Wheel-Tire ballance problem Cooper S FWD
 

I picked up my new Cooper S Countryman FWD 3 weeks ago. Ever sense then I’ve had a minor, but bothersome, vibration around 60MPH from an out of balance wheel. I had the dealer I purchased the car from look at it and they found one wheel out of balance. Driving home it started again. I took it to a different dealer closer to home and they found 2 wheels out of balance. However during the test drive with the service manager the vibration was still there at 58 to 60 MPH. We took another Countryman similar to mine and it did the same thing. After 3 weeks of trying to get this fixed I was told by the BMW service manager to contact the BMW customer service. I’m told that a Regional Technician is scheduled to come out here to California to check on my Countryman. I'm running 17" wheels with Pirelli tires.

Pirelli tires are notorious for being out of round - as in not molded correctly. They can be balanced just fine, but when you put them on the road the eccentricity will cause vibration. You might be experiencing this problem, and the usual fix is to replace the tire.

The problem seems not to be just the Pirelli but also the Contenental's as well. I'm waiting on a call from the local MINI dealer and they are reluctant to change out the tires until the regional tech can look at it.

Well if they say there's a problem with the OEM Goodyears too then I would be looking elsewhere for a solution......just seems odd it would be two different brands of tires sharing same symptoms of vibrations at 58mph.

What of the rims ? Are they they same style on both ?

try to get someone that will balance the tires on the car, old style type of balance but very effective

Keep in mind that, if the problem is eccentric tire molding, balancing won't make the vibration go away.

I have lately and only been getting my tires balance with Road Force machines. Very big diffences as it takes into consideration the tire as well. Very technical, but here is a site and a Find the machine search engine too!

Hope I won't be need this on the new Countryman I pick up tomorrow!

http://www.gsp9700.com/

I had this same issue with my previous car (2008 Dodge Charger R/T). I had new tires put on at Discount Tire and was taking it there several times a week for balancing for about 2-3 weeks. I ended up taking it to the Dodge Dealer and they balanced the tires without problem and 20,000 miles later tires were still great. Seems a lot of the time it is the incompetent people these places hire to do these jobs.

Exactly the same problem I'm having with my 2011 MCS. slight vibration in 55-65 mph speed range. Not really bad until dealer rotated and balanced tyres last week which made problem much worse. Really uncomfortable driving it on interstate. I have a appointment to carry it back to dealer this Friday. I'll let everyone know what they say this time.
Oh, continental run flats.

Tire and Wheel problem - Maybe, Maybe not
 

I was told that the regional BMW Tech would not be coming out as planned and BMW would like another test to be done. I went to the local dealer this morning 4-20-11 to have the vibration problem looked at. They changed all the wheels and tires, Continentals instead of Pirelli’s. The shop manager road with me during the test and nothing changed. Same vibrations at the same speeds. The shop Manager thinks it maybe in the drive train. The shop Manager also mentioned that BMW may say this is normal. HOW CAN THAT BE NORMAL? Excuse the yelling but if I get that from the Regional Tech I will start looking at the California Lemon law.

Stick to your guns, Vibrations at any speed is not normal. This is a BMW brand!!!!.. if all BMW's vibrated at 58 mph it would go the way of the "Yugo".

Only thing that makes me think that it is a tyre wheel thing is that my vibration got worse when they rotated tyres.

Just returned from the mountains, my minis first long trip. The car is just plain uncomfortable in the57-65 range. Vibration is not affected by engin speed, I push in the clutch and vibration continues. Its going back to the dealer tomorrow.

T Cox
After they run you through the gamut of tests and if the Service Manager doesn't have you contact Customer Service call them anyway. That way it's not just your MINI that has the problem. BMW Customer Service 800-831-1117. And yes I'm sticking to my guns. Thanks for the reply.

T Cox
Yours is a Countryman isn't it?

No, a hardtop S but thought it strange we have same problem at same speed. Since we share zthe same drivetrain maybe it is drivetrain related

OK - new input - MotorWeek TV program episode 1152 aired 3/25/11 on HDTV cable channel. One subject is the difficulty of balancing low-profile tires like those currently popular on Minis.

With the widespread use of low-profile tires, imperfections in the running surface of the tires not previously significant with higher aspect ratio tires are causing vibration that is independent of balancing. This vibration input into the car's suspension is called Road Force Variation, and it means that different parts of the tire surface are harder or softer as they hit the road. I would expect this would be aggravated with run-flat design because of the stiff sidewalls.

There is a "new" type of tire balancing system that deals with road force variation as well as balancing. It has an abrasive drum that contacts the tire surface and measures the variation in force as the tire is turned. The system adjusts the tire surface to achieve uniform force as it rotates, then balances the resulting tire and wheel. The claim is that a smooth ride can be achieved with these systems that cannot be achieved by balancing alone.

For those of us experiencing persistent vibration on what we are told are balanced tires, insisting on running the tires through one of these road force variation machines seems a reasonable next step.

RFV - hopefully saving us from the imperfections provided by tire manufacturers.

Wheel-Tire balance proble Cooper S Countryman
 

My dealer used a road force balancer with little improvement. Maybe it's their equipment that may be out of adjustment,

The system adjusts the tire surface to achieve uniform force as it rotates

I'd sure like to know how it does this.....:roll:

This is nothing new, we used a similar system back in the 60's to balance tires, especially difficult ones like the wire wheels on Jags. It took a while to become proficient in using it, but once you got it right the tire was smooth all the way to the car's top speed.....

All the drum does is spin the wheel, there is a sensor that you clip to the suspension that reads the motion of it as the wheel speed increases, in the day we used a strobe to stop the motion, each time the sensor tripped it flashed the strobe, the intensity of the motion read out on a meter and you translated that to the amount of weight needed, you looked for a mark on the wheel (we used the valve stem as a marker), stop the wheel, put the marker in the position you saw in the strobe, and put the appropriate amount of weight dead center top and spin it up again. You might have to add a little more weight a few degrees away from the first, as there could be more than one "heavy" spot, or you might have to trim the weight you just put on a bit - it was very trial and error, but once you got the hang of it the tires were dead smooth.

However, all the balancing in the world will not fix an out of round tire or one with an internal tread separation, and I expect having the tire within a tire as the runflats do makes it difficult for a "normal" spin balancer to get it right.

Continentals - same thing, feels out of balance around 105 km/h. Was noticeable on the trip from the dealer and they haven't gotten any better. I thought I would see if the vibration would go away, but alas it hasn't.

Problem fixed. Dealer tracked it down to two defective tyres on my car. Replaced them and all is fine. Of course two out of four Continental tyres being defective does not say a whole lot about Continental quality.

Unfortunately the tires on my Countryman are Pireli. However the dealer still says the BMW rep should be coming soon but didn't think there would be a fix.

First thing my dealer did was swap all four wheels and tyres with a set from another Mini. When that elimated the problem they then just had to track down to which wheel/tyre was problem. HAs your dealer tried a swap yet ???

When I took delivery of my first MCS I had the same issue wheel vibration at 60mph. I had the dealer balance the wheels several times. No solution then I had them swap out all 4 wheels and tires and it was gone. After the 1st re balance thats what they should do. Instead of wasting time and money.

In answer to the last 2 reply's, and I do appreciate the reply's, yes they did swap out the wheels and tire replacing the Pireli's with Continental's. Does anyone know if the Cooper Countryman has a spare tire?