Big AL

I just bought a set of wheels and tires (Toyo Proxes 4 225/40/18) from wheelmax.com. I know, I know their service sucks but I thought I'd take a chance since they're so cheap. Two of the wheels had their balancing weights fall off during shipping so I took them to Tires Plus to have them road force balanced. Well, they discovered one of my tires was out of round and therefore should be replaced. But what confused me is that they said it wasn't out of round in the more commonly up and down sort of way but instead side to side. They said the tire when hooked up to the machine would vibrate side to side and they called it a out of round condition. They couldn't balance it because of that. I have that tire on the left front of my car and notice no vibrating at all while driving. I even took it upto 90 mph and noticed nothing. They said I will notice it soon as the tire wears more. Should I be concerned and try to get a replacement now or just wait and see what happens? I'm skeptical that the tire is really out of round. I don't really want to deal with returning it to wheelmax. Sorry for the long post.

98CoupeV6

Why would you not call them up and get a replacement?

jobrien

If you don't feel like dealing with the return, then why are you asking what you should do???

You may have just gotten a bad set of tires. It's possible. I'd certainly return them. We had a similar issue with a set of Sumitomos we put on a Vette. BTW.. Sumitomos are absolute GARBAGE.

wedley2

that would be a manufacturer defect...so the manufactuer should replace it free of charge

Big AL

At first wheelmax wanted me to return the tire first before sending out a new one and they wouldn't pay for mounting and balancing. They have since changed their mind and said they would send a new tire first and pay to have it mounted and balanced so that settles that. However, I'm still wondering has anyone ever heard of a tire that was out of round that only vibrates side to side?

I always thought out of round tires meant the tires vibrate up and down because there was a high or low spot on the tire that couldn't be corrected by repositioning it on the wheel but Tires Plus said out of round tires also occur like mine where it's vibrating side to side. It just didn't make sense to me and I thought they were just giving me a bunch of BS. Besides, I thought Toyo tires were some of the best in the world so I didn't expect a defective tire. Anyways, me happy now, me get new tire free