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Well this has been an interesting day so far... it would have to be encounter with the dumbest group of people and the nicest at the same time. Here's the story: After dropping the GF off at work, my car started to develop some vibration... figuring I threw a wheel weight... I headed for the NTB near my place. They've always done the wheel balancing on my car and have done it very well... that is until today... LOL Just have to let you all know in advance that nothing was damaged but it was still both frustrating and ridiculously funny. So I go in and ask for a 4 wheel balance and since I have a free lifetime balance warranty, it doesn't cost me a time. I go in there like every month anyway... LOL So they say "Sure, just go ahead and pull the car in the bay." I'm there so often that they know me well enough to let me drive the car in and out of the service bays. Everything is cool so far till I find out the regular guy that works on my car was off today. The guy working on car has no trouble removing the wheels from the car and begins loading the first wheel on the balancing machine, removes the current weights and spins it. Cool only 0.50 ounce of weight needed on the outside of the wheel. This is where the fun begins... LOL I ask the guys to use those stick-on weights this time because the last time, they put a chip in the wheel so they say "No problem." They stick the weight on and spins it again... the machine now says the wheel needs 1.5 ounces on the inside. So he puts it on and spins it again... 0.75 ounce on the outside.... it got ridiculous.... they finally got it balanced after putting on almost 6 ounces of weight. Mind you the wheel was straight and the tires were not out of round (except for one). I tell them "This is too much weight, you'll have to do it again." So the guy strips the weights off and starts again. Same results. So he calls another guy over to see if the machine was out of calibration.... it is fine. The 2nd guy strips the weights off and tries to balance it. He gets a totally different set of results but still required about 4 ounces of weight. So I say to them "It's still too much." They start to get a little annoyed and ask me if I've ever balanced a wheel before and I say yeah. So they let me do it. I strip the weights and enter the correct wheel values into the machine and spin it. Machine says 0.50 ounces like the first two times.... I put the weight on and spin it again.... BALANCED!!! Those guys were begining to scratch their heads.... just to be sure I dismounted the wheel from the machine, remounted it, and spun it again.... BALANCED!!! So they take over and proceed to do the next wheel. Same crap happens all over again. Machine called for 0.25 ounce on the inside lip and 0.75 on the outside. The guys couldn't get it balanced without using 6.5 ounces of weight. So 3rd guy comes in and tries to balance it, no go.... so the manager is called. Manager tries it and still couldn't do it with less than 4 ounces. I take over, and balanced the wheel with the required amounts. Machine called for a total of 1 ounce and I did just that. They're stumped. The next two wheels they just let me do it since they figure craps gonna happen again. 3rd wheel asked for 0.25 on the outside and 0.50 on the inside.... no problems there for me. 4th wheel, 1.00 ounce on the outside and I see the tire is out of round. They say it's still wobbling, I said "I know, the tire is out of round." But the next thing they said to me was hilarious. "How do you know when a tire is out of round?" ROFLMAO Well there's the highlight of my day with NTB. Today must have been the idiot roster. I couldn't believe none of them could balance the wheels on my car. All in all, total time ellapsed for balancing tires.... 2 frigging hours... LOL I was pissed but I was more amused by their stupidity. None of the usual guys where there and I know I should have come back another day but man, I wasn't expecting this.... lol So I'm on my way after mounting the wheels and having them hand torque the wheels. I decide to take the back roads home after my interesting encounter at NTB.... Crap, I see steel plates in the road so I start slaloming thru them. Next thing I know, I got hit with laser coming down the hill. Cop flags me over. There where 3 of them and one comes up to me, "Son, we caught you on laser doing 41 in a 25." To which I responded, "Hi Officer, no disrespect intended but after a frustrating 2 hours at NTB, I could careless if you give me a ticket for speeding." So he asks me what happened and I tell him the story. He's laughing so hard that it attracts the other 2 officers. They come over and ask us what's going on. Cop #1 tells them what he heard so far and they started laughing... I tell them the rest of the story and by the time I was done, they were laughing so hard. So the 3 cops walk away chatted a bit and one of them comes back, "Son, I can't believe you just went through that just now but that story just made our day. We're going to give you a verbal warning this time so try to have a nice day." I tell them thanks a bunch and went on my merry way home. Wow, what an interesting day... this would almost have to top my last incident when I almost got hauled off the jail for speeding... LOL To this day, I still have yet to get any tickets at all.
Harry
1992 Z Twin Turbo - Stage 4+
1993 Honda Prelude VTEC
ICQ # 1553422  Check my site out!
 
"OMG! I'm going straight to HELL!!!!" - Wolf [Pittsburgh] Click to find out why... LOL |
