Continental ExtremeContact DWS tire balancing issue at Discount Tires
 

This is a bit puzzling to me so maybe y'all can enlighten me on something. I bought a set of Continental ExtremeContact DWS few months ago at Discount Tire. The tires are slightly out of balance and I've returned to DT for three weeks straight. Strange thing is that every time I returned to DT, the same balancer showed the tires to be out of balance! I leave the store each time with a perfectly balanced set of tires!

Any speed over 65mph produces out of balance issues. While driving down a newly constructed part of the hwy, I can feel the car vibrating and the front pass seat vibrating on the same frequency. Steering wheel has a very slight shimmy on straight road and more noticeable shimmy on long sweeping turns.

The rims are true and no humps.
The tires have no humps.
New BJs
New tie rod ends.
New all struts, rubber mounts and isolators.

So, I took the car to another tire shop near my work. They balanced just the front tires and this time, the steering wheel is shaking back and forth after I hit the hwy. This steering wheel shimmy is the worst so far! I returned there few days later and had them put the tires on the spinner. Right front tire was still balanced and required no weight. The left front was out of balanced and it was re-balanced. STILL, the steering wheel shimmies, just not as much. During long sweeping turns on the hwy, the steering wheel shakes badly. This is very annoying.

So, I'm puzzled as to why there high quality tires not producing repeatable results on the spinners? When they leave the shop each time, they're perfectly balanced - I eye witnessed them each time. However, driving on the tires produces a different result on the hwy.

All suspension work was done by me so I know it was done right. Everything but the springs and the arms bushings were replaced. Car drives great, sounds fantastic (as in no clonks) and these tires really cut down on the road noise.

Re: Continental ExtremeContact DWS tire balancing issue at Discount Tires
 

Try swapping front axles side to side. A "worn in" axle can cause vibrating, which swapping them side to side will cause them to wear in the opposite direction eliminating vibration. This vibration is what could potentially be causing your wheel weights to shift possibly, really hard to tell. Just something that won't cost you anything but a couple hours of time. If that doesn't fix it, then back to square one.

Re: Continental ExtremeContact DWS tire balancing issue at Discount Tires
 

if the tires showed to be out of balance when respun then they were actually out of balance. this can be caused by multiple things. as simple as water in the air that inflated the tire to more complex things like shifting in the cords of the tire, or even just mounted incorrectly. water is easy to look for just unmount the tire, shifting in the cords can typically be seen by looking at the inside ribs on the tire. if the cords are shifting then the thin rubber on the inside that covers them will seem loose when you rub it. some tires (particularly bfgoodrich) actually have a particular way they want to be mounted relative to the valve stem. there will be a little circle that goes 180 out from it.
i would put money on a tire issue because no matter what else can cause vibrations when you rebalanced the tires they were out of balance. i have kept my mouth shut about these tires because many here seem to like them but i try not to sell them at work because i have had issues similar to this that was only ever solved by replacing the tires. they should swap out your tires with new ones and send the ones you have back as deffective. they may not be deffective but it would eliminate them as a possibility if you still have the vibration.

Re: Continental ExtremeContact DWS tire balancing issue at Discount Tires
 

Very useful information on those tires being known defective issues.

Re: Continental ExtremeContact DWS tire balancing issue at Discount Tires
 

That's news to me, as the Conti DWS is highly recommended on three internet boards I frequent. I bought a pair for the front of my STS, much superior to the oem Michelins. Any more info on this? IE: efforts by the manufacturer to correct, etc etc.

Glenn

Re: Continental ExtremeContact DWS tire balancing issue at Discount Tires
 

Return the tires and have the dealer file a complaint with continental. They can take the tires back and x-ray them and run them on their uniformity machine to figure out if they have a build defect. Do not settle for them. Tire manufacturers do this routinely. Demand a new set of tires!

Not all tire manufacturers sample 100% of their tires for uniformity. Bad tires can and do slip through.

Re: Continental ExtremeContact DWS tire balancing issue at Discount Tires
 

i haven't heard anything from continental because we only deal with our tire distributor. all i know is we used to sell these fairly regularly but i stopped recommending them because some wouldn't stay balanced and some had wander like you would experience with bias ply tires. we just traded them out for more of the same tire and that solved the problem. other than these issues they seem to be really good tires. discount should have no problem exchanging them for more of the same.

Re: Continental ExtremeContact DWS tire balancing issue at Discount Tires
 

Thanks for the input everyone. As of this time, the axles are not suspect by me as the tire vibration is much different than drive train vibration. Specially, since I can move the tires and the vibration follows accordingly. Also, axle vibration will not effect the steering wheel movements.

The store manager will perform road force balance tomorrow on all the tires and see what happens. If this doesn't cure it, he'll contact Continental for the next step. I was in the store for a slow leak on my SUV so we had a nice chat about the SVX. I buy many thousand $$$ of tires from that store so hopefully he'll come through for me. I do need to pick up some bagels though!

In the mean time, I'm open to recommendation on a second set of tires if you got any. I need tires that will perform well in the snow/ice and be able to handle washboard roads daily. I live in the boonies! I'm not a racer by any means but I do like to take the corners a little fast and the Bontrager sway bar will help in that dept (once I put it back on!).

Thanks.

Re: Continental ExtremeContact DWS tire balancing issue at Discount Tires
 

don't know how serious you are about snow/ice but i put on hankook ipike studded snows during the winter, if the snow is lower than the bumper i have no problem except avoiding all the suvs with 20" rims and street tires that slid into the curbs.
discount should just replace your tires and then deal with continental themselves. this is what my shop does and we sell way less tires than dt. similar to buying a bad part from napa or milk from the grocery store. it's their responsibility to stand behind the products they sell, they aren't going to call dorman or the dairy to see if you get a new one. i would take my money somewhere else.

Re: Continental ExtremeContact DWS tire balancing issue at Discount Tires
 

I had all the tires road force balanced so let me see how they do. I noticed a very slight shimmy on the steering wheel but I need to give it a few more days to see what's up.

Thanks for the info on the Hankook studded snow tires. I don't have a need for such serious duty tires as I have other SUV's to handle that kind of serious snow work. Oh how I wish we'd get snow up to the bumper depth......

Re: Continental ExtremeContact DWS tire balancing issue at Discount Tires
 

This doesn't directly address your problem, just weighing in on the DWS.

I just put the same tires on my '97 with like-new BBS wheels. I like them a lot. I took a 90 degree turn (corner of 3 farms) the other day at 35 mph and they barely made a sound.

I live in the sticks in Wyoming, drive on washboard roads too. I drove the other day in an all out downpour and they were nice. I tested them just a little.

I'm expecting icey, snowy roads soon and look forward to that test. I admit that I have not fully tested them yet and have little to compare them to because I've only had the SVX since July.

No vibrations here. Most of the reviews I read where good. Highest rated all-season. Just saying- no problems with my DWS yet.

I hope Continental or Tire Rack (where I got mine) takes care of them. Good luck.

Re: Continental ExtremeContact DWS tire balancing issue at Discount Tires
 

Update:

Three out of the four tires that went through road force balancing process required them to unmount and rotate the rim/tire for a better balancing. I'll drive the car to work this week and will make a note of the vibes and any other feedback.

Re: Continental ExtremeContact DWS tire balancing issue at Discount Tires
 

I had Conti DWS on my S8, and they're the best tires I've ever had. The last time around I switched to Pirellis only because the contis were on backorder.

Mike

Re: Continental ExtremeContact DWS tire balancing issue at Discount Tires
 

+1 for Road Force balancing. Really big difference from traditional way. Checks for run-out of wheels and much more.

Provides up to 1,400 pounds against the tire. The loaded roller detects non-balance, radial-force-related vibrations caused by eccentricity and constructional variation of the tire and wheel. Unlike non-contact measurement, the roller samples the entire footprint of the tire including the sidewall’s contribution to ride quality.

.

Re: Continental ExtremeContact DWS tire balancing issue at Discount Tires
 

Hopefully this will become the standard as older machines are replaced. Definitely worth the extra expense many shops charge for the service in the meantime.

Glenn