Earthworm Posted February 15, 2007 Share Posted February 15, 2007 My company parking lot has lots of islands. All the plows covered them with snow. As I pulled in yesterday, someone had spun out and I went to go between two islands to go around them. My front left tire hit a curb very hard, probably 15-20 MPH. On the way home, everything seemed OK, but I got on the highway and noticed a very noticeable vibration over 50 MPH. When I got home, I took the wheel off and inspected it. No damage apparent to the eye. Luckily I bought a spare tire off a friend and put that one on. I went back on the highway - no vibration! Phew, seems like no suspension damage... But, what could have happened to my wheel? Could it be out of round? Wouldn't the tire go flat if so? Is something like that fixable or is that wheel scrap metal? Thanks for your input! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VtspecB Posted February 15, 2007 Share Posted February 15, 2007 Terrible luck, sorry to hear it. The wheel is, best case scenario, out of balance i.e. knocked the weights off of it. Not so good scenario, it is dented (out of round). Depending on the severity of it, some shops can 'pull' it back to round. Worst case, you'll have to replace it. I scrapped after market OZ's on an '03 LGT on VT's notoriously tall granite curbs. I took a huge chunk out of the wheel and even indented it enough that the tire was also pulled inward, but it never lost air pressure for 6 months until I had it repaired, the bead held. I had a shop send them out to be repaired. For $150 the fixed and repainted them to like new condition. Now I run the snows on them on a spec.B. my vBGarage Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
coxx Posted February 15, 2007 Share Posted February 15, 2007 you might just have snow packed in the wheel. That happened to me this morning. I didnt realize it till I got on the hwy & started goin like 50-60mph. I got this shaking & I pulled into the gas station & knocked the snow out & all was fine after that/ "Barack Obama, mothaf#%@a! Barack Obama! I'm the president...of hittin' the ass!" -this is not a political view it's merely a quote from a hilarious tv show. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeterJMC Posted February 15, 2007 Share Posted February 15, 2007 Tire may be deformed (a lump in it) or the rim may be slightly bent. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
direavenger Posted February 15, 2007 Share Posted February 15, 2007 My guess is you knocked the weight off. If you hit it hard enough to deform the wheel, It would be reasonable to think that you at least got a blister/bubble on the tire. What does the tire look like? The Dude - Two inches and counting... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Earthworm Posted February 15, 2007 Author Share Posted February 15, 2007 Well when i took it off yesterday it was hard to tell because it was wet, covered in snow and ice, and filthy... I'll wait until a warm day (like way up in the twenties ) and clean it up so I can inspect it more closely... I'll look when I get home today to see if the weights are still on it - if not, I bet that would explain everything. Otherwise I'll look for deformities or blisters or whatnot... Thanks for the input! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeterJMC Posted February 15, 2007 Share Posted February 15, 2007 Also, if the inside of the tire is damaged (you wouldn't be able to tell from the outside) you would have balance issues. A situation that happened last year... I didn't know I had a nearly flat tire and my brother took my car out to the store. When he came back I noticed it was almost completely flat. I re-inflated it and had balance issues with it at highway speeds, the outside and the rim were perfect. When I had the tires replaced I looked at the tire and the inner lining had ripped and seperated. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
robinlsb Posted February 15, 2007 Share Posted February 15, 2007 Let us hope for snow pack. The Subie wheels are very sensitive to this! "Belief does not make truth. Evidence makes truth. And belief does not make evidence." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smushybrain Posted February 15, 2007 Share Posted February 15, 2007 Well when i took it off yesterday it was hard to tell because it was wet, covered in snow and ice, and filthy... I'll wait until a warm day (like way up in the twenties ) and clean it up so I can inspect it more closely... I'll look when I get home today to see if the weights are still on it - if not, I bet that would explain everything. Otherwise I'll look for deformities or blisters or whatnot... Thanks for the input! It's good to hear that it doesn't sound like anything's wrong with the suspension... I'd take the wheel and tire to a good tire shop and have them take a look at it if you can't find anything obviously wrong. Have them take a look at it and rebalance the wheel before you throw it back on... As a couple posts stated above it could just have been snow/ice on the inside of one of the rims, though. (That happened to me today.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Earthworm Posted February 15, 2007 Author Share Posted February 15, 2007 Yeah, when I got home from the drive where I felt the vibration I got all the snow packed anywhere in my car... I had been at a bar the night before with a big empty parking lot (right after a full day of snow, so maybe three-four inches) and a friend of mine and I were doing big donuts all over the place, so when I inspected my car the next morning, my entire front grill opening was packed, the wheel wells, fog lights, etc... Donuts in this car are so fun... You can really control the throttle and get great response from the back end... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spicish22 Posted February 15, 2007 Share Posted February 15, 2007 i got stuck yesteday and now i am also feeling the vibration at/over 60mph, i hope its just packed snow Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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