Vibtation problem revisited, It's all in the tires

[Bouma]

I posted last week about a vibration in my truck. After 2 days in the shop here is what I've got. The tires ballance!! BUT they are out of round?? Dosen't make sense to me but 2 different shops came to the same conclusion. Now I have an appointment with Goodyear on Wednesday to look at my tires and (hopefully) give me 4 new ones. I have the Goodyear Wrangler Silent Armor tires. They have a 50,000 mile warrenty, the tires have 13,000 on them and are 65% gone. This is according to Goodyear. I took the truck in today but customer service is closed so we will do this Wednesday. The question is, if they give me 4 new tires this is a dead issue. The manager seamed to think they would only give me one maybe two. They won't pay for mounting ballancing and all that crap either. So if I have 65% of my tires gone can only get one or two tire and then pay the cost of mounting and ballancing do I just go with something else?? What tires would everyone recomend? I drive 90% or better on the highway and in town. When we get a snow storm thats when I need to pull my 29' snowmobile trailer. Snow traction is a very big thing to me. Toyo? BFG? Firestone? etc. Please help!!

 

[huwenfut]

13,000 is not a lot of miles I have procomp a/ts with more thane 30,000 miles on them and they are hardly worn You been doing a lot of burnouts? That said I don't think they will give you free tires. The general deal on warranties is that they prorate the mileage on the tires and give you a discount on a new tire. Anyway Good luck.

 

[Regcabguy]

The BFG AT's on my '98. 5 "zeroed" out perfectly but I'd felt vibration in the truck from the day of installation. Discount Tire even Road Forced them to no avail. I finally got relief when the Toyos went on. Yes,they can balance perfectly and be out of round.

 

[HBarlow]

GY is VERY unlikely to give you much of anything. I was not aware that the tire manufacturers warranted any tire for mileage because some can wear out a good set of tires in 5,000 miles. The only GY tire I would use would be a free one. They are known for rapid wear and sidewall cracking as well as tread separation when used on heavy trailers.

My choices, as always are Michelin, Michelin, or Michelin. If you want a budget priced Michelin, a BF Goodrich Commercial is a good tire and BFG is a Michelin company.

Michelins will always balance smooth with few weights and will last longer than any other quality tire. In my experience, cost per mile on a Michelin is lower than other tires.

 

[2 Ram Fam]

I had bf goodrich At's that were . 08 out of round. They could never get the shake out. Finaly I had them shaved true & they were great.

 

[Wingate]

X2 on what Barlow said... . I dont think there is any better tire than Michelin. I'm still running my stock BFG's @28,000 mi. They still look great and no vibrations. . Make sure when you buy tires that you get the proper load range rating, remember the little Cummins is about 1K lbs sitting on those front tires. Tire shops will sell you the lowest load range tire to get you to buy them (cheaper price)

Somebody correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe you want an E load range although the D load range looks identical only cheaper... . or I may have that exactly backwards.

When in doubt, buy Michelin!!!

I had six new GY tires put on my 4500 Chevy service truck. By 20k I had already had two blowouts at seperate times on the right rear( Im sure due to added weight of the auto crane) At 35k or so all six tires were junk and the fronts were washboarded out bad. Had six new Michelins installed, they have about 65k on them now, rears are getting close to change out time, fronts still have a ways to go and no signs of washboarding.

 

[steved]

A few years ago I had a set of BFG ATs (315x70r17s) go out of round in under 5k miles... they were easily 3/4" out of round (all four) and the BFG dealer basically told me to go pound sand because they were a truck tire. Needless to say, I have bought my last BFG truck tire...

A tire shop should be able to easily see an out-of-round condition as soon as they spin them on the balancer. A slipped or broken belt is another story however...

An out of round tire will shake, not vibrate, typically.

 

[Regcabguy]

Michelins?

I'm strickly a Michelin man for our personal cars. There's a huge market out there for E rated 35's for these light trucks. For whatever reason Michelin doesn't want to market one. :{

 

[DE Jeeper]

I too like the Michelins, but I have been buying the Toyo HT's because they are $50 less a tire and they are a close second in longevity and ride.



Aaron

 

[PBJ2500CTD]

X3 what Harvey and Wingate said. The Michelin AT2 is amazing in rain, snow and ice. Followed closely by BFG. BFG has improved a lot since Michelin took over. You may save a couple of bucks by purchasing other brands but Michelin is hard to beat factoring in per mile cost and functional engineering for full treadlife of the tire.

BJ

 

[seafish]

I too like the Michelins, but I have been buying the Toyo HT's because they are $50 less a tire and they are a close second in longevity and ride.



Aaron

Aaron, Just wondering with what info you are making the longevity analysis.



I am just about done with my AT2's at 20k and I am now considering either the TOYO OC (don't yet know about the AT/MT/ or HT) because I would love to see more mileage out of such a large, repeatable expense. BUT it definitely seems like diffrent people are getting more out of the Toyos and others out of the Michelins.



BOTH are GREAT tires in terms of handling and balance (of course the MT are louder in terms of noise, but people seem to think highway noise level is acceptable), but trying to guess which ones will get more mileage, without a direct same truck, same driver comparison, I think is difficult, given what I have read here on TDR.



For example, SBeretz has swapped from Toyos to Michelin AT2s after getting "only" 30k on his Toyos, and I am probably swapping from my "beloved" AT2's to Toyos after getting only 20k on my At2's in order to get more mileage from the Toyos... Like I said on another thread... go figure!!#@$%!

 

[Gary - K7GLD]

I sure love the Michelin's that came OEM on my truck - put TOYO M-55 285, load range E on the rear - been pretty disappointed with them for snow traction and wear - sure wish I could get the Michelins in a 285 E rating for the rear...

 

[domehead]

Have you tried just the LTX m/s

 

[Gary - K7GLD]

Have you tried just the LTX m/s

If that was aimed at me, no - but I doubt I'll be buying any more M-55's, so will be looking for other alternatives...

 

[Bouma]

More on my Goodyear's

My Goodyear's are the wrangler silent armor pro grade. They are 10 ply load range E tires. The heaviest trailer I pull is 8,000 pounds. I have never done a burn out or power braked these tires. I personally have never had any luck with Goodyear but thought I would try them again. They have a prorated 50,000 mile warrenty. They rate very well on the tire rack and other sites I looked at. In the end they are standard Goodyear JUNK!! I hated the Michilens my truck came with. They were the worst tire I ever drove in the snow. They wore well and rode nice. I was thinking Toyo's or Firestone Transforce AT's maybe BFG AT's. I need snow traction!! I pull a 29' snowmobile trailer. Ideas????

 

[Bouma]

Anyone try Nitto tires? The Dura Grappler looks like it would wear well. Snow traction? Who makes Niito? Not an american company I guess?

 

[RichardMClain]

I have the original Michelin's with 43000 on them with no problems and about 10000 mi left and tow a 14000 5th, my only complaint is these have the raised white lettering which looked good in the beginning but if you touch the sidewall on anything it rubs off the very thin black skin and they look like crap. Yes when it is time to replace I will do Michelin's again but wont pay extra for the raised white lettering.

 

[Gary - K7GLD]

I just checked the Tire Rack online for what they had in a 285x75x16E - and all they listed was a Goodyear...



Far to much close-up experience with premature sidewall failures and tread separation with Goodyear in RV applications, so I'll pass on those...

 

[Bouma]

The only good thing I can say about the Goodyears is they love snow. They dig very well. How many miles is everyone getting out of the Michilen AT2? Should I just bite the bullet and go with Rickson's? This is an expensive game to play. I don't want to do this again for some time. Can you belive the guy at the Goodyear store blamed the wear on my Cummins?? He said it had to much power:-laf I told him thats why I bought it.

 

[Bob Cochran]

In the mid 70's bought a new Dodge 3/4 ton that had Goodyear tires. I had a vibration and took them to a place that spun balanced the tires on the truck. This effectively balanced the tires, drums and every thing spinning. It was an awesome balance and not sure u can have it done that way any more. One of the things the did was check the tires for out of round and shaved a small amount of rubber to get them round. Here is the point one of the tires was outside of specifications from the Goodyear. If they had tried to shave the tires there would have been no tread left!!!! LOL Anyways Goodyear gave me a new tire but of course there was only a few hundred miles on them. Sure wish there was a place that would spin balance on the vehicle and true the tires to perfectly round. It made for a smooth ride and high mileage.