Here's the scoop. Since I purchased my Tenzo DC-6s in July of 2007 I've had them balanced 4 times.

The first time was after I put them on my car for the first time. This was when they were at their worst. I drove to a buddies house in Mass and on the interstate at any speed over 70 my steering wheel shook... violently. Mind you the dealer I bought the wheels from claimed to have balanced them with the Pirelli P-Zero Neros on them and I had torqued them to spec on my car.

So I took them to my local dealership when I got back and the shaking went away... for the most part.

The second time was after I had had enough one day (about 3 months later) and decided the $35 investment was worth it yet again... and they held... sort of. The wheels felt good for about a week or so then one day I hit 90mph being irresponsible and the next time I hit 70 they started to shake again. Had anyone else been driving my car they wouldn't have felt it, but compared to my stock wheels and tires, there was definitely still a shake.

Then winter came, I mounted my stock wheels with the winter tires and my car drove like butter. After the snow melted, I mounted my Tenzos again AFTER they had been balanced and the same symptoms returned.

My car is in the shop having some major work done so I figured I'd splurged the $35 to have them ''balanced'' yet again.

Personally I'm getting sick of this and I'll probably never buy another pair of Tenzos again, but what I'm looking for is any suggestions or answers that might be floating around this online pool of knowledge.

Help?

 

i think you have a "square" tire... i had a similar problem with my wheels. at low speeds it wouldnt matter but once i went past about 65 the entire car turned into a massage chair as everything started to vibrate. i brought it to balance and the moment that it was spun up on the machine to double check it would say that it needed more weights

i say take off the tire and see if you have any flat spots. if there are then swap out the tire and see if that fixes it..

but before swapping out the tire make sure you have hubcentric rings and tapered lug nuts. they help make sure the wheel is perfectly centered..

 

i think your rims are out of round, buy a quality wheel, when your wheels can't be balanced it typically indicates that you have a bent wheel

 

i think you should have them remove the tire from the wheel, spin the wheel on the balancer and watch the wheel, if you see movement, there is your bend. It's going to be obvious to see the wheel bent if it's violently shaking like this.

The other thing to do is spin the tire while on the wheel, on the balancer, and see if there is ANY movement of the tire (up/down, side to side).

I had the same Pirelli Pzero Nero tires before and they COULD NOT balancing them, it was one out-of-round after another with that tire. I gave up. Anything was better than the pzero's. They're the worst quality I have ever had in a tire. I'm not here to make fun, just that I am NOT SURPRISED that you're having problems.

try both of those techniques, but don't just pay $35 to have them balanced again, I don't think that's your problem it's not going to stop your problems.

check the wheel and tire for out-of-round first

 

x2,

I'm going through the same thing with one of my wheels....now it just has hardcore negative camber...lordy lordy lordy

 

have them do a "road force balance". this will tell you if you have a bad tire. if you don't then tell them to check the rim runout to see if you have a damaged wheel.

 

so do you have centering rings or not? that would be the first step.

 

what is the time in between your balances?? more places offer a warranty at least up to 90 days for the balance. you could have several problems, 1, bent rim, 2, tire out of round, and this happens more than ppl think, 3, the ppl balancing your tire are not doing it right, there are different ways to balance. with yours they should do lug centric balancing, but most places do hub centric balancing because it is easier. plus they should calabrate their machine, but most places don't. ask for lug centric balancing, but i bet they don't do it. and they will tell you that it is the same.

 

I think this may be a hub centric ring problem. Like Mike F1 said, make sure the lugs you have are taperd (conical seated) and maybe switch the hub centric rings to aluminum ones if you have plastic. If that doesn't work, then spend the money and take them to get roadforce tested. If you want to find a local shop with that kind of balancing machine, go to www.gsp9700.com. You'll find a local shop from there.

 

Advise galore...

Thanks for the input one and all. I do have tapered lugs that came with my wheels that I've been using. I have eye-balled the wheels for damage and the tires for flat spots but haven't found anything.

The biggest problem is I don't have a respected tuner shop that I trust to be honest with me about the issue.

What I do need to look into is hub-centric rings. Since I'm positive that the inner diameter of the Tenzos doesn't match the outer diameter of the hubs thats probly the next logical step. Anyone have any trusted sites or proven rings they can recommend?

 

i had a problem similar to yours...i went to a tire shop and had them check for round and turns out one of the rims had a very slight bend to it...so i had to get new rims

 

i hate it when the shops can't balance wheels.

 

We carry plastic ones for $25 shipped or aluminuim ones for $30 shipped. If you can give me the hub bore of the wheels, I can take care of the rest.

 

Tenzo lists the 'center bore' on their website as 73.1, is that what you need?

 

Perfect! I have one set of aluminum rings left and a ton of plastic ones. Let me know if you need a set.

 

Did you pay $3k for your Tenzo's???


I have a factory Yokohama tire that was patched and told it was out of round. But the guy who was able to balance it did a good job and haven't had any issues at high speeds. Go with what the rest have said.

 

^ Dont listen to this guy...

I have the TENZO DC-6 wheels too...for over a year!

Never had to ReBalance them yet!...only after I got a new set of tires...

The Tire place..Probably did NOT do a Proper balance on your wheels

 

I would definitly go with the centering rings first. They cost less than a balance does, and chances are that after 3 or 4 balances not helping, you either need these, or they keep missing a bad tire.

 

I agree.

 

maybe it is the alignment. i put new rotors on, and i had the same problem. i went in for an alignment and the problem disappeared.