting the C250's wheels up to balance, so far only found one place that can do it successfully.
 
When it comes to Kwik-Fit. It's best to find a good one and stick to it!

I've been to a couple of Kwik-Fits that are excellent. I've been to a lot that are run by fraudsters.
 
I had my W202 rear brakes sorted by kwikfit in Barnsley, it was slightly short notice as I'd braked all the way through the pads and was grinding nicely into the discs. You might not expect it but the braking from the rear was surprisingly effective, if noisy with a pretty lights show.

They sorted it out using non-oem but oem-manufacturer/spec parts (ATE?) and the prices weren't bad, although it turns out parts were probably more than stealership the labour was really cheap.

In 2000 I took my old vauxhall astra into a kwikfit because there was some noise from the exhaust and they carried out a free exhaust and brake check - they found nothing wrong! I was quite prepared for them to find loads wrong but it came back clean, quite refreshing! Later my handbrake cable snapped (probably not covered by the free check) and the exhaust was found to have a clamp or something broken, but that was sometime later.

To summarise, they're not all bad. Probably like every franchise organisation really.
 
Shude said:
To summarise, they're not all bad. Probably like every franchise organisation really.

It's not a franchise.
 
The chap behind the desk really did know his stuff and promised that he could match any deal for Conti's I could get elsewhere.....I'll take him up on that challenge when I next need tyres as they've done a good job of dialling out my balance problem.

The one thing that finally convinced me that they were ok was him saying they torqued the wheel bolts upto 110 lb/ft before handing the keys over....wow, he got it right and they didn't use airguns!

Top Order.
 
imadoofus said:
It's not a franchise.
Ok then, a bit like every other organisation that has more than one outlet or store :)

Either way, you can't always judge all the outlets on the performance of one.
 

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