Buckled wheels

[Ianmc]

Had a very slight steering wheel vibration. Looked at wheels and the odd weight appeared to be missing. Wheels not balanced for around 3 years so took to local tyre centre this morning for all 4 wheels to be balanced. All balanced to zero and car drives fine, the steering wheel vibration now gone, £19.99 all up so well pleased.
BUT, manager informed me that all wheels are "buckled" and invoice states "customer advised all wheels buckled". Wheels are OEM 16" and (IMO) suit the car well.
This is a new one on me. Whilst the wheels are 22 years old they are in good unrestored condition with little surface damage. I thought the purpose of wheel balancing was to counter any imbalance in wheel tyre combination anyway. My instinct is to put this down to "cover my arse" syndrome, any other thoughts?

 

[Stevo7682]

Balance will sort a lot but depends on which way wheel buckle is .
If it's up and down harder to get rid of as tyre itself gets pulled out of shape by the wheel
A sideways buckle is easier to dial out ( as long as not too bad) .
Usually on a front drive car the worst wheels would end up on the rear ( to take any vibration away from the steering, ) but on zeds being rear drive this does not always help (assuming a non staggered set up here ) as the vibration can travel through the live axle.
Did they show you the buckle or just tell you.
As a lot of wheel as get older end up slightly out of shape so might not be that bad
Zeds are quite sensitive so if all the vibration is gone they probably aren't that bad ( if they were I would like to have thought the garage would have told you to get new ones)
Stephen.

 

[Ianmc]

Thanks Stephen, they just told me! Think will suck and see for now.
Ian

 

[Dino D]

For me: Tyre centre + ‘manager’ = BS spoken at all times. I think there is a special college just for them to learn the BS talk..

Often terribly run businesses and more skilled in blackmail, extortion and lies than actually knowing anything about a tyre.

File the invoice with those political party flyers

 

[Stevo7682]

Not wanting to put the cat among the pigeons so to to speak just curiosity.

How did they balance your wheels.
What I mean by this is there are 2 ways to set up an alloy balance
You can static balance it where the weight only goes on the inner part of the rim .

Or you can dynamic balance the wheel where weight is applied to both sides of the inner part of the rim

Dynamic balance is the way factory does it
Static balance is not as good.

Edit .
What I would add is sometimes even with dynamic one side of rim may be ok ( or both but rare) so weight only on inner or outer but highly unlikely all 4 would be like that.

 

[Ianmc]

Weights are on inner rim; the balance has neutralised any "buckle", so guess it can't be too bad. Interesting that all 4 wheels are said to be "buckled".

 

[Sean d]

Weights are on inner rim; the balance has neutralised any "buckle", so guess it can't be too bad. Interesting that all 4 wheels are said to be "buckled".

I wouldn't worry too much about, sounds more like BS and if they have balanced OK they will be fine

 

[Dino D]

Weights are on inner rim; the balance has neutralised any "buckle", so guess it can't be too bad. Interesting that all 4 wheels are said to be "buckled".

Only 4, you mean he forgot to tell you that the Spare was buckled too

 

[2DunnsZ3]

Sounds like the same bs that they tell you when battery is tested and they tell you it also needs an alternator. It will always show that on their tester when the battery is dead. Its magic, when you put a new battery in , all of a sudden it doesn't need an alternator any more.