dkny

I posted several months back regarding my steering wheel vibration problem. My 2002 ESGTAT had this problem since I got it, and I brought it to Mazda 2x at around 4000 km. They said the wheels are balanced and that they didn't feel any vibrations. But after the second balance it still vibrated, especially at high speeds, and I was damn frustrated with them. I called again and the service manger said maybe its temperature sensitive and bring it back when it gets cold. I told him he should get a Hunter GSP9700. He told me he's never needed a better wheel balancer. Well I guess I was his first case. I didn't bring it in when it got cold because I didn't think they would fix it, and even if they did, did that mean I had to get a wheel balance every winter and spring?

I got my customer satisfaction satisfaction survey a couple months ago, and expressed my dissatisfation with this issue. A few weeks later, the service manager called me, and left a message. I didn't get back to him because I knew he would do nothing new.

I was getting fed up with the vibrations (its stress inducing at high speeds 140- 160 km/hr, probably not good for long term, and not good for safety) and decided to take a risk by getting a road-force wheel balance on a Hunter GSP9700 as suggested long ago by someone on this forum.

I called around and got quotes of $150, $120, and $100. $100 was from the Porsche dealership. So I took it there, and the technician showed me my rims rotating on the GSP9700. 3 of the 4 were quite warped- you could see the edge of the rim move at a slow rotation. And the 1 good rim that I had, had a warped tire on it, something with the belt the guy said.

I did go over some potholes, but only the front- can normal driving cause three of the four rims to warp? I bet they were warped to begin with and they couldn't balance it, because I had large weights on my rims.

So I told the tech to put the crappy tire on a crappy rim and put them on the back, and the two best at the front. He removed the clip-on weights and put sticker-weights on right near the spokes.
They charged me 2 hours of work, @ $85 an hour, + 8.50 for a carwash (which they did a good job of!). I'm sorta glad I went there because waiting 2.5 hours is easier in a room with a LCD-HDTV, expresso machine, and a good magazine selection.

I noticed the car was smoother just driving the car slowly out of the parking lot. I couldn't wait to take it on the highway, and it was extremely smooth up to 150km/hr. In fact I didn't realize I was going that fast because I can usually tell by the degree of vibration! I can feel a teeny bit of vibration at high speeds from the back wheel(s), but overall the car is sooooo much smoother. It truly is a pleasure to drive now.

My only problem now is a metal plate vibrating near the rear speakers.

I plan to write to Mazda Canada regarding this, and see what they will do for me.