Recommendation?...Centreless Wheel Balancing - North East?

[Longyear]

Hi all,

Here's my short story;

My 2002 C5 HDi Auto used to ride like a magic carpet........... I then needed 2 new tyres for the front wheels and had "E-Tyres" come out and fit 2 new tyres for £126.

The guys drives away and I observe my beautiful shiny new tyres...


I drive around (local driving only) for 3 weeks and all seems perfect.

The first time (since having the new tyres fitted) I drive onto the motorway and hit 65mph, the car exhibits the worst "Wheel Wobble" I've ever experienced! ........ violent shaking of the steering wheel and both front seats vibrating like a ......well.........vibrating seat!

To cut a long story short, E-Tyres cannot balance CENTRELESS hubs, as on my wheels, so did not bother.......

To be fair, I left it almost 4 weeks to get back to them, but have complained to them anyway.

Whatever happens, they are not going to be balancing my wheels, as they don't have the equipment.

Can anyone recommend a garage (much prefer a Citroen / PSA independent than a main dealer) in the NORTH EAST of England (Durham preferred) that can do centreless wheel balancing, at a fair price?

Thanks for your time gents.

[SaabC5]

I've generally found that only the bigger branches of national tyre fitting chains keep a centreless wheel balancing adaptor. I found this out the hard way going to Nationwide for a pair of tyres only to be told after they fitted them i'd have to drive 8 miles to a main centre to have them balanced.

[Longyear]

Thanks fellas.

Up to now I've phoned Croxdale (near Ferryhill, Co. Durham) who are now a main dealer it seems (they used to be an independent), but whose Centreless adaptor has broken so cannot do the work! ....... and I've called Town Centre Citroen, from who I'm awaiting a call back.

Interesting to know that ATS can sometimes do it, as I think there is one near my Mother's house (West Road, Newcastle).

Cheers.

[myglaren]

Tyrespot in Team Valley and in Washington can both do it - just had new tyres fitted in Washington.
Also ATS in South Shields (been to all of them, no problems with any of them)

[wheeler]

Some Kwik Fit branches also have the solid centre wheel adaptors.

[qprdude]

Do all C5's have this type of wheel?

[mooseshaver]

I think just the mk1. From my experience anyway. I never got my tyres done properly anywhere.
ATS were best but still not right.

[Citroenmad]

I'd be interesting to know if you find anywhere decent, I certainly know where can't balance them I have found a few places with the correct machine but have not had good results.

My Xantia Exclsuive has centreless wheels and its taken me four returns to get them done properly, thankfully they are fine now.

[mds141]

ATS/Euromaster. Had the XM wheels balanced there. No problems, staff very knowledgeable about weird French cars. Highly recommended.

[Mandrake]

I'd be interesting to know if you find anywhere decent, I certainly know where can't balance them I have found a few places with the correct machine but have not had good results.

My Xantia Exclsuive has centreless wheels and its taken me four returns to get them done properly, thankfully they are fine now.

It's a nightmare isn't it. Almost nobody in my area has the adaptor for their machine, one of the few in my area who do is National Tyres and Autocare, it took them 3 attempts to get it right with the first two incredibly badly wrong. (Out by over 100 grams, the whole car was shaking)

To give them credit it was absolutely spot on on the 3rd attempt. Then a few months later I got an "unrepairable" puncture with a new tyre fitted at Citroen (a story in itself there which I won't go into) who turned around and said they can't balance centre-less rims, leaving me with an unbalanced wheel!! After searching high and low for anyone else who could balance centre-less rims in my area I finally gave in and went back to National, they did it for a tenner and whilst its close enough its not quite right, so I no longer have vibration free motoring at 70mph.

Perhaps if there's a local ATS/Tyre master I'll give them a phone and see if they can improve it, as it really bugs me that its not quite right.

[dnsey]

Another vote for ATS.
My local branch does a good job of balancing, and they don't spend all their time wandering around like some places, but actually get on with the job!

[rory_perrett]

As said, some Kwik Fits will do them, and at the same price as an "ordinary" wheel. I say will because I suspect that some have the tooling and can but won't admit to it. When I first got a Xantia with centerless wheels 10 years ago, and I won't name the place, but town I worked in had two Kwik-Fit. Each was most apologetic that they couldn't do it but knew that the other branch had the tooling and would be able to do it. My local back street 2nd hand tyre place has the tooling as well but charges twice as much as for a standard balance, grumbles and complains like hell at you the whole time and won't change the tooling on his machine unless you want all four doing.
So I use Kwik Fit on Balby Road Doncaster, I always take it as a loose wheel and leave it with them for 2 or 3 hours but its always done when I return, done well and they are happy to do the job.

[Longyear]

Hello again Gents,

There is a positive ending to this particular story! ....... After ringing my local ATS (Durham, Langley Park) who didn't have the adaptor, and not getting any call back from Town Centre Citroen (Main Dealer; why would they bother to call me back for a £30 job ), I eventually got another email back from Croxdale (the place in Durham who had an adaptor but it had broke). They told me that they had checked and their Sunderland (Ryhope) branch could do the job. So good on them for getting back to me....... but they didn't get to do the job - here's why:-

Even though it had actually been a few months since I got the new tyres from E-Tyres (longer than I thought), they responded to the stroppy email that I sent them, and agreed that the E-Tyres Durham guy would visit and take another look at the wheel balancing.

The E-Tyres Durham (it's franchised) owner is called Dave Plumb, and he called last night, apologized for the problems, assured me that he did have the adaptor and had balanced the wheels, but that these wheels did sometimes cause problem with balancing, and that he'd come today at 12:00.

He came today and could not have been more pleasant, knowledgeable, helpful and hardworking. He spent over 1 hour mega-carefully balancing and checking the wheels, talking me through everything and was even honest enough to point out that the wheels were a few grams out, and that this may have caused the problem. Anyway after over an hour, he left and asked me to call him immediately if (after test driving the car) the wheel wobble still existed, and that if so, he'd have a colleague come and check the tracking for me.

I test drove the car and as I got to 65 (where the wobble used to start) no wobble! ..... and all the way up to *sensible* motorway speeds: no wobble whatsoever. The ride is smoother than it has ever been.

So, it's important to admit when we're wrong; Dave admitted that he may have mis-balanced the wheels last time, but I also admit that I was completely wrong to suggest he hadn't bothered balancing the wheels the first time, and Dave is a hardworking, conscientious guy who does understand our cars (and these pesky hubless wheels! ), and I'd really recommend him for new tyres.

Done!

[Citroenmad]

A great result, it's nice when you find someone as helpful as that

[myglaren]

So I use Kwik Fit on Balby Road Doncaster, I always take it as a loose wheel and leave it with them for 2 or 3 hours but its always done when I return, done well and they are happy to do the job.

Brings back some memories - My gran lived on Littlemoor Lane, behind Westfield Park, a hop skip and a jump from Kwikfit.
Haven't been there since 1961.
We lived on Wivelsfield Road in Warmsworth. Haven't been back there since about 1958.