Well, I was forced to get new tires today. I picked up a nail in the left front, which made it leak slowly and "click" on each revolution as the nail head hit the pavement. Went to Discount Tire for a repair, and they said they would not fix the tire because it had a few other repairs in it and was looking pretty old anyway (they were Uniroyal Tiger Paws with about 70,000 miles on them ). So I called Holly and we decided to put new tires on it. I wanted some 235/60/16s on it, but they were about $100 more expensive altogether, so I went with 225/60/16. I got the Kumho Touring Plus 732, which for the money is supposed to be an incredible deal.

After install the car has front end vibration on the highway, which it didn't have with the old tires. I am assuming the new tires weren't balanced very well, but I want to ask you all if there is anything else I should have the Discount Tire guys check. It'* disappointing, because I was expecting the car to ride smooth as glass. I'll be taking it back in sometime tomorrow if I can, so reply ASAP if possible.

BTW, if it matters, I had them put all the weights on the inside of the wheel, and I believe they used a "sticky" weight on some of the wheels. Not sure if those are reliable or not, especially if I'll be drag racing with them in the future.

I would have them rebalance the tires, rotate the tires front to back, check the tire pressure and torque the lug nuts. Usually when I buy new tires, I have the alignment done at that time as well. A good shop will check the usual suspects, ball joints, shocks, tire rod ends before they aligne the car.

it seems more often than not everytime I get new tires they are never balanced right, I always have to go back. Granted, I go to walmart since they have free lifetime balancing for the price of a one-time at les schwab....But yeah I'd take it back to have them re-balanced.


You could also be dealing with out of round tires...I think there is a fancy term for it, but I call them out of round/defective, I've also had that on some REALLY cheap cooper POS tires.

Make sure they tightened the lug nuts.

...with a torque wrench, torqued to 100 ft. lbs. on each lug nut.

Ask them what torque they're using. I caught the kid in the tire shop on Wednesday when I was having my slick rims test-fit torquing to 80. But I suspect a balance problem personally.

Sticky weights will be fine on the track. Centrifigual force tries to put them on the tire BETTER. Clip on traditional bead weights are more likely to come off than stickies.

I personally asked the guy who returned my car keys about the method they used for torquing the lugs. He said they snug them with the air wrench, then manually tighten the rest of the way. When I asked how many pound-feet, without prompting, he immediately said "100." I'm thinking it'* probably not an issue of lug nuts. Discount Tire simply doesn't take enough time to properly balance the tires, IMO. I scarcely had time to finish an article in Car & Driver before they were done. I don't know how you can precisely balance the tires in that kind of time frame.... but then again, I have never personally balanced a set of tires.......

the 732 is a good tire, i had a set of them put on franky in the 225 size instead of the 215'* that were on him. rides smooth as glass with them and good snow traction too. (not that you have to worry about that lol)

it could also be a mounting issue. Since no tire or rim is perfectly round, they need to pay attention and mount the high spot of the rim with the low spot of the tire to get the best "roundness" they can. This is opften overlooked in these faced paced shops.

Yup, exactly what I thought.

Just for giggles, retorque them tomorrow morning before returning the car to the shop.