For those of you that follow such things, you'll remember that about 6 weeks ago I bought a set of Michelin Arctic Alpins (196/60-15) mounted on steel rims from the TireRack.com for $487 delivered. I'm very happy with the performance of the tires, and the tires arrived 4 days after ordering. So far, so good.

The tires were vibrating badly at highway speeds. I guess I should say REALLY vibrating. It felt as if the tires were'nt balanced (they did have wheel weights on the rims) I called the TireRack, and told them the problem. They said to bring the car to one of their "prefered" installers, (who happen to be just 8 miles away) and have them check the tires. The TireRack offered to re-imburse me for any costs incurred.

Well, the good folks at the Goodyear tire center in Webster, Ma put each tire on the balancer, and checked each tire with the TireRack-installed wheel weights. In each case (all 4 tires) the tires were MORE out-of-balance with the weights that without! One rim was out-of-round, and would've required a 3oz weight. That tire was rotated 180 degrees on the rim, and was then balanced as usual. So, Goodyear just balanced the wheels properly, and now the car is fine. What amazes me is that the Goodyear place didn't charge me for re-balancing. The owner of the establishment just said, "it's been slow today, have a nice day!" The Goodyear dude who put the tires on my car did use an impact wrench, set to "Hella-Tite", though. I just loosened & re-torqued them when I got back home.

So, the moral of this long & boring story is that I can't trust the monkeys they got mounting & balancing tires at the TireRack. They actually made the tires WORSE than if no weights were put on. Secondly, I gotta go with the local tire outfits when buying tires. The service is well worth the extra few bucks.
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RussB in Ct '96 855T - '91 944T