new wheels,,,, balance problem?

[PontiacGTboy]

Ok. this may seem like another rant at first but please bear with me. i need some help.

when my car had around 12,000 miles on it, a vibration at around 70MPH deveploped. took car into service. tires were found to be out of round. new tires were put on the car under warranty. problem seemd to be much improved but not fixed. purchased new tires of another brand when the free tires wore out and the problem still existed. took car to the dealership. i was told my tires were bad. took the car to the tire shop i bought my tires from. they say tires are fine but i have 2 bent rims. ok, so i start saving. buy my new rims (which i love btw. pics will be in my website soon, so check it out) and the vibration is STILL THERE!! i took the car to the tire shop where i had the new tires put on the wheels (ordered wheels online) and they say aftermarket wheels will vibrate the car regardless of balancing. i took the car to the dealer and they told me because of the style of the rim, you cant put a weight on the outside lip meaning you have to balance by putting weights on the inside of the wheel and that almost never balances correctly. i have never heard this before. noone i know who has after market wheels has ever complained about a vibration unless one was bent.

so my questions....
has anyone else had problems with aftermarket wheels vibrating the car at interstate speeds?

if so, what can i do to fix it... anything?

if it isnt the wheels, what else on my car could be causing these vibrations?

Thanks a TON if you can help. I want to go to GAP2003 but i dont want to drive 17 hours in a car that reminds me of a coin bed in a cheap hotel room.

[pokeypanda]

Dude, my car vibrates with my aftermarket wheels. Thats just how it is. Stock wheels are perfectly designed for our cars, and when we put new wheels on, they won't ever be perfect like the stock ones. You should have bought new stock wheels when yours were bent...

[MagiLLa]

if you have any other blt pattern besides exactly 5x115, you'll get some vibration, unless using hubcentrics.... what bolt pattern are your rims? 5x4.5= 5x114.3 if that's what it is, and that can cause vibes....

UPDATE ON MY RIMS I PICKED UP THE OTHER DAY:
i bitched out the shop i bought them from, becuz eagle wheels sent me 5x4.5 instead of 5x115.... so they are sending them back, and said eagle will specially order the 115 pattern.... yay!
and you guys said i could only get 114.3...... just persist and you'll get what you want :)

[AMRAAM4]

stock or aftermarket, wheels shouldn't vibrate so long as they are the correct bolt pattern and attached effectively. People, please stop saying that if you have 5x114.3 that YOU WILL have vibration, that is false!! Correct hub rings AND/OR lugnuts will allow the 114.3 to fit without vibration. As for the main problem here, it sounds like all the places you talked to are giving you the run around and trying to blame it on someone else.

MFUller and others correct me if I am wrong, but when a wheel is balanced and a weight is put on, that weight is used to balance the wheel/tire assembly for momentum pushing outwards toward the tread while in motion, not for momentum pushing in-or-out from sidewall to inner sidewall. Therefore it doesn't matter where the wheel weights are place whether it be outside lip or inside lip because it is balancing in a for-aft relationship not a outside-in relationship.

From all the wheel problems you keep having I would suggest that something is wrong with the suspension/brake area. I don't know the parts that specific so maybe someone else here can provide a specific diagnosis. But that is what I would deduce.

[PontiacGTboy]

i shouldnt need hub centric rings. when i got my wheels the hub in the wheel was to small for the hub on the car so i had the coise of using spacers (which i was strongly advised against) or takeing the rims to a machin shop and have the hubs machined. i had the hubs machined to the exact specs of the stock wheel. no, the bolt pattern isnt 115,,, whatever whatever but they slip on perfectly.

another question:
I have eibachs installed and i havnt yet got my camber bolts to get my camber back true. could this be causing a vibration?

[AMRAAM4]

after your Eibachs were installed, did you have an alignment done??

However, you said these problems were happening with stock setup since purchase though right?

[PontiacGTboy]

Originally posted by AMRAAM4
after your Eibachs were installed, did you have an alignment done??

However, you said these problems were happening with stock setup since purchase though right?

yea i got an alighnment done but the camber is still off some. the only way you can get the camber true in the grand am after eibachs is with camber bolts. they got it as close to true as they could but it isnt true.

I was thinking maybe the camber is causeing it this time and the bent wheels were before. what you think

[AMRAAM4]

Seeing that it is something wrong with the wheels continuously, my logic (scientific, not car, but still...) is that it has to be originating from something that was wrong prior to the first initial problem. Thus, your wheel/tire problems with the aftermarket wheels are just ongoing ramificatins that were happening before with the stock setup.

I never heard of Eibachs having camber issues on the GA, is this a normal thing guys? My H&Rs went on fine and the guy who aligned it after said it only need a touch of "XX" (basically I paid $65 for nothing :rolleyes: ). What about Intrax, seeing I am putting them on soon?

I haven't heard anything about camber issues for all the springs on our car

[badassgrandam99]

i had vibrations with the stock rims and tires and when i bought new rims and tires the vibration went away... my aftermarket stuff was much better than my stocks... i got my car lowered and got it aligned, but never got the camber kit even though i do need one but i wanted to wait cuz i knew my tires were going due to age so i figured i just hold off a bit... that bit turned out to be 7 months or so... so i had two tires go and had to revert back to stock and guess what, my vibration is back... but it's more than it used to be cuz my alignment is off again... so i bought a camber kit and soon i'll have my new aftermarket rims (which are 5x114.3...hehe) so maybe i'll have some vibrations again... but i believe that rob is right... just cuz you have 5x114.3 doesn't mean that you will definitely have a vibration...

...ron... as far as your problem... damn bro i dunno... u think maybe the rotor or something could affect the wheel like that???

[PontiacGTboy]

i thought about the rotors steve but the guy at the dealership says he doubts it very seriously. he said he has learned in that business to never say never, but in the 7 years he has been there he hasnt seen the rotors cause a vabration unless you were braking.

[AMRAAM4]

Originally posted by PontiacGTboy
i thought about the rotors steve but the guy at the dealership says he doubts it very seriously. he said he has learned in that business to never say never, but in the 7 years he has been there he hasnt seen the rotors cause a vabration unless you were braking.

I'd have to agree with him

[MagiLLa]

so will having hub cdentric rings and tunger lugs on a 114.3 give me vibes?? i don't feel like it's safe to have hub centrics becuz they are made of plastic??/ wouldn't it be better just to get the exact pattern?