Got new 245/40/19s, Nitto Motivo, all 4 corners, for my gen1 rays.

Go them mounted at reputable local tire shop, they told me all was fine.

I left the shop, and immediately noticed vibration >65mph. This wasn't there before.

Shop #1 not having a roadforce machine, I took it to a higher-end shop to get rebalanced. This shop told me 3 out of 4 tires are "defective" and cannot be balanced properly, due to "crazy lateral runoff."

I asked if my rims could possibly be bent, and they said no...it's just the tires.

The retailer of the tires - discounttire - is awesome, as always, and is sending 3 replacement tires.

Now..on to the questions:

- has anyone gotten bad tires before? I've never had this happen.

- Could shop #1 somehow have potentially messed up the bead while mounting them, leading shop #2 to a diagnosis of faulty tires?

- I'm having the replacement tires drop shipped to my local dealer, who has a roadforce balancer, and actually reasonably priced. (I had a few shops quote me over $250 to mount and roadforce balance. C'mon.) Is there anything I should tell the dealer to take note of?


thanks a million for any input.

 

being in the retail business selling tires we do get this come up from time to time. i'm a little surprised that discount tire shipped you new ones right away. Usually Nitto wants them taken to a nitto dealership to determine if they are defective or not.

i wouldn't blame the 1st shop, you can balance a tire perfectly and still have issues. hence why a roadforce is better. and roadforce testing isn't cheap. $250 for 3 wheels and tested, is steep but not outside the realm. I would say it shouldn't be more than 200 though for 3.

 

I've had this happen with my nitro neo gens. Mounted them up, then drove off in my audi, at 65 car like bounced. Took it back in, they said that the tires just were not perfectly true. Aka round. Got another 2 tires had them slapped on same issue. Two more tires later with the same results then they were blaming my car. But my winter tires were just fine on the car. Nitto said that if I drove on them for 5-10k it would go away. Well I still have a wobble, once again tossed on my winter tires no issues. I just learn do live with it, and won't be purchasing nitto tires again. I have not had good experiences with them. Ill stick to my toyo's or my hancooks. That's me though.

 

Another thing to consider (about RF balance pricing) is that the term "Road Force" balance gets used a lot, but it really just refers to the Hunter machines that do it, and not necessarily the specs to which the tire is balanced. THE REAL difference comes from the skill of the tech using it and how closely they work the tolerances. If the tech is willing, a tire can be reseated on the rim at a different place which requires far less weighting to compensate for the balance. Usually any given shop will have a weight tolerance window that they work to, but that's not all that's available/possible out of those machines. In critical applications, they can dial a tire in to the point that there's an absolute bare minimum of weights involved, and sometimes none.