MP

is road force balancing equally beneficial for snows? I run 225/45/17s. TIA.

mustbeaudi

quality and balancing issues that make RF so helpful for sensitive vehicles or drivers. I would do it, you only need to RF when initially mounting the tire, then you just rebalance on the same machine periodically like normal.

mustbeaudi

By the way, negotiate this cost. I always manage to do so.

Hartmann/Achtuning

Road force is 95% bull. The one thing it does well is seating the tire in the rim. Everything else a qualified tech on the balancer can do. It has been a great tool to get profit back in balancing at the consumers expense . (Yes we use Hunter balancers at our shop)

CraigB

ditto...never had a problem with the standard balance

jprice@CPS

waste? ;-)

mustbeaudi

to negotiate it as a negligible part of the purchase price now than to pay for it at face value later to diagnose a problem tire that won't balance right. Depends upon tires and car. I had terribly bad Dunlops on a sensitive Volvo V70R that the RF would have caught, and the S6 OEM contis are more touchy (heard of the 4.2 vibrations?)and some allroaders report benefits. It all depends upon price and perspective.

MP

when I moved from an '02 A4 to an '04 A4, I immediately noticed a vibration at speed that I had not experienced before. a less sensitive driver, or a driver who had not already logged 40k miles in an A4 might have accepted the vibration, but I pushed for RF balancing and the Svc Mgr at the dealership confirmed that the Pirelli P6s were defective - and acknowledged that many others were, too.

the Pirellis were replaced by the dealer on AoA's coin for Michelin PS A/S, which were excellent.

from that time, I've been sold on RF balancing, but I wasn't sure if it would be as effective for a 'sloppy' tire like a real snow + ice model, or even for a performance winter tire like a Dunlop M3.

but based on my experience and a few comments, I'm inclined to go for it.

BTW, all Audi dealers are now required to have a RF balancer in order to service S4, S6, A8, allroad, etc., which generally have very low profile OE tires - and picky drivers. the RF machine is the fastest and easiest way to isolate mystery vibrations on these vehicles in many situations.

mustbeaudi

I like the characterization of the owners & cars ... great, and count in us S6 guys, too!