[lockon]

Hi guys,
I thought I'd add my saga to the thread in case anyone can benefit from it.

I've had Honda's forever and even from the days of my 1st one (1985 Prelude) I've struggled with vibrations on Honda's. On the Prelude I solved the problem by finding The Radial Tire company in Silver Spring - they would always balance the front tires ON the vehicle after the normal spin balancing. Problem is that they are too far from where I live now.

The current issue was on a 2010 Odyssey. We bought the van slightly used several years ago and generally it was ok but never glass smooth at highway speeds. I lived with it but then on a road trip last year we noticed that under acceleration there was vibration whereas during coasting the vibration was less. Being a bit analytical I determined that the vibration had to be the joints on the drive shafts... the dealer agreed and replaced both half-shafts under the Certified warranty. They told me that my wheels were also bent because when they put a set of four new tires and wheels on for the post-repair test drive they said the van was smooth.

So, I had a wheel specialist take all four wheels/tire and check them. He said one was bent badly, one was slightly bent and two were ok - luckily he was honest! He didn't even charge me for the slightly bent one even though he fixed it. He also suggest that I get road-force balancing. Guess what? Problems persisted.

I called around to find a shop with a road-force machine - that's another whole story... long story short, I wasted a lot of time and money with an utterly incompetent chain tire store and a mom-and-pop ship both of whom actually made things WORSE. Fed up, I went online and ordered BRAND NEW tires and wheels from Tire Rack thinking that that would end all my problems! I was so excited when they arrived - not only do they look cool but I was ready for a nice smooth ride finally - NOT SO... argghhhhh! The chassis vibration was just as bad or worse and the vibration under acceleration was back.

Playing with tire pressure helped a little, but as others have mentioned, I think the only thing that lowering the pressure does is to allow the tire sidewalls to absorb some of the vibration.

I was convinced that something else was wrong with the van now so back to the dealer I went. They found nothing wrong (drive shafts good, motor mounts good, no codes, etc). It never even occurred to me that BRAND NEW wheels/tires could be at fault because Tire Rack says they Road Force all packages before shipping - and, in fact, there were nicely placed color-matched weights on all the wheels. But with no other ideas I called Tire Rack and they pointed me to a shop on their recommended list. I made an appointment and dropped off the van expecting more disappointment, BUT alas, the test drive gave me a SMOOOOTH van

Lessons learned:

- Honda's are hyper-sensitive to wheel balancing. I wish I had found this article earlier which explains "phase matching" http://www.urvi.net/forumfiles/SN/A07100V.PDF.

- The dealers apparently don't know about the above link so you have to educate them.

- even BRAND NEW wheels and tires can be out of balance (three of four in my case).

- Road Force balancing by a good shop is the ONLY solution to this problem.

Hope this helps someone.

PS, Tire Rack is going to reimberse me for the final tire balancing. The tire chain where I bought my original tires and had them balanced many times has agreed to reimburse me for two tires, the cost of the "lifetime" balancing and the cost of having the tires balanced at another shop because they couldn't do it right.

 

[lockon]

It's been several months and my van still rides smooth as glass thanks to Hillmuth Auto's fine job of Road Force Balancing.

I thought I'd followup on this because the national chain that displayed so much incompetence has yet to reimburse me... the chain is NTB which is owned by the same company that owns Tire King, Sears Auto, Merchants and many others - STEER CLEAR of these morons. They hire the bottom of the barrel who don't even know how to balance a tire let alone diagnose any other auto issues.

In my case I was told that my vibration was caused by faulty tie-rod ends and rear suspension air bags - uh huh, sure it was - complete idiots. The tech and the store manager didn't even know what a Road Force Balancing machine was claiming that their machine was a RFB machine despite the fact that it had no road force roller on it.

 

[lockon]

Just upgrade my 2002 to 2010. Car is in excellent condition. However during the drive back on the highway, first thing I notice was vibration. After a few more time I drove it on the highway, come to the following conclusion:

The steering wheel shakes a lot during speed 70+ WHILE accelerating and not decelerate. Mostly during uphill or under load.

My 2 front tires are newer than the rear ones. My guess is that since new tires can/should only go to the back, the owner might have tried to replace tires for this vibration but has not resolve.

Going to find some time to swap front/back tires to try and see if this goes away. Other than that, I might have to have someone balance the tires and see if that will resolve the issue.

Engine movement seems normal during shifting while parked. Mounts might still be ok.

Please see the info I posted earlier... get the tires road force balanced or balanced on the vehicle (yes, that's a thing).