V is for vibration

[bigx86]

Originally Posted by mr rusty

Just tripped over this on swedespeed FYI

I wanted to share something with the folks researching this issue that I hope you will find useful. I had such bad vibration issues with a brand new 2018 S90 that the dealer let me turn it back in within 30 days of taking possession and put me into a brand new 2019 S90. I was grateful that they made that process trouble free. Which is why I when I experienced vibration in the 2019 that I just kept it to myself. It wasn’t nearly as bad as the 2018, but it was noticeable as certain speeds. But, I just couldn’t go through that again and I just chose to live with it. Shortly after taking possession, I put brand new snow tires on the factory rims and the vibration, while still there, was the least it had been which made the driving experience less distracting. I recently had the factory issued tires mounted back onto the factory rims and the vibration was awful at all speeds. I had the tire tech re-balance the tires to no avail.

Coincidentally, I have a client that owns several tire shops and I talked to him about the problem. He asked if Volvo and the other tire shop that swapped out the snow tires “force balanced” the tires and I told him that they did. He advised me that he got rid of his force balance machines because of not trusting that they did a good job and replaced them with laser balancing machines. He told me to drop the car off and he’d re-balance the tires and that he was “certain” the problem would be fixed. I wasn’t as confident as he was, but I dropped the car off to let him do his thing.

I watched while the tires were dismounted, re-balanced using his Hunter Hammerhead laser machine and remounted in about 30 minutes. I shook his hand, thanked him for his time and was on my way still not convinced anything would change. Was I ever wrong. This car now rides like I’m sure the engineers intended. I have never experienced the ride it is now giving. It is as smooth as glass. I can’t believe it.

When Googling the vibration issue, all of the message boards talk about how their original issues tires and the numerous replacement tires have been force balanced, but their problems continued. It makes me wonder that the problem is not with the car, but with using force balancing machines. That conclusion seems to be supported by why my client got rid of his force balance equipment and went with laser.

I hope this helps anyone having a similar problem.

Thank you for sharing this! My car is going in on the 29 this month. Fingers crossed…..