Troubleshooting help........ possible car problem....... vibration.......

[PQ]

Originally Posted by SSmoothie

My Pictures again.

I wanna see them on your car.

[SSmoothie]

I'll probably order the tires this week just a little gun shy after all the problems your going through. I'm going Pirelli also. Also trying to decide on coilovers also.

[JusticePete]

Originally Posted by SSmoothie

I'll probably order the tires this week just a little gun shy after all the problems your going through. I'm going Pirelli also. Also trying to decide on coilovers also.

The tires are tough. The coilovers are easy

If there are any questions I can answer for you regarding coilovers please send an email or call the office as I don't want to be a thread jacker.

248.522.8021
PGB@PeddersUSA.com

[PQ]

Originally Posted by Mike.White@PeddersUSA.com

Trying to watch the tire video crashes my computer. Not sure why. So I cannot look at it. Seeing the ages as being different, does not bother me. They were, however, made at different plants, which is pretty common. The tire age issue is finally becoming a hot topic as it should be. I think there are some government actions coming down on this topic. I have seen 6 and 7 year old brand new tires being sold at some smaller discount tire stores, and you should stay away from these tires as if they had the plague!!

For a reference, the Tire Rack has done a great job in making a post for all to be able to figure out the age of your tires. Here is the link

Tire Rack Tire Age Link

It is possible there are differences in the tires from one plant to another. GM does have a spec to measure and compare tire diameters. Take a car or truck. mark the all the tires at 6 oclcock, then drive PEREFECTLY straight for 10 tire revolutions. The tires must be within 1/2 around inches of each other. for a passenger car. I had a AWD Denali that was taking out front differentials, 3 of them in 12,000 miles, that had 2 different build dates and plants. turns out there was nearly 2 inches difference in diameter doing this test. The tire manufacturer stepped up and got him a matched set, and his differential damage was taken care of. This is not something you see much and in fact would really have little affect on a Camaro, but can show you that tires can be different from one plant to another

Pete has appropriately asked and suggested going back to the "lo hanging fruit. If someone says it is in specs, be it GM or a tire or wheel manufacturer, to be really honest, I do not ever accept that. Selling 30 to 50 sets of custom wheels and tires a month, with literally the best and most accurate machiens and equipment in the world to do it, it all does not mean anything if stuff is being checked to a tolerance level that is not good enough. My required spec for passernger car stuff was 15lbs or less for road force. GM is a little higher. But I chose 15lbs because that is what Porsche uses. But know one really knows what the specs are, other than you have been told the are "within specs" I bet I have helped 500 car enthusiasts this year alone on alignment and tire wear concerns on a variety of platforms. And in all cases where there was a problem and the alignment was in spec, they were not correct for the customer's driving habits and conditions. I am going on and on about this, but is it important to follow the outstanding guidelines GM made for road force checking. I was selling $250,000 a year in 305/40R22 tires. At one point, they were all Pirellis. But I continued to have problems with vibrations. Pirelli sent an engineer to my place. I had the engineer fromn Hunter there at the same time. There are a lot of different versions of the 9700. I had the absolute highest state of the art unit that they made. It would even pick up the tire and wheel so the tech did not have to do it. The bottom line was in order to get an accurate balance to my specs that assured that I would not have a comeback, the tire did have to make at 15 more freeway run. That was too costly for me to do. So I dropped them and went to other Toyo, and Falcon, which I had much better results.

So if you want to eliminate with 100% accuracy, all technical possibiliites with your tires, you truly need to follow the GM bulletin I posted you to the tee, and get documentation of the actual road force number. The tires and wheels must be indicated off the lug nuts on the machine as well.


Hope this helps

mike

Ok. I read through the steps in the GM worksheet you provided.

Where do I go for this? Do I have to go to a Chevy dealer. Because 2 of the 3 I know of here won't work on anythning non-GM. If that's including wheels, what do I do? Apperently this is the first thing I need to do.

[Jefe's SS]

Didn't read the entire thread so I apologize if this has been covered already.

Some thoughts; 1st. What little I did read indicated a lot of weights needed to balance. This is an indicator that either the rim or tire is out of round. Have you put the stock rims back on for testing? If so was the wobble still there? If so you may have prematurely wore out the bushings/steering components. See below.

2nd. You've tried the rims on another car w/ no vibration or wobble. Did they vibrate/wobble as soon as they were mounted on your car? If not then the problem may have been masked by the newish steering components and then accelerated their wear allowing the problems to now unmask themselves. When tested on a different car the the problem was then masked again.

3rd. Have you had the alignment checked? Did you lower the car? A bad alignment can cause a wobble. Very noticible on lifted, large tired vehicles known as "death wobble". This is solved by a proper alignment. Lowering the car changes the alignment specs and the "stock" specs may not apply.

4th. Just to throw another gremlin to chase down. Check the driveshaft. It may be damaged or unbalanced. They have weights on them very similar to the wheel weights. If you've thrown a weight or dented the driveshaft it could possibly send vibrations felt in the steering.

[JusticePete]

To get through the entire TSB you would probably need to go to a GM Dealer or very good shop becase of the equipment involved. Because of all the work you have done so far including the video I would have to say that a good tire shop or service center with the right Hunter equipment would do the job. Be sure to show them the TSB and tell them that recording all the data is mission critical to the task.

[Nine Ball]

"Good Tire Shop" and Alabama can't seem to be used in the same sentence. Randy has had a tough time finding any place worth a damn in his area.

I'm stumped here. You had a 3rd party test drive those wheels before shipping them out, and he confirmed they rode smoothly on his car. Can Tri-Bone give us a description of what he observed?

Also, Mike mentioned Pirelli issues. I'd tend to agree with him, as I've not had good experiences with Pirelli tires on any of my previous cars. Even the Pirelli 22s on my own car take a good 10-15 miles on the freeway to rid themselves of flat spots each morning. Could this be your issue? Are you driving at highway speeds for at least 15-20+ minutes a day? City stop/go driving doesn't rid the flat spotting, as not enough heat is introduced into the tire. Does the vibration get less with miles? It sucks that nobody else makes a 315-22 for our cars.

Tony

[Dr Jkel]

Oh there are good shops in Alabama, trust me on that. Do you think it could be the wheels?

The reason I ask is that if the wheels are changed and then vibration goes away, plus the fact that the wheels have a ton of weights on them?

[JusticePete]

Originally Posted by Dr Jekel

Oh there are good shops in Alabama, trust me on that. Do you think it could be the wheels?

The reason I ask is that if the wheels are changed and then vibration goes away, plus the fact that the wheels have a ton of weights on them?

PQ has posted a video showing what appears to be significant runout on the wheels. Based on his video we are leaning towards wheels as the issue. That is why we have recomended he do a thorough road force with documenation.

[Dr Jkel]

After pretty much putting after market wheels on every car/truck that I have ever owned I would say that it is the wheels. It is just a shame that someething that is supposed to be bolt on is so much of a pain.

This is the bad thing when you do business over the phone or internet. It is so hard to actually find a solution. I learned long ago about wheels. I make the owner of the shop drive my car before the wheels are put on and tell him that I want the car/truck to ride the same way when he is done. The best wheels I have found so far are Gear Wheels. But there in lies the problem tire shop says it's the wheels, whell manu. says it's the installation.

Went through the same thing with a cam, so I feel his pain.

[Nine Ball]

Aren't those vids the ones PQ did prior to the wheels going back the first time? They have been back to Savini twice since those vids were taken. Supposedly they replaced a bent lip the first time, and then an entire hoop the second trip. Just trying to clarify things, correct me if I'm wrong here.

Also, what is a "ton of weights" in a value? Are we talking 4.0+ ounces in a single point on the hoop, or less? Can you snap a photo of the longest tape-on weight section for us? Each weight is 0.25 ounce per section, usually. I've had some very expensive wheels require 4.75 ounces to balance, and they came out fine on the road.

[Dr Jkel]

Let me ask a very dumb question, should the wheels be pretty much balance when they are made, especially high end wheels?

For example about weights, I have some 20" gear wheels, they have 35 x 13.5 x 20 nitto terra grapplers on them. the highest weight total on any one wheel is 1.75, after I fussed about the amount of one wheel that 3.5 they broke the tire down and realized that the tire should have been mounted differently, I supposed the mark for the valve stem, but then it balanced at 1.75.

Why not just send and entirely different set of wheels and tires, at this point it may be worth it. Sometimes you just have to punt

[Nine Ball]

It isn't that simple. PQ's wheels were custom built for his car, they are not off-the-shelf cheap wheels from China. They took several weeks to build. In Savini's eyes, they have done everything they could in short of replacing them. They claim the wheels meet their specs tolerance-wise, provided print-outs of the measurements, and even did this last series of road force balancing and such on their dime. Having another Camaro5.com member even test drive the wheels on his own personal car before sending them back to PQ. It has been quite an ordeal already!

Randy, maybe summarize the series of of events here, in chronological order? These new readers are getting confused.

[Dr Jkel]

I am not confused and I do understand about these custom wheels, all I am saying is that Savani, Giovanni or whatever vanni should get the man some new wehhels that do not vibrate. Just because they are custom Randy should not have to jump through hoops to get a set that work. I am sure it is Savanni's best interest to make this right, no matter what it takes.

I can only speak personally, but if it was my business I would make another set of wheels and send them. They are letting $5 hold up $500k.

I do understand that you are trying to help but the fact remains that this mans car has been on jack stands more than he has drove it. As Larry the Cable guy says " Git'er Done"