[i74js]

I am not happy with the wheel alignment done at Kashyap FIAT Okhla, Delhi. Can someone please suggest a good shop in South Delhi for FIAT Punto?

Many thanks

[humyum]

Originally Posted by Leoshashi

I have a doubt regarding Wheel-balancing. Recently changed tyres of my M800, log can be found here- http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/tyre-a...ml#post3802207

While getting the wheels balanced, I noticed that the outer lip on all 4 wheels didn't ask for any weight, while the inner lips demanded weights like 15, 10, 30 and 10g. Is that normal?? Or should I get it checked on a different machine??

I did however take my car on a long drive on empty highways just to check ride, no wobbling was found at any speed range.

Regards

Looks like they statically balanced it, setting up the machine up to only show the weights on the inside as I find it highly unlikely that out of 4 wheels, none showed the outer lip needing a weight. Truly speaking, this is not the right way to balance as it should always be dynamically balanced with weights on both sides as it takes cares of the up and down balance as well as the side to side balance

Also, every inbalance will not show itself in the form of the steering vibrating, at higher speeds, the steering becoming light/a feeling of uneasiness is also a visible sign of imbalance.

For example, when I was in UK and my dad used to get the balancing done, he used to not know how to exactly ask them to do what I always got done, so he always used to get the balancing done which those guys thought was right for alloy wheels, and that was single side balancing aka static balancing. The steering did not vibrate, but at speeds above 120,130 the steering used to become extremely light with uneasiness setting in. When I used to come home, the first thing I used to do was to head to a balancing shop and get it dynamically balanced, the steering was rock steady till whatever top speed the car could attain.

[Leoshashi]

Originally Posted by humyum

Looks like they statically balanced it, setting up the machine up to only show the weights on the inside as I find it highly unlikely that out of 4 wheels, none showed the outer lip needing a weight.

Thanks for pointing that out, but I forgot to mention, my 800's 5th tyre, which is a tubed radial, took weights on both the outer and the inner lips during the same balancing. And mechanic didn't change any setting, so I doubt that is a case of static balancing.

I also got the balancing checked on machine of local Maruti dealer, and they also confirmed the balancing to be perfect.

However I must mention that the steering used to feel ultra-light after 110kmph, and I guessed that it might be due to the ultra-light weight of the M800. That issue was also recently solved when MASS changed something called tie-rod ends on my car. Improvements noticed after that
1. Better return of steering.
2. Steering no longer feels disconnected.
3. No pulling while hard braking.
4. Steering now points straight while going straight-earlier it was tilted a bit towards left.







I was so delighted after the improvements that I detailed my car for a good 9 hours and fell ill the next day.



Lastly, special thanks to Parag Sir, SS-Traveller Sir, Saket bhaiya(Saket77), Audioholic and you( Humyum) for answering my every query patiently.

Regards,
Shashi

[sibot]

Thanks to this thread I have been able to zero in on the problem I'm facing with my Old Honda City 2003. The car was stolen, found and then subsequently sent for repair. The car went in for a steering alignment during the repair work.

I got the car back today and found the steering doesn't seem to have any feedback or response, in the sense that it does not come back straight after turning. So with the aid of this guide I have been able to zero in the problem to be of Caster. Could there be any thing else at fault too?

I wanted to know a good workshop around South Delhi area where I could get this checked out with the aid of a 3D Alignment to see if the caster values are really off. It'd be great if someone could help me out with this! It really makes driving around very tough having to hold the steering all the time so the car doesn't go off track.

[myavu]

Originally Posted by sibot

It'd be great if someone could help me out with this!

If you can drive, try T-MART Tire Shop
338, Mehrauli-Gurgaon Rd, Nathupur
Sector 24, Sikanderpur, Haryana 122002



Cheers!

Vinu

[RocketRaccoon]

Found a very nice video on YouTube thoroughly explaining when a car needs an alignment, what is alignment and when should you get one. At the end of the video Eric recommends getting alignment done once a year, I think in India's potholed scenario it should be more frequent than that. Personally, I get it done every 2000 - 2500 kms for good measure.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBUxJSeYiow

[Honda_Power]

Hi All,

Hope all the Bhpians are doing great. It has been a long time since I posted. I need help.

Last week, I had been to a long drive. Completed (1K km over the weekend) Car was serviced, few days before and wheel alignment and balancing was fine as well.

Noticed that my OHC had pretty hard vibrations while holding the steering wheel at 125 km/ph. Though wheel balancing was done, few days earlier still the vibrations could be felt which made the drive unpleasant at higher speeds.

I am having 16 inch alloy wheels with Nankang tires.
Tyre profile: 205/R16/45

My friend with a similar configurations has no complaints in his OHC.
Could you please help to understand what could be the issue?

Thanks,
Ayyappan

[heysac]

Guys, I have a Swift P K Series 2010, driven 21K kms. I had wheel alignment done 4 months back and recently noticed that the steering was going left again. I got the alignment done again and guy said only a little bit was out. Only the normal alignment was required since the guy mentioned other camber was within limits.

Now I have noticed that the steering remains fine on a good road but on a bad road it goes left again.

I feel this is not a normal alignment issue, it could be something with suspension/caster/camber. Any suggestions?

[Nikhilb2008]

Originally Posted by heysac

Guys, I have a Swift P K Series 2010, driven 21K kms. I had wheel alignment done 4 months back and recently noticed that the steering was going left again. I got the alignment done again and guy said only a little bit was out. Only the normal alignment was required since the guy mentioned other camber was within limits.

Now I have noticed that the steering remains fine on a good road but on a bad road it goes left again.

I feel this is not a normal alignment issue, it could be something with suspension/caster/camber. Any suggestions?

Honestly, this sounds perfectly normal. Bad roads cause the suspension components to move around. They arent in a stable steady condition and the changes in the suspension position will cause the car to pull.

The correct way of testing is on a perfectly good, flat road. Testing on any other road is wrong.

[nitinralli]

How about wheel balancing? How often do we need to get balancing done?

[heysac]

Originally Posted by Nikhilb2008

Bad roads cause the suspension components to move around. They arent in a stable steady condition and the changes in the suspension position will cause the car to pull.

Thanks. I feel even on roads which are almost OK, sometimes the car pulls to the left while at other times it is OK. I feel something is wrong. What else do I need to get checked? This car was running perfectly last year and has been driven exclusively by me without abuse.

Also, I noticed that the front left tyre has more wear on the left. I have got them rotated. The challenge is that some stupid guy punctured the sidewalls of three of my Yokos when I bought them, so I was avoiding putting one tubeless and one tubed Yoko on the front but I guess I have no option now. COuld this cause an issue with car pulling in one direction?

[Nikhilb2008]

You may need to post the alignment report here.... without that there is no point in talking.

[audioholic]

Last week I had to get WA and WB for my SX4 and couldnt get an appointment at Tyre Professionals which is my usual place. Hence I visited a nearby shop which had recently opened up. They had some unknown brand machine package which the owner 'claimed' to be more accurate than Hunter when I made a mention of the dealer located in the same building

Just to contrast the claims of the owner, his guys were at their unprofessional best. Firstly, they did not remove stones from the wheels before balancing, no tyre pressure check before balancing and next, the stupid balancing machine would just give a value of weight at some position without accurate marking. In comparison, the hunter machine has a laser line indicating where the weight has to be put exactly. The machine itself was not secured well and could be moved around the area. From what I have seen, the machine should be having a hard and secure base to give an accurate balancing.

After seeing all this, I was in no mood to argue since I had to go on a trip the next morning and just left them do whatever they knew. In the meanwhile I was asking the owner casually about swapping my WagonR's tyres and he did not even know how an upsize was to be done and gave random tyre sizes seeing the web.

The end result was that there is now a wobble at triple digit speeds. Need to get it corrected now. Some general queries:

1. Regarding placing of weights, is it the machine that decides whether the weight should be pasted towards the inner side or the outer side or is it the job of the technician to place the weights one after the other?

2. From the Hunter experience over the past few years, balancing is done at one go, with weights only at one spot. Here, most of the wheels took more than one run and one set of weights to get an OK.

3. How do we correlate between our rotation pattern and the pattern suggested by roadforce? If I wanted to put the rear wheels front and if roadforce suggests otherwise?

[Nikhilb2008]

Originally Posted by audioholic

Last week I had to get WA and WB for my SX4 and couldnt get an appointment at Tyre Professionals which is my usual place. Hence I visited a nearby shop which had recently opened up. They had some unknown brand machine package which the owner 'claimed' to be more accurate than Hunter when I made a mention of the dealer located in the same building

Just to contrast the claims of the owner, his guys were at their unprofessional best. Firstly, they did not remove stones from the wheels before balancing, no tyre pressure check before balancing and next, the stupid balancing machine would just give a value of weight at some position without accurate marking. In comparison, the hunter machine has a laser line indicating where the weight has to be put exactly. The machine itself was not secured well and could be moved around the area. From what I have seen, the machine should be having a hard and secure base to give an accurate balancing.

After seeing all this, I was in no mood to argue since I had to go on a trip the next morning and just left them do whatever they knew. In the meanwhile I was asking the owner casually about swapping my WagonR's tyres and he did not even know how an upsize was to be done and gave random tyre sizes seeing the web.

The end result was that there is now a wobble at triple digit speeds. Need to get it corrected now. Some general queries:

1. Regarding placing of weights, is it the machine that decides whether the weight should be pasted towards the inner side or the outer side or is it the job of the technician to place the weights one after the other?

2. From the Hunter experience over the past few years, balancing is done at one go, with weights only at one spot. Here, most of the wheels took more than one run and one set of weights to get an OK.

3. How do we correlate between our rotation pattern and the pattern suggested by roadforce? If I wanted to put the rear wheels front and if roadforce suggests otherwise?

Lesson learnt then

1. Placement of weights: The technician gives some inputs to the machine whether he wants to place the weights on the inside the wheels(most alloy wheels) or on the outside(like on a steel wheel when you use a clip on weight). Beyond that, exactly where the weight should be placed is dependant on the measurement of the imbalance.

2: Clearly, weight chasing is happening. A bit of weight chasing at times is ok but this sounds like a badly calibrated wheel balancer or maybe the base isnt stable (based on your previous observation).

3. You can switch them around however you want but the road force balancer tells you what the net result will be. So, if the equipment says putting Tyres 2 and 4 in the front results in 5N of tyre pull, and you want to put 1 and 2 in the front, it will show that 1 and 2 in the front will result in maybe 10/15/20 N of tyre pull... So, you take a call whether that is something you can live with or you would prefer to use the machine's recommendation. End of the day, the machine is supposed to give you the information and you can use it however you please.

[Ricci]

While getting my Linea TJet's wheel alignment done, the mechanic said my car's suspension is a little out of spec or bent, I couldn't really visually detect a problem, nor do I feel anything out of place while driving.

This is my first car though, and I drive rather less , so before I take the car to the dealer (and possibly get ripped off), I think better to consult here.

Attached : wheel alignment report.
I see some of the "after" readings are out of spec, but this could be the target data being set for Linea (generic) or completely generic. The owner's manual doesn't have wheel alignment specs ( I need to check again ), but does the current state reveal anything what suspension components are in need to adjustment/replacement ?