Wheel balancing

[sgt_doofey]

Hi all,
I took the Pug in to our local tyre place on Wednesday for a wheel alignment and balance. We had some vibration in the steering wheel prior to the balance and you could hear the tyres are out of balance at higher speeds.
Now, they did the wheel alignment and said they weren't going to bother rotating the tyres as the front ones are probably the better ones out of the four. They then proceeded to balance the front two tyres and I was on my way again. No more vibration in the steering wheel anymore.
Now, driving down to Adelaide this morning, we can still hear the noise coming from the rear of the car. So it's possible the rear tyres are out of balance.

My question really is this: On front wheel drive cars, do tyre places only balance the front two tyres, or should they be balancing all four?

The car is only 30,000kms old, so the wheel bearings shouldn't be stuffed, so that shouldn't be the noise. It does sound like a regular sound that increases with speed, sort of a whump, whump, whump, etc. The rear tyres were the front ones, but they were rotated on to the back at 20,000kms.

[Casablanca]

sounds like they've just balanced the front mate, or someone could have put flat spots on the tyres id check you reciept and your tyres.

[MITCHAY]

I thought they balanced all four regardless of drive type

[sgt_doofey]

Yeah, they only balanced the front and only charged me for balancing the front. I was just wondering if it is normal practice to only balance the front two, or should all four be balanced at the same time?

[whales]

I would have thought that they would balance all four wheels at once, perhaps you have to ask them to do it?
I'd get the rears checked asap with that sort of noise it could be tread seperation!

[sgt_doofey]

Yep, going back tomorrow morning.

[Casablanca]

yea you have to ask them to do it otherwise they'll only do the drive wheels it's stupid but pretty common practice.

[Scareybear]

It is common practice to only balance the front wheels (in front or rear wheel drive cars), as generally, if you can feel the rears vibrating there's usually more to it (buckled wheels, lumpy tyres etc), if the rear tyres are noticably worse than the fronts you may be hearing tyre noise, as usually tyres will get noisier as they wear down, I know my mother-in-laws 307 sounds like the rear bearings are completely stuffed, but its just the tyres.
I'm not trying to say this is your problem, but in 20-odd years in tyres I've never 'heard' a tyre out of balance, you can generally only feel it.

[Thunder Kiss]

If your rear wheels are out of balance you WILL feel it through the seat, I doubt the noise coming from the back has anything to do with balance.

[mik]

do you think someone could have done a hand brakey in it?

[nb_351]

id say its probably just the tyres goping a bit lumpy... which is probably caused b your alignment...
you dont hear balance, you feel it... or you can see tyres out of round...
we oly ever balance the two tyres going to the front, unles theyre brand new of course, or the customer wishes for all 4 to be done...

[sgt_doofey]

Originally Posted by mik

do you think someone could have done a hand brakey in it?

Considering it's the wife's car, and I haven't done one in it, then no. :

I saw the tyre place this morning and they said that the left hand rear tyre was flat spotting and that was causing the noise. The right hand rear tyre isn't as bad, but is starting to contribute. Only solution - new tyres. These ones have about 5000 - 10,000kms left on then, so we'll see if we can put up with the noise for now.

Thanks Scareybear and nb_351 for your posts as well. Seems that is exactly what the problem is. I've never really encountered this before in my 14 years of driving, but most of that, if not all, has been in rear wheel drive cars. This is the first front wheel drive car I have owned.

[Casablanca]

what about me i was the one who came up with flat spots : wheres my praise ??? lol

[sgt_doofey]

Originally Posted by Casablanca

what about me i was the one who came up with flat spots : wheres my praise ??? lol

How's this?

[Casablanca]

lol nice one Mr Sir officer sgt doofey Sir :