so lucky until unlucky
 

'88 911 Coupe. Stock 16 inch Fuchs in perfect condition. So the adhesive weights on the inside of one my front Fuchs wheels came off. The vibration was immediately noticeable at highway speed on my daily commute to work. I had the wheel rebalanced and all was fine. Literally the next week the weights came off the other front wheel. (Tires were 1 year old, therefore so were the weights) I had the wheel rebalanced but there was still a small high speed vibration. I had the wheel balanced again at another shop but still a faint vibration. Yes, I like them totally smooth. So I decided to seek out a "road force" balancing procedure. Decided to visit (for the first time) the local official Porsche authorized dealership as they had the machine for this. I waited for the car and when the service employee drove it up I noticed the Fuchs looked like there was soap residue on the anodized wheel lip. Upon closer inspection I immediately saw the finish was etched by the low ph soap they used. Totally ruined the finish on all four wheels. They were dumbstruck, apologetic and said they would respond by the end of this week about how they would fix this. I immediately notified Porsche Cars North America who promised to investigate my issue. These Fuchs are original to my very clean and unmolested 911. Is it reasonable to expect them to replace these wheels versus refinish them? Oh, they did "road force" balance them perfectly.

Sad to hear. I would maintain professionalism and document everything. I would expect either a replacement or refinish given the state it was in before.

Yikes! On the good side, they are taking responsibility.

If they were to replace them, what would you have them replaced with? It might be better to have well-refinished original versus new non-original.

I would doubt very much that they will replace and hope they will at least refinish. Keep us posted.

The Porsche repair shop ruined your wheels? D@mn.

I was wondering if I was the only one who had problems with tire shops balancing my Fuchs.

Every time I have had my Fuchs balanced at a tire shop I had a vibration.

Every time I have had to remove the wheel and use my HOME MADE wheel balancer to re-balance the wheel.

How is it that I can get a better balance using my HOME MADE BUBBLE BALANCER than those spin balancers at the tire shops? Is there something about a Fuchs wheel that is incompatible with a spin balancer?

Can someone summarize why soap is bad for Fuchs?

Gordon, show us this home made balancer please !

Sorry to hear about your wheels.


A little off topic, and probably isn't the cause of your original balancing problems, but I want to share it anyway (for what it's worth). I also spent a lot of time trying to balance fuchs wheels. I Could never get them right. They'd be fine, then get bad. Rebalance,- fine then bad, Rebalance- worse than before, rebalance- so..so..-then bad. Replace tires-(a cord was pulling- which would explain the "good to bad" nature of the imbalance)- but even THAT didn't work for long. Balance- fine then bad- repeat. Finally gave up. In the end, it wasn't the wheels, but the rotors. Replaced those- pure bliss. Not saying that is your problem at all. Just wanted to share.

Also, while I was going insane over the balancing issue, I learned from the tire guys that some of those balancing machines work better than others. For example, "did hank balance your tires last time in bay one?- Oh that balancer is c#$%!!!- you need THIS balancer in bay two!!!" Whenever I go get my tires balanced, I'll always say "Hey, thanks for doing my wheels- for some reason these wheels are finicky, hey if you've got a balance that works better than the others can you use that ?(laughingly) - because if these wheels are off by even a little, it drives awful."

In at least one instance, the tire guy smiled, carried the tires away from his bay, over to some other dude's bay, and said "hey mark (or whoever), I need to use your balancer."

I share this not only in the hope it will help somebody, but because I believe that the more people mess with things (like the tire guys), the more chance that things will get screwed up (like the finish) arghhh!
R

My tire guy assures me that some stick-on weights are junk. I've never had trouble with the ones he uses - except getting all the residue off is a challenge.

Porchdog when I had my tires replaced this past summer I watched the guy use a razor to remove the glue. Came right off or perhaps I was just lucky

Ernie 81sc

He said "low PH soap" which means acidic.

Which means it was most likely not soap at all, nut rather some type of wheel/tire cleaner that was left on too long and etched.

Ever go through a tunnel car wash and notice little white spots on the car afterwards? That because the majority don't used soap (esp the cheap ones) they're spraying your car with white wall cleaner.
SmileWavy

I am lucky with tire balance. Actually the only lucky part is the tire shop is close to my office has a tire balancer that knows how to use the fancy tire machine they have. My 911 has zero tire vibration at any speed. They charge 18 bucks a wheel, but it is dead nuts perfect every-time. I used the same shop to balance my El Camino wheels. No vibrations.

Heard from the Porsche dealership service manager today. It was refreshing in 2013 to hear someone "man up" and take 100% ownership for their employee's error and intend to make it right. He is trying to source new wheels from PCNA as they do now actually stock 16 inch Fuchs. Of course talk is talk and we will see the final result but this is encouraging. Thank you for all of your constructive comments.
Jim '88 911 Coupe (messed up rims), '59 A Coupe race car

The 16" Fuchs replacement from the Porsche dealer that they are sourcing from Germany for my car as replacements are $1440 per wheel. No, I did not make a mistake here. That is 25% the value of my car. Lucky.

Since you asked. It's an old Ford front wheel hub, with an aluminum disk I machined in place of the outer bearing.
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1382747153.jpg
I mount it in a vice and I use a bubble level.
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1382747247.jpg
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1382747402.jpg
I have used it numerous times to "fix" my front wheel vibrations.
Harbor Freight has one too. Portable Wheel Balancer

Man, that is one cool balancer. I'm still using an old Coats bubble balancer that does a fine job as long as the wheels are 16" or less. Thought I was the only one left doing it.....

As to the OP's deal, I'd say the reason the weights fell off was due to improper cleaning of rim surface. Also, the Porsche dealership suffers the same as every other dealer when it comes to hiring the flunkys who move cars around, wash them, and even balance wheels. The machines are only as good as the people operating them. Nice to see them handling it and shop's have insurance for this sort of thing. Hopefully the new Fuchs are made to the same standards as of old....

thats crazy. I dont even balance my tires anymore and never yet had a vibration. But I guess my standards are pretty low anyway. Any word on what they used on the wheels that screwed them up?

Washing shampoo was for sure acid.

That's not the first time i see that issue on Fuchs ;

Shampoo / soap MUST be PH neutral ,

Anodization is re-doable , but not easy .

If i was you , i would insist to have the anodization done again , that's really an incredible error to do that , and particulary in a Porsche center.:(