alz

Hi
I'm about to replace all 4 tires on my 991.1 C2S (moving from P Zero to MPS4S ), and Costco came in the cheapest fully installed by a fair margin. Through my forum searches it sounds like Road Force balancing is preferred over spin balancing, although I don't know what the exact difference is.

I called my local Costco (Culver City) and they didn't know the difference, but they said they do a full balance on a Coats 1600 wheel balancer.
http://www.coatsgarage.com/wheel-bal...ve-series/1600

Anyone know what kind of balancing that is, and should I have any concerns with having them do the installation?

Thanks

Churchill

google "road force balance" and all will become clear

StormRune

The mount and balance cost at my local Porsche dealer is not unreasonable considering that they use state-of-the-art mounting and balancing equipment including a road-force balancer. Beyond that, they use wheel weights that reasonably color-match your wheels, an adhesive for the weights that makes them easy to remove without damage, and they don't gore the barrel of your wheel when removing the old weight, and they remove any old adhesive left over. I was so pleased with their installation of my new tires and wheels just a couple of days ago that I actually took photos of the weights and their clean mounting. See below. Well worth the extra money in my opinion if your Porsche dealer does as well as this.

Also FYI, the equipment you linked to is not a road force balancer. It isn't always 100% necessary with top-quality tires since their sidewall behavior is typically quite uniform, but it doesn't hurt either.

OKB

just put on 4 tires, good tires, forged wheels. I always go to a shop with RF balancer. 2 wheels showed up over limit when first spun. Break down and re indexed, then both went to very good spec and little weight. If you didnt use a RF machine it would have balanced with alot of weight and never would have been optimum seat on the wheel. If the shop knows how to use the RF machine it is well worth the extra $10 to RF. If they dont know what they are doing or dont RF the wheel even though it is on the machine, then its all of no use.
a coats isnt a rf machine. A rf machine has a big computer screen and has a big roller that mashes against the tire and puts pressure on it.
http://fastequipment.net/products/hu...heel-balancer/

porsche42

Funny just did this at my local Porsche dealership, price was $200. They had a Hunter 9700 Road Force balance machine, it was less than a week in their shop. I bought 4 new MPS 4s tires from tirerack. If you get it road forced balanced make sure you ask for the specific numbers, rated in lbs, per wheel. The numbers should be below 20, but 10 and under are best. My dealership did not have the printer connected yet, the tech said the numbers were all under 10, but I wanted and asked for a printout. I also saw that Costco prices for the Michelin were less than TireRack which shocked me. I wouldn't let Costco change my tires, at least on my 15 TTS. It has centerlocks. But could have bought them at Costco and had them installed by the dealership, which i should have done. TireRack does back up their tires and they have super customer service, IMHO. Good luck, I would go with road force balancing for sure. They line up the lowest part of the wheel with the highest rating of the tire. The 9700 hunter measures the run out of the wheel. Good luck.

Porsche_nuts

My understanding is that Michelins are not the easiest to balance - have heard of others having issues -- so RF balancing is a must, I think.

trucheli

I've just replaced my rears on my 2015 991.1 GTS. My dealer was able to beat Tire Rack on the PZeros. Also, I did 4 wheel alignment which was off after 10,000 miles. I have learned the hard way and I would not allow any other tire shop to touch my car. Even if you go to a specialty shop that mounts high end wheels and has experience with center-locks they usually don't have a way to do alignments. I also trust the boys at COSTCO but they don't have experience with CL nor the equipment to remove them. I feel more comfortable knowing that if the dealership screws up they will make it right for me. I don't mind paying for peace of mind.

CanMikePlay

I have a MazdaSpeed 3 with Michelin MX series tires on it. Discount Tire has taken 3 shots at balancing one wheel in particular. It's okay but still some shake at 70 mph. They've tried pulling the tire off and rotating it. It's just the best their equipment can do.

Despite wheels that are twice as large my 911 is much smoother. I think I'll pay extra when the time comes.

alz

Thanks for the replies. I decided not to go with Costco and pay a bit extra for peace of mind.

Although I really wanted to switch to Michelin's, I decided to be reasonable and just to do the rears this time around and stick with my P Zeros, since my fronts have plenty of tread left (7/32!) to get me through another set of rears.

satoru

My local dealer put silver weights on my black HRE's

MJBird993

For what it's worth... I'm having issues with tires and vibration on my BMW (F06) and two places have done road force balancing, with only one of those bothering to mention to me that one tire required remounting and another was out of spec. That shop said that they see a lot of issues with Michelin tires, which I found distressing. These were not Michelins, and I went to a third shop, which is a Continental dealer, and they coordinated a warranty replacement for me on the bad tire.

The car still has issues though, but with 20" staggered wheels, my choices are limited, especially as I don't care for the OE run-flats (which is why I got the Continentals).

My point? Yes, try to find a shop that can do road force balancing, correctly.

Edgy01

Something I started doing a long time ago, and still do: Put a piece of silver or black duct tape over the weights, enough to cover them entirely. Over time the foam can fail and you can wind up flinging a weight. When you do that, all the effort to keep that thing in balance goes out the window.