ghunt

Soo apparently the only places here that have it are four dealerships...none of which are the local Ford dealership. WTF.

It also says the FBI has one, maybe I can go ask them nice if I can use it

Andy13186

try to find a place that sells custom rims, or a place like "rent and roll" which rents rims out. they will have a good mounting and balancing machine.

cegha

Road force mount and balance is expensive as crap. Costs about $50 a tire/rim & all 4 have to be done, so $200 just for a mount and balance. The reason it's so much is they mount rim on tire. The machine tells them the highest point on the rim & lowest point on the tire & then they mark them, brake tire off rim, remount the high/low points & then balance the wheel. It makes the wheel require less weights, as it's more naturally balanced. That's what gives it a good ride.

I had it done when my Steeda rims were originally mounted. Car drove perfect. Then I got a nail & had to have tire taken off rim to have it patched, which was free, but I wasn't getting it road force balanced again. I was planning to put new tires on all 4 rims in the next 6 months & when I needed to put them on, I didn't have a spare $200 for balancing so I got them regular balanced & my car has rode like **** for the past 6 months with a shake & now that I read this thread I guess that's why. I didn't realize how sensitive the mustang is & that must be what's causing it.

Now the other thing, as stated, you do not for any reason at all ever want to take your tire off your rim as you will have to have it completely redone which will be $50 per tire/rim. One of my TPMS sensors has died on my car & needs to be replaced & apparently they can just go out randomly & you have to buy new ones. One I knew was bad right before I had new tires put on so I had that one replaced, but 1 other is now dead & that leaves 2 others that were stock that may go at anytime. So I might as well replace the broke one, as well as the other 2, guess what, $40 a piece means another $120. I'm looking at $330 for sensors & a mount and balance on my car. FML.

ETA:The point in talking about the sensors is that if yours are 3+ years old. I would HIGHLY recommend replacing all of them with new ones before having a road force mount and balance, if you have to have it redone, the cost alone would have paid to have bought the sensor & had it installed originally & saved you $10, instead of having to buy it anyways & pay for a road force mount and balance twice.

tbear853

It's because the tire / wheel combo is balanced statically at best ..... like you get on an old style bubble balancer. But with tires and variations in density / mass ..... you may have a heavy spot on the inside near opposite the center from a heavy spot on the outside and this dynamic imbalance is trying to make the wheel wobble at speed.

If the tires are a really nice set, often the imbalance isn't so bad and stick on weights at center line of wheel are "OK", some rare times even "perfectly OK" .... but rarely "perfect".

I have tire / wheels on our Mustang that are balanced like yours with stick on weights and at certain speeds I can feel it, but then there are no weights on the lips and I accept the trade off as any shake is so very very near none at all ..... to be truthful I have seen tires balanced dynamically that didn't turn out as well the first time.

Sometimes the balance machine is found to be out of calibration I guess, but usually it's simply the person operating it and placing weights that doesn't take sufficient pains to get it just right. The machines are pretty rugged.

tbear853

That's not true ..... at 59 and 40 plus years of owning cars with AM wheels, many of which did not fit a hub tight, some with uni-lugs (Cragars even) and having many friends do same over the years, never yet seen a failure with properly torqued lugs.

ghunt

Wow, yeah I don't know if I could afford that anyway. I paid $15 a tire for mounting and lifetime balancing at wally world.

Andy13186

i got mine done for 35 per rim and tire dismount, mount new tire, inflate, roadforce balance and tireshine, total of 140+tax

this is the 2nd set of tires ive had it done to too, and it works good, perfectly smooth on a smooth surface

rls82959

I got mine match mounted & road force balanced at Loveland CO
Ford dealer for $85. All four.

Edit: since i went in complaining of a shimmy, they inspected
suspension as well, which was kinda nice.

cegha

Well... didn't mean to discourage anyone from a road force mount and balance. My local shop I usually have tire work & alignments done at is treadquarters. They take care of me pretty good so I use them & they are pretty careful with my car. I know having anything done to cars is expensive as hell usually, so I just took it for granite that $200 for all 4 was regular price.

Now that yall are telling me these cheaper prices, I just called my local Ford dealership & the lady told me $90 for all 4 to be done. I even made sure to ask her 3 times for a road force mount balance. First time she told me $50, then I asked is that for road force, and she double checked & was like oh no, just regular, then told me a road force balance would be $90. I got her name wrote down, so I mean if I go in there & they tell me some $150+ type stuff, i'm going to have to raise hell.

I guess call around because this (if correct) is a $110 difference in price. Essentially getting one for free.

ghunt

Wow, I'm dumb. After driving and griping about the shake, I happened to think a few days ago that I haven't checked the tire pressure in months. So I go- all the tires are 7 psi low. Put the proper pressure in them and-surprise! It's almost perfect. Doh! Well, at least I didn't pay for another mount and balance.