[KkVaidya]

Originally Posted by Geo_Ipe

Took my Creta for balancing and alignment last week. Alignment was done alright, but while balancing they balanced only the wheels going on the front. The shop claims that rear wheels don't require balancing. Is that true? I was under the impression that all wheels need to be balanced.

Also their rotation policy was flawed. RF went to RR and vice versa, similar on the left as well. They said they'll be 'crossing' the wheels only at the next rotation!

Balancing has to do with the wheel and not with the location where it was fitted. Pl. ask them to checking balancing on ALL wheels. Make sure the tolerance is minimal.
Tyre rotation depends on whether vehicle is FWD or RWD. Creata being a FWD, front to back is ok.

[ruzbehxyz]

Originally Posted by Geo_Ipe

Took my Creta for balancing and alignment last week. Alignment was done alright, but while balancing they balanced only the wheels going on the front. The shop claims that rear wheels don't require balancing. Is that true?

Wheel balancing is required for all wheels, irrespective of your car being FWD, RWD, AWD or 4WD.

[deemash]

While I was doing wheel alignment for my 10k old Creta last Saturday, the alignment device slipped while tightening it on the wheel creating a minor scratch, which is kind of first scratch on my 10k (6 months old) car.

I don't have a picture of it handy right now.

May I know what precautions to be taken while doing this alignment?
Is it suggested to do it from service centre or outside?
Is there a way to remove the scratch, it is kind of deep but not noticeable to the eyes.

Please guide.

[KkVaidya]

Originally Posted by deemash

May I know what precautions to be taken while doing this alignment?
Is it suggested to do it from service centre or outside?
Is there a way to remove the scratch, it is kind of deep but not noticeable to the eyes.

Please guide.

I do not understand why you need to do Wheel Alignment on a vehicle which has run only 10,000kms.
Did the service center adjust the the Toe-in or they just measured it and earned a quick buck?
Try using a rubbing compound on the scratch. If you are not acquainted with it, take it to a Hyundai service center and ask the bodyshop manager to get it polished for you. This will reduce it further.

[deemash]

Originally Posted by KkVaidya

I do not understand why you need to do Wheel Alignment on a vehicle which has run only 10,000kms.
Did the service center adjust the the Toe-in or they just measured it and earned a quick buck?
Try using a rubbing compound on the scratch. If you are not acquainted with it, take it to a Hyundai service center and ask the bodyshop manager to get it polished for you. This will reduce it further.

There is no need to check for alignment on a 10k old car? When I took it for the second service (9.5k to 10k), the SA asked for wheel alignment and I said I will do it outside.

The alignment was done by a known person who used to do alignment for my old car. He is kind of a close person to me since the last 10 years. So he said he will start charging from next time.

I'll take to the body shop and try!

[Nikhilb2008]

Originally Posted by KkVaidya

I do not understand why you need to do Wheel Alignment on a vehicle which has run only 10,000kms.

Guys, I will type out a long-ish post here. I feel it is time to dispel many of the myths about WA and WB. I've posted this multiple times, but I guess it's required periodically. If you dont know, I am involved in the automobile industry and I will benefit directly and indirectly with more alignments being done. Having made clear my "conflict of interest" I will put forward my views, not necessarily my opinions. What I say comes with experience and with technical backing. Please accept or reject my views as you like.

First: Wheel Alignment and Wheel Balancing is definitely recommended every 5,000 kms in Indian conditions. Theoretically WA and WB Can change even after 5 kms(yes, FIVE kms), but generally 5k is a well accepted number.

After you finish WA and are driving out of the alignment centre, if you hit a pothole or kerb your wheel, you could change the wheel alignment. This is why I say WA can change even in 5 kms or lesser.

Same goes for WB. If you brake very hard and the tyre gets slightly scrubbed at one point, the point of imbalance changes and hence, your wheels will need to be balanced.

Secondly: People dealing with WA and WB(especially) only when the symptoms show up.

This is the biggest problem leading to unnecessary early wear and tyre of tyres, suspension components, etc. Do you wait to have chest pain and shooting pains up and down your left arm to get a health check up? Or would you get it done periodically and generally try to take care of it?

When WA is out of the specifications, sometimes your steering will be crooked, sometimes you will have pulling issues but most of the time, your car will continue to behave normally. However, if it's behaving normally and your alignment is out of spec, your tyres could be getting eaten up, maybe some suspension part could be getting worn out and generally things arent ideal.

When your wheels are imbalanced, there is an excessive vibration generated by them on your suspension and steering. However, dont forget the main job of the suspension! It is to insulate you from the road conditions. They continue to do their job even when your wheels are imbalanced. So, when your wheels are imbalanced but you dont feel any vibration in your steering, it just means that your suspension, wheel bearings, etc are working way harder to insulate you from the vibrations. This means faster wear and tear of suspension components, wheel bearings and even the tyres. When you start to feel the vibration in your steering wheel, it is usually quite bad. It means that the imbalance is so bad that the suspension can no longer absorb these vibrations and pass these on to the driver.

What about rear wheels? Most people are perfectly happy getting only the front wheels balanced because they feel that there is no vibration from the rear. How do you know there is no vibration? Just because you didnt feel it? The above paragraph again holds true. The rear suspension could just be absorbing it and because there is nothing (like the steering wheel) directly connected to the rear suspension, you dont feel it. That doesnt mean the vibrations dont exist.

Thirdly --- Scams: Unfortunately, we Indians are cynical lots because many tyre shop owners, workshop managers try to scam us by overhyping the problems and earning an extra buck. Especially in the workshop segment, the service advisors are under severe pressure to add more jobs to their job cards. Because of this, everyone gets a bad name.

Fourthly --- How to avoid being scammed: It is difficult to negotiate at a workshop. Also, sometimes there is no way of really ensuring whether alignment and balancing was done or not. An Alignment report can be demanded but no one gives a report for balancing. In most cases even an alignment report is missing. This is why I prefer alignment at tyre shops or stand alone alignment centres. You can stand there and see the work being done and can demand a report or at least take a photo of the before and after readings shown on the computer screen.

What you can do is to negotiate with the alignment centre manager/owner.

Insist that alignment isnt necessary but you are ready to get the alignment measured. IF the values are in RED or out of specification, let the technician go ahead and do a complete alignment and you pay for it. If it is all in green, then it is your call. You can tell them that the alignment is within specification and alignment isnt required and you wont pay. However, there is a small hitch here.

Let us assume that the Toe is supposed to be 0°05'. Usually there is a tolerance of +/- 5'. Which means that the toe can be 0°00' or 0°10'.

If your car is showing a toe reading of 0°09', it will be in green, but it is very close to the edge. Which means that since the last alignment, it has moved from 0°05' to 0°09'. It will continue to move outwards and will soon cross the threshold of 0°10'.

Are you prepared to allow that to happen and then come back again to the alignment centre for another check up in a few hundred kms? Or would you rather pay then and there and ask them to bring it back to 0°05'?

This is a call you will have to take considering the time investment and what the alignment centre is charging.

Similarly, for wheel balancing, if you have driven only on the highways with minimal hard braking and cornering, it is possible that the wheel balance wouldnt have changed in 5k. However, with normal city driving, my personal experience is that the baalncing would change in 5k. Anyway, you could negotiate with the alignment/tyre shop owner that they can remove the wheels and tyres from your car, check it on the balancer without removing the old weights and if the result comes "OK", you will not pay for any additional weights.

However, the tyre shop owner could still charge you 50-70 rupees per wheel for balancing charges as it is a laborious process of jacking your car, removing your wheels, taking it to the balancer and then checking it.

I would recommend you get your balancing checked every 5k. Maybe insist that they spin it first without removing the old weights.

I have rarely seen all 4 wheels getting an "OK" result after 5k kms. It almost never happens.

Anyway, if this is followed every 5k, you can be rest assured that you are doing the best for your car's hidden parts and ensuring the longest possible life for your tyres and suspension components.

Originally Posted by deemash

I'll take to the body shop and try!

Unfortunately, your problem is a common one. Many cars today are coming with beautiful alloys from the factory but people are still using 1970s era technology to mount the targets/sensors on the wheel. This is causing lots of scratches and damages. If the scratch is very deep, there is nothing much that can be done. If it's a surface scratch, like KKVaidya said, maybe some rubbing compound or polishing can take care of it. You could also try to contact a detailer in your city and see if they can help you.

[Rshrey22]

I recently had my car's wheel alignment done as it was feeling a little wobbly at 60-80 kmh. I got this alignment report from the shop, but I can't figure out what it means.

Can somebody please interpret this?

[KkVaidya]

Originally Posted by Rshrey22

I recently had my car's wheel alignment done as it was feeling a little wobbly at 60-80 kmh. I got this alignment report from the shop, but I can't figure out what it means.

Can somebody please interpret this?

Seems the Camber is out of adjustment at Front. I do not know if this is adjustable on the Swift. Even if it is, the workshop will be hesitant to do it being a laborious job.
Tolerance is between -0deg 47Mins to 1deg 13mins. Your reading shows -0deg 01mins at front

[The Rationalist]

Originally Posted by Nikhilb2008

Guys, I will type out a long-ish post here. I feel it is time to dispel many of the myths about WA and WB.

Dear Nikhil,

A very useful one. I feel bad about not doing the preventive check ups. Is there any specific brand of WA & WB that we should go for at shops. I see many brand like Hunter, Arjun and other names? Please give your valuable advice.

Another question is regarding tyre size and alloy.
My Aspire has come with 14 inch alloys with tyre size of 175/65/14 from Ford, now Ford has started giving it 15 inch alloys with tyre size of 195/55/15/.
What will the effect if I upgrade to the 15 inch ones with regard to
1) Sterring feel ( will it become too light or heavy )
2) Handling
3) Ride comfort

PS : Looks like I have seen your VRS at Calicut few months back at Mankavu junction , parked near Royal Enfield showroom, not sure whether it's you though!!!

Regards,
The Rationalist.

[abhinav.s]

Originally Posted by The Rationalist

My Aspire has come with 14 inch alloys with tyre size of 175/65/14 from Ford, now Ford has started giving it 15 inch alloys with tyre size of 195/55/15/.
What will the effect if I upgrade to the 15 inch ones with regard to
1) Sterring feel ( will it become too light or heavy )
2) Handling
3) Ride comfort

Having had a Figo with 15 inch set up from Day 0, I can chime in a bit here. Steering feel will improve a bit and you can sense a slightly heavier steering. Nothing unmanageable or cumbersome.
Handling will be better by a small margin. Straight line stability will be better.
Ride comfort is not compromised and you will still feel the suspension going about its job without feeling too stiff.

The stock alloys are a good choice and also priced very well. You can go for good set of sticky tyres to match the alloys and you will be all set. Hope this helps!

[KkVaidya]

Originally Posted by The Rationalist

Another question is regarding tyre size and alloy.
My Aspire has come with 14 inch alloys with tyre size of 175/65/14 from Ford, now Ford has started giving it 15 inch alloys with tyre size of 195/55/15/.
What will the effect if I upgrade to the 15 inch ones with regard to
1) Sterring feel ( will it become too light or heavy )
2) Handling
3) Ride comfort

Changing the wheel size from OE will affect the vehicle dynamics, generally inclined towards negatives. At the factory, for what I know, they change a lot of other parts & parameters when they change the tyre/wheel size as it changes the aspect ratio.

[BenjiRoss]

After the 30000 km service in April 2019, my xcent has a slight pull to right especially in city speeds. I feel that the wheel alignment done during the service was not good. I sent it to Hyundai today and as usual they said there is no pull at all. I requested a check and these are the images they have sent. Anyone to decipher it?

[KkVaidya]

Originally Posted by BenjiRoss

After the 30000 km service in April 2019, my xcent has a slight pull to right especially in city speeds. I feel that the wheel alignment done during the service was not good. I sent it to Hyundai today and as usual they said there is no pull at all. I requested a check and these are the images they have sent. Anyone to decipher it?

Alignment is OK as per the values fed in the Wheel alignment machine. I do not know what is the specified Toe, Caster & Camber for Xcent, but usually, alignment shops have the correct data.
For Vehicle pull, check tyre pressure in dead cold condition (in the morning). It should be as specified by Mfr.

[Gansan]

I today completed a road trip from Chennai to Trichy and back. Roads were excellent throughout, but there were occasional short stretches where the tar was scrubbed in preparation for relaying on small bridges and culverts, where the tyres go banging over the exposed expansion joints, since the small stretches jump at you suddenly and there is hardly time to brake and reduce speed. Also at some newly relaid stretches, there is a small height difference between old and new stretches, but feels like a small speed breaker at speed. Further I hit one or two potholes in Trichy city.

And between Palar bridge and Paranur toll plaza, I hit something lying on the road, when I overtook a bus by moving to the middle lane from the right in a continuous curve. I saw the object just before hitting, thought it was black polythene cover. It certainly did not look like a stone.

But when I hit it with my front left wheel I felt a considerable shock. And saw in the rear view mirror some broken objects scampering on the road. I suspect it was some hard plastic part fallen from another vehicle, may be a piece of bumper or even a tail light. Just continued driving and came home. There were no vibrations, and no pulling to one side. I even tested with my hands off the steering wheel, and also applying brake with the hands off at an empty stretch of road. There still is no pulling. Inspected the tyre after reaching home, nothing visible.

I plan to check air tomorrow morning. It is a tubeless tyre on a steel rim, if there is a bend there certainly may be loss of pressure. If pressure is normal, then I will take the car to the workshop and check WA and WB.

Is that enough or should I check for anything else?

[Gansan]

^^

There is a peculiar problem.

I took the car to the MSM workshop yesterday, it was hoisted up and underbody inspected. Nothing seemed amiss. I told them to do an alignment and balancing anyway. I also accepted the offer of deflating the tyres and filling N2 as well, because I have a few more road trips in mind.

Everything went fine, until I saw the N2 guy wrestling with the tyres to fit the filling nozzle and also to take it off, so went inside to investigate. Seems the lock on the nozzle was broken, so he was manually fitting and removing it. It was very tight to fit and needed a lot of effort, and also equally hard to remove, hence all the shaking and wrestling. I thought the tyres lost some pressure in the nozzle removal process too, and was worried all the pushing/shaking/pulling might have damaged the mouth of the tubeless tyres, and gave the SA a piece of my mind. They subsequently checked all the tyre mouths with soap water and declared there were no leaks. I then brought the car home.

Not satisfied, I waited till this morning (about 15 hours) and took the car to my nearest petrol station which has a reliable N2 facility. I told them to fill 32 PSI in all wheels, which was supposedly kept at MSM too. Before filling commenced, one wheel showed 29 PSI, two showed 28 and the last one showed 32. They subsequently filled all wheels to 32 PSI.

I believe the pressure filled at MSM was not correct in all wheels due to the subsequent difficult nozzle removal, and that the mouths are not leaking. I will wait for a few days and check once again, the car will not be used in the meantime. If they all show more or less equal pressure then, everything will be fine.

If there was a leak in the mouths, would the tyres have become visibly deflated this morning, or can the leak be so gradual as to lose just 2-3 PSI per day? Can they become flat if I wait for a few days?