Alignment After New Tires Off

[Jefe]

I recently had BFG All Terrains 265/75/16 put on my 2003 AV. It had 750 miles on it when I had it done. Now my steering wheel does not sit centered like before and pulls slightly to the right. I asked the Discount Tire salesman why,.... He had no answer, he said the tires should not cause any problems with alignment.

I can't understand this myself. All I know is I never so much as rubbed against a curb or anything that I can think of that would have affected my alignment.

If anyone can shed some light on this for me I would greatly appreciate it.

I have checked the tire pressure in all tires, it is ok.
Could it have anything to do with the balance of the tires? When Discount Tire was balancing the tires to go on my truck, they had to go through 7 tires before he could get a proper balance reading on 4 good ones.

 

[jdw174]

Out of balance could do it. Some of these people have no idea how to run a balancing machine. There's a tire shop near here (not discount) that has the wildest balancing machine I've ever seen. Has a screen that does a CAD drawing of your tire and has arrows that pop up showing exactly where to place the weight and what size. It's expensive to have them done that way, but it's the ultimate in balancing. The fact that he had to go through 7 tires to find four that would balance would make me very suspect of their tires...or their expertise.

 

[jgwatsonjg]

I have to agree.

I'd go get them rebalanced at another place.

just my 2c

jw

 

[RJLACK]

Sounds like a radial tire lead - my suggestion would be to cross rotate the 2 front tires - if the pull goes away and the wheel is straight then it was tire lead (not uncommon with tires from Discount) not to say the tires are really bad. If it drives fine with rotation you should be good to go. As far as Discount wheel balancing they have some problems at some stores with operator error (no offense tiregod1 if your listening) - the balancer jdw174 is talking about is a road force balancer (a very good and expensive one) but balance wont cause the problem you descibed.

 

[Jefe]

Thanks everyone, I'm going to look into balancing, and try the cross rotate on the front tires at another Discount Tire Store. Thanks TexAVfan

jdw174
What's the name of the tire shop that does that wheel balancing? and how much do they charge?

 

[Chief]

Sounds like a radial tire lead - my suggestion would be to cross rotate the 2 front tires - if the pull goes away and the wheel is straight then it was tire lead (not uncommon with tires from Discount) not to say the tires are really bad. If it drives fine with rotation you should be good to go. As far as Discount wheel balancing they have some problems at some stores with operator error (no offense tiregod1 if your listening) - the balancer ?jdw174 is talking about is a road force balancer (a very good and expensive one) but balance wont cause the problem you descibed.

BINGO! Also agree that balancing won't help. If you have a shake in the steering wheel, than a front tire is out of balance, if you have a shake in the seat, then a back tire is out of balance. If it's just pulling then cross rotating should solve the problem. If not have the alignment checked. It is common for stock Avalanches after being cranked down on the car carriers to be out of alignment and I belive that GM is still doing courtesy front end alignments when you have 1.5K to 7.0K miles on your vehicle.

GREAT, GREAT post TexAvFan!

 

[RJLACK]

Praise from the Chief gotta make ya feel good ! Might I return the favor and let you know what an outstanding job you have done in not only the initial setup but getting this group (admins and moderators) together to keep everything going so well.

 

[Jefe]

Thankyou everyone!! Without this website, I don't know what I'd do.

Thankyou esp. TexAVfan and Chief.

Your help is greatly appreicated.

 

[RJLACK]

You are more than welcome - be sure to post your fix on this as it might help others down the road.

P.S. Welcome to the site and feel free to e-mail me on anything.

Richard

 

[jdw174]

Thanks everyone, I'm going to look into balancing, and try the cross rotate on the front tires at another Discount Tire Store. ?Thanks TexAVfan

jdw174
What's the name of the tire shop that does that wheel balancing? and how much do they charge?[/quote

Jefe
It's just a local shop here called Smith's Tire Barn. Cost for using that machine is rather stiff. If I recall the last time I was in there it was at least $10 a tire, but I seem to recall it was more than that. Only place I've ever seen one of those. Everyone else around here uses the old spin balance gizmo. He saves use of that one for customer who ask for it, and for tires that don't seem to want to respond to the spin system.

 

[ShapeShifter]

Cost for using that machine is rather stiff. ?If I recall the last time I was in there it was at least $10 a tire, but I seem to recall it was more than that.

That's not too bad. Many local shops around here, especially the low price "discount" shops, will charge $20 a tire for plain old spin balancing! Plus a couple more dollars for the valve stem. They hit you with these charges after you've decided on buying the set of tires, luring you in with their "deep discount" prices. They have to make their mony somehow.

My local Chevy dealer just got one of those fancy computerized machines, and demonstrated it to me when I picked up the truck. A very slick setup. This was a year ago, and claimed it was the only one in the area so far. I didn't ask how much they charge for using it.

-- SS

 

[Jefe]

Well I went back to Discount Tire today.

They rotated the tires and checked the air again, and I took it for a spin again.

Unfortunately that did not fix my problem, so I called the dealer and set up an appointment to check the alignment tomorrow morning. I will let ya'll know how it turns out.

 

[Jefe]

It was the alignment after all.

The dealer repaired at no cost to me.