| Re: [GMCnet] Who do we trust? Do we have to check others work more often now days? [message #328160 is a reply to message #328154] |
Thu, 11 January 2018 21:15   |
bobby5832708
Messages: 237
Registered: November 2006
Location: Winter Springs FL
Karma:
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Senior Member |
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"Take a walk through a parking lot and see how many RED dots are lined up
with the valve stem. Red rules, Not yellow at the stem or worse still
nothing lined up with the stem at all."
On the Yokohama tires on my Dodge van the red dot on the tire is to be lined up with the (radial) low point on the wheel. Chrysler marks the wheel's low point with a blue dot inside. The low point may not necessarily be at the valve stem. Some car manufacturers do not have wheels marked at the low point so then the yellow dot should be used and lined up with the valve stem.
I do all my own car repair and maintenance not only because I'm a cheap bastard but because I can't seem to find anyone who consistently does good work.
As an example, last summer I finally gave up and bought a spin balancer so I can properly balance my tires. It's amazing how many shops either have uncalibrated or unreliable spin balancers or cannot properly use the stick-on weights needed on the alloy wheels of modern cars. I fought with tire balance issues for years on various vehicles and have used a few different shops without complete success. The balance jobs came back with either the old weights still on the wheels (and with the new tires, shaking) to just not putting any "outside" weights on (the weight is not actually on the outside of the wheel, it's on a ledge just inside the spokes). I guess those 2 big box stores didn't have any new stick-on weights handy or weren't allowed enough time so they just ignored what their balancer was telling them and sent the car out. When I took the car back because it was shaking they both said it was not their tires or balance job, it must be my car. A local independent dealer was better but after watching him operate his balancer he could spin up the tire 5 times in a row and get 5 different weight results.
I also bought a Harbor Freight manual tire changer, the somewhere about 35 dollar one, and a couple of old-fashioned tire spoons. Car tires are pretty easy to mount and dismount. GMC 10-ply tires are a real workout (I've only done 1 so far). So now I can order tires online from Walmart (DO NOT use the cheap Douglas tires, that's another story) and they ship them to my house for free and I can mount and balance them myself. So far it's working out fine. Maybe in my lifetime I will save back the money I spent on the spin balancer!
Bob Heller
2017 Winnebago 29VE
Winter Springs FL
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