POLL: Alcoa Wheels - Any problems?

Do you have any vibration issues with your Alcoa wheels?


  • Total voters
    95

hoosierrun

Active member
Just to add to this long long thread. Our LTV with Alcoa rims vibrated on the first trip from the dealership (they have no capability to deal with tires). LTV had us get the tires balanced and the front end aligned. Turns out that one of the Continentals was out of round 8 thousands and had to be shaved. LTV paid for all the work. Fast forward... we are in Anchorage Alaska from Tampa, FL and the front inside tires are worn to the cord. We are getting an alignment and new tires on my buck. I just hope the truck tire place doesn't ruin my Alcoas. I will update when we get the vehicle back and inspect and test drive it.
 
For those of you that have opted to spend the extra $2730.oo for the Alcoa aluminum wheels, have you ad any problems with vibrations or "shimmy" symptoms with the coach? In other words, does your Unity drive smoothly down the road at highway speeds, like any brand new car, van or truck should do? Many on this forum have reported problems. We should see how widespread this problem is.

If you had a problem and have since corrected it, please post in this thread what you had done to correct it.

Thank you for participating in the poll.
I had my two front tires replaced and now i have a vibration in the steering wheel and in the seats. It starts at 50 MPH and gets increasingly worse as the speed increases. i had the new tires put in and noticed the vibration tires were balanced 8 times in a week trying to figure the problem out..finally got it so I could at least drive it. Alaska did not have any shops with the special sprinter 3500 adapter so now I’m in Phoenix at the Mercedes dealer. I am told that my wheels are bent and i need new wheels and new tires. this whole thing is so unacceptable. I would never have bought a motorhome that I couldn’t get my wheels balanced. If anyone can help with a Mercedes or freightliner service center that has the correct equipment and personal that can help me I would be so grateful
 
Just to add to this long long thread. Our LTV with Alcoa rims vibrated on the first trip from the dealership (they have no capability to deal with tires). LTV had us get the tires balanced and the front end aligned. Turns out that one of the Continentals was out of round 8 thousands and had to be shaved. LTV paid for all the work. Fast forward... we are in Anchorage Alaska from Tampa, FL and the front inside tires are worn to the cord. We are getting an alignment and new tires on my buck. I just hope the truck tire place doesn't ruin my Alcoas. I will update when we get the vehicle back and inspect and test drive it.
did they balance the tires correctlay for you in Alaska? Any vibration after?
 

hoosierrun

Active member
did they balance the tires correctlay for you in Alaska? Any vibration after?
Sorry, forgot about this post. Yes, they did a good job for us in Anchorage, Alaska. The shop is called the Alignment Center www.alignmentcenterak.com). They had 6 Toyo Open Country LT tires in stock and I had them put on the Alcoa Rims. They had all the proper equipment and now 2 years later they are wearing good and still no vibration. I have put about 35,000 miles on them since and they are probably 2/3rds worn out. This shop specializes in busses, trucks, and RV's and I thought the price was pretty good (about $1300) for tires and alignment. There is no state sales tax in Alaska. They were pretty meticulous, preserving my Borg stems and getting all the external TPMS sensors back on in the correct position. They even made sure the stabilizers were properly installed. I removed the lug nut covers and put them back on myself because I am paranoid and have heard that most tire shops ruin them. I have the removal tool. FYI, the first store I went to had tall enough bays, but did not have the proper balancing hub for the wide opening on Sprinter rims. After making the appointment for tires. I was a little bumbed, but at least they were honest. It took 2 days to get the work completed because it was the July 4th Holiday weekend.
 

SSTraveler

2014 LTV Unity Murphy Bed
I had got new tires on my Mercedes steel rims. They also installed the Borg stems and they did a fine job. Through the summer I realized that 2 of my tires had a very slow leak and I had vibration above 65 mph. They have the Hunter balancing machine that balances our big tires vertically and mounts them hub centric as is required to balance our wheels correctly. They tightened my stems on the 2 leaky tires and leak checked them and rebalanced my front tires, free of charge. This fixed everything and I can't say enough good things about Discount Tire. I highly recommend them if you have one in your area.
 

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