Tire question

Can a tire have a bad or broken belt and the problem not be visible and not
detected by balancing the tires.

Thanks,
Nick

 

Yes
Larry

 

Define "not be visible." A broken or damaged belt is going to cause SOME
distortion of the tire, but it can be very, very hard to see, especially
without taking the tire off the car and examining it slowly and
carefully. Or it can be bad enough to see at a glance, just depends on
which belt and where it breaks. But you are correct, it won't
necessarily affect balance at all.

 

thanks for the replies. the problem I've got is that there is a shimmy in
the van between 15-35 mph. I had the tires rebalanced and rotated. Problem
still there. The tire place checked the front end and could not find
anything. I took it to my mechanic and he checked it and drove it and said
it feels like a broken belt in the rear. You can feel the shimmy in your
seat. so I go back to the tire place and they say it is not the tires.
They balanced them with a machine that has a roller against the tire and
said that if it wobbled, the computer would have picked it up. And they
said if it was a belt, the shimmy should be there all the time and you would
see a bulge where the belt is broken. So, I don't know where to go next.
I'm going to try to put the spare on each side of the rear and test drive it
and see if the problem goes away. Don't know what else to do. Mechanic
says tire, tire man says no.

thanks again for all your advice,
Nick

 

Did you try cleaning the corrosion build up between the alloy wheels and the
hubs? Did you also pull the front brakes and rotors and clean all mating
surfaces? If you didn't try it. If you have tires made by Firestone or
derivative of Firestone just buy new ones (try Michelin). Make sure rear
bearings are adj. properly too.
Larry

 

That actually sounds like a pretty good approach to take. I think you'll
rule out tires as a problem with this, then you can move on to (re)checking
the suspension components (with a different mechanic).

--Geoff

 

Having over 30 years in the tire business try first to rotate front to rear
the wobble should move. Next rotate the l/f to the l/r see it that helps or
isolates the problem you should be abe to figure out which tire it is. How
old are these tires?

 

More likely you will CONFIRM the tire problem. Then you can find a
different tire dealer.