Re: How to fix uneven wear and vibrating wheel/tire?

["John Wiltshire" <John.Wiltshire@domain.elided>]

Hi Jess,

Here's my two bob's worth on vibrating tyres.  A couple of possibilities:

Have you flat-spotted one or more of your tyres at the track day?  If so,
the tyres can be  buffed round again by a shop that has the proper
equipment.  You lose a bit of tread, but the flat spot will be gone.

In my somewhat limited experience, tyres that are unevenly worn will be
noisy long before they vibrate.  If your wheel alignment, etc is good, and
the tyres are properly inflated, you should 't get uneven wear so bad as to
cause vibration.

If the wheels are balanced and still vibrate, the tyres could be out of
round.  The Mazda 626 that I bought new in 1986 had a persistent vibration
at 100km/h.  Several arguments with Mazda did nothing to inprove the
situation - all they would do was re-balance the wheels.  I had an
independent shop check the wheel balance and steering alignment - both
perfect.  A friend suggested that the tyres were out-of-round - I took it
to a shop that buffed the tyres and re-balanced everything.  It was smooth
for about three days, then the vibration returned.  In desperation, I took
it to a small alignment shop.  The operator told me that the Bridgestone
tyres fitted to Mazdas were notorious for being out-of-round, and it is the
case and the belts that are out of round rather than the tread.  No amount
of buffing the tread will fix the problem, as the out-or round case will
deflect unevenly at speed and cause the vibration.  His recommendation was
to scrap the Bridgestones and fit Michelins, which I did.  Problem solved
and handlinbg of the car transformed!

Hope this is some useful info!

Cheers,
John Wiltshire

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