So on thursday I picked up my new rims and tires from a local shop

They went to mount the wheels on the car and the one guy jacked up the passenger front side up so high the car slid a little bit away from the jack. When I asked why so high, he said "we have to". It didn't make sense to me, but then again, I've never had aftermarket wheels till now either. He had the passenger front side so high, the rear tire actually had enough clearance to be swapped out.

When I drive the car now, the sunroof creaks when its fully closed (which it never has before), the hatch rattle that Toyota fixed via tightening up the hatch bolts, now rattles worse than ever and the car shimmys and vibrates at anything over 60 mph enough that even my girlfriend who rarely drives my car noticed it when she drove it.

At first I thought this might be a balancing problem for the new wheels, but someone mentioned that the frame possibly could be twisted ever so slightly. Is this even possible? What else should I be looking for since in hindsight I figure they should have put the jack in the middle of the car and not so close to the front wheel.

I am planning on taking the car into the dealer or a local Pep Boys to check the tire balance and alignment to see if these could be the problems.

Any advice or information here would be great.

 

I've had my car way up in the air where the rear wheel is way above the ground. It sounds like they jacked it up in the correct area. The jacks go behind the front wheel. You can see arrows on the side skirts to where to put the jack. It could be several things. It could be the rims and tires. Are they new? Were they balanced?
If it only started doing these things after they messed with it, something is definitely wrong.

 

Yes they did put the jack where its supposed to go, I saw the guy lining it up just behind the passenger front tire.

The rims are brand new as are the tires. I saw the little weights on the inside of the wheel to indicate that they were balanced and the shop also said that they balanced them.

 

They did a half **** job balancing the tires. take them to a good shop and they will do it for like 30bucks.

 

The balance could be off. I work at a shop and even though the machine says 00 it doesn't necessarily mean its perfect. The machines do go out of tune and need to be calibrated every so often. There are also a lot of stupid people out there who do stupid things. I know. I see the guys i work with using the wrong modes, wrong weights and wrong sizing all the time.

 

Alright, so getting the balance redone wont hurt. But how does that explain why the sunroof now creaks when closed and the hatch rattle when going over bumps (which was fixed by toyota)?

Is there any credibility to the idea that the car was twisted in a way from being so high up on only a single jack at the front of the car?

 

It could have been torqued on wrong, they probably did not follow the star-pattern for torquing the lug nuts. Check if you have a hub centric ring also, if not, get one and install it, that could solve the problem as well.

 

By 'star-pattern' you mean going switching between lugs on opposite sides from each other when they tighten them?

Also as far as hub-centric rings, I saw them put them on some of the wheels, but can't remember if they put them on all of them. I wasn't watching them the whole time. I'll have a tire place check when they recheck the balance on them.

 

Some pic I found on Google. But yeah, that's what I meant. If it's neither of what I suggested, then that was some sorry work for wheel balancing, sorry you had to go through that trouble.

 

What type of metal are the rims made out of? Are these rims bigger than your old stock rims? Are the tires lower profile?

You could just be getting more road vibration due to the reduction of rubber and addition of metal. This will increase the road vibrations which would in turn cause more rattling in the car.

SOLUTION: Do what every tC drive does, turn up your music.

 

They are Tenzo DC-6's. Not sure what material they're made out of specifically, though they are mono-block forged if that makes a difference.

The wheels are bigger 18x8 and the tires are 225/40/18. Stock tires are 205/45/17 right?

Its not so much a rattle I'm experiencing, its a vibration in the steering wheel where it wiggles back and forth really quickly. I am going to have someone see if I need an alignment and see if they'll check the balance of the wheels again since Pepboys wouldn't check the balance unless I paid to have them RE-balanced.