Local Tire Store 'Problems' With Road Force Balancer

Yesterday I bumped into a sales rep from my local Town Fair.
Naturally the subject of road force balancing surfaced:

http://www.motorweek.org/features/go...orce_balancing


He said to me "Road force was causing too many problems for us"
and they went back to conventional balancers.


What 'problems' could this superior form of tire balancing
have been causing them? I did a search for problems
with road force balancing on Google and came up empty.

On Friday, August 26, 2016 at 2:23:31 AM UTC-10, wrote:
> Yesterday I bumped into a sales rep from my local Town Fair.
> Naturally the subject of road force balancing surfaced:
>
> http://www.motorweek.org/features/go...orce_balancing
>
>
> He said to me "Road force was causing too many problems for us"
> and they went back to conventional balancers.
>
>
> What 'problems' could this superior form of tire balancing
> have been causing them? I did a search for problems
> with road force balancing on Google and came up empty.

My guess is that the problem is it's more work for the tire company. The rim has to be repositioned relative to the tire. My guess is that the customer is not going to be willing to pay extra to have this extra step done or for the new equipment. I wouldn't mind if they did this for free though.

On Fri, 26 Aug 2016 05:23:29 -0700 (PDT),
wrote:

>Yesterday I bumped into a sales rep from my local Town Fair.
>Naturally the subject of road force balancing surfaced:
>
>http://www.motorweek.org/features/go...orce_balancing
>
>
>He said to me "Road force was causing too many problems for us"
>and they went back to conventional balancers.
>
>
>What 'problems' could this superior form of tire balancing
>have been causing them? I did a search for problems
>with road force balancing on Google and came up empty.

Road force balancing takes time and training, besides the expense of
the machine. You can see the process on Youtube. I doubt most shops
do the full process.
I've been using shops that provide road force balancing (Just Tires)
for my cars for years. Still got a bad vibration on my Impala a
couple years ago at 70 mph, and had to get it rebalanced.
So what happened? They didn't use the machine? Didn't know what they
were doing? I'll bet you often don't get what you're paying for.

dsi1:

Correct - Low point(lightest) of the tire is lined up with highest point(heaviest)
of the wheel/rim(where valve and TPMS are typically). Road force balancer
does the rest.


My Kia dealer had no problem with it - car rolled like new afterwards.

On Friday, August 26, 2016 at 12:28:30 PM UTC-10, wrote:
> dsi1:
>
> Correct - Low point(lightest) of the tire is lined up with highest point(heaviest)
> of the wheel/rim(where valve and TPMS are typically). Road force balancer
> does the rest.
>
>
> My Kia dealer had no problem with it - car rolled like new afterwards.

My guess is that no human ass would be sensitive enough to detect these slight changes in roundness. Well, except my ass - but that's because it's a magical ass.