Anybody know anything about this? Just a gimmick or worthwhile?

 

Generally worthwhile, especially on vehicles with known wheel balancing or front end vibration issues. My 2011 Touareg is such a vehicle. Many TReg owners have had some success after RF balancing. I have had no vibration issues on my 991 but the wheel and tire shop that mounted my MPSS--they work almost exclusively on Porsche--did a RF balance on the new tires. The Hunter RF machine is elegant and the physics behind the process is sound.

Spyder

 

Was that shop Wheel Enhancement?
They did my tires too, but I never saw their machine.
Its very hard to find a shop with a Road Force anymore.

 

A road force is like the last resort to balance a tire. Use the Hunter site to find one close by. http://www.gsp9700.com/search/findgsp9700.cfm

 

Completely worth it.

 

I'm sure there are some shops around with a Hunter Road Force Balancer. If you aren't having any problems, I'm not sure why you'd mess with it. If you are getting new tires then absolutely find a shop with touchless mounting and Road Force. In FL pretty much all Discount Tire shops have multiple machines.

 

Yes. I watched the entire process, including the part where the POC lug bolt key disintegrated, as reported here or on RL

 

Tried hi speed on the car wheel balancing once and it completely messed up with the nannies (even when turning everything off) and threw a bunch of error messages and temporary limp mode. Maybe did something wrong...

 

Road Force should only be needed when regular balancing isn't getting rid of a vibration. In fact, if you don't have a vibration I wouldn't even consider it. Road Force balancing usually requires the tire to be dismounted/rotated/mounted several times (Indexing) which has a potential for wheel damage. All Discount Tires in Atlanta have Road Force machines.

 

Had it done many times & never had your experience w/ mount & remount etc. both with snow tires on SUV & regular tires on NSX's + 991. Hunter Machines.

I dislike returning to have wheels rebalanced because of vibration & eliminate
that chance w/road force the first go around.

EDIT:
Motorweek has a quick tutorial on Road Force balancing & they mentioned about rotating
the tire like you said. I personally have never had this happen in lots of tire purchases/mountings,
but this was good info for me too. I still would go for road force balancing - the extra cost
was minimal compared to a return trip (which I've also done w/regular balance jobs).

THX

 

^^^What he said^^^

The Porsche specialists at Wheel Enhancement in LA exclusively use road force balancing and rarely have to dismount a tire. If they do, one 180 deg rotation of the tire relative to the wheel usually does the trick. Three out of four of my 991 wheels with new MPSS were nearly perfectly road-force balanced, and the last one was well within spec. If multiple dismounts are neccessary, than either the tech is poorly trained, or the wheel/tire in question has a serious problem.

Note that RF balancing is entirely different than on-wheel balancing which attempts to correct for imbalances within the entire wheel/brake/hub assembly. That should rarely be needed, and could lead to problems as SM-ATL described.

Spyder