cyras21

Need I say more? Absolutely! With the factory wheels on I get nothing but a SMOOTH ride, and it's a Z71. I purchased 20in rims and tires from the local boys. The first two days of driving, just fine, nothing wrong, felt like stock. I took it back in to have the lugs re torched and as soon as I was on the interstate going over 60 the wheel started to vibrate. I took it back the next day and they rebalance the tires. Same result, vibration. Took it to chevy and they said I couldn't get the tires to balance. I took it back to the local boys, again, and again and again. I took the tires off and brought them back and told them to fix the problem. They replaced two of the tires and put them back on the Tahoe. VIBRATING!!!. I took it back and told them to call me when they had it fixed. They put it on some other machine that drops a plate over the tire to simulate road conditions and rebalanced them. FINALLY no more vibrations. One week goes by, everything is good. two weeks, still driving nice. 3 weeks, starting to vibrate again. It's not as bad before so I just suck it up. Now it's vibrating sporadically. no rhyme or reason, sometimes it will vibrate then smooth out and sometimes it will not vibrate at all. Sometimes it will come and go on my 45 mile commute to work. What the hell is wrong here? If it's a balance issue, wouldn't it be vibrating continuously at the same speed?

jlenkows

I would take them off for a few weeks to see if the vibration returns with the factory wheels/tires. If it does, then you can have the dealer fix it right and go to the other wheels/tires from there.

cyras21

i had it for2 months before i put the new wheels on it and never had a problem

RonH

Have they removed all the tires from the wheels? I wonder if something is inside one of the tires and is moving around.

One thing you could do is have someone drive beside you and tell you which wheel or wheelsis doing the vibrating.

e

the first thing of course that comes to mind is the balance.

1.What type of tires are you running?

2. What type of balance was performed? Static or Dynamic

3. Where the wheels Impacted?
Impact guns are not allowed on my wheels PERIOD, nor onmy customers vehicles not even on the factory's. For one an impact slaps the socket around while tighting the lugs, which can strike the wheel and cause damage. 2nd Most shops couldn't even tell what torque their guns are set at which can cause the lugs to be over tighten. 3. If you tighten the wheel to much and out of sequence while over impacting them you can actually cause warpage to the rotors. For this reason its always by hand and checked by another tech.

4. GM's and most 6 lug are what we call hub-centric fitments not lug-centric. If your not using centering rings to align the wheels to the hub than the wheels could not be balanced to the hub causing the vibration. Using the lugs to center the combo on the hub might work, but most of the time with heavier wheel combo's you need a hubcentric design.

5. Have you tried moving the tires around from side to side and front to back to eliminate a possible bad tire.

6. Did they remove the little clips on the wheels studs that hold the rotor in place. These little guys can actually not allow the wheel to mate up or seat fully onthe hub. Some wheels have an offset on the inner holes to allow for this while some wheels do not.

These are just a few things I would check. Im pretty sure you've got balancing issues and my friend sometimes it hard to find a good shop that actually knows what the hell their doing and are up to date with newer methods of balancing. Just because they sell tires and rims and have the machines doesn't mean they can use them.
The simple truth is that most tire shops and wheel machines are designed to balance a wheel and tire in a way that was founded in the late 60's and early 70's.

Also have you done anything to truck (ie lift, shocks, etc)? Also has anyone touched or attempted to realign anything?

73shark

Re: torqueing lug nuts. What's your take on the what I think are called "quill sockets" (maybe not) that are color coded and about ten inches long? Supposedly they'll only transfer so much torque to the nut.

e

these are designed strickly to apply a certain amount of torque by giving a visual as to when the amount of torque has been meet. They do just that. In the RIGHT hands they work. Problem we have is that they dont fit in most exposed lugged wheels. The walls of the socket along with the teflon coating make the socket to large to fit in the hole thus requiring a thin wall socket. Also the person using the socket can also still over torque the lugs because once it "shakes" you should stop and I've seen people still keep on spinning........overall if someone owns them, they KNOW how to use them and your torque should be close. Still like the hand job though.........