[aumoore]

Most tire shops balance tires on a dynamic machine off the car. This works on 95% of most production cars but on a car with a sensitive suspension and no rag joint in the steering shaft this usually will not work. I would suggest you check around to see if there is a shop that does tire trueing and on the car balancing. I had this done on a Honda Passport that had a balance problem between 65 & 75 which is normal Highway speed. It rode like glass after this. Honda had paid for some real nice Michelin tires and they were better than the stock Yoko's but still had a vib.

The guy that did the tire trueing said no tire comes out of the mold perfectly round. He had the same Michelin on his truck and he had to true three of them. My new set needed three done and he balanced all the tires on the car. The OTC balance gets everything balanced together including rotors, axle shafts, bearings, etc and really makes a differance on a sensitive vehicle. If you had a Lincoln Town Car you could probably get away with not balancing tires at all and you might not feel it with all the numb suspension.

He stated he did a lot of performance cars like Vettes, 300Z's, BMW's and MB cars.

I got tired of having to do OTC balance after a couple of tire rotations and traded the Passport(actually a Rodeo with badges). I talked to the Honda mechanic and he stated that when they redesigned the car in 1998 there was a lot of complaignts. I think that Honda/Isuzu(sp?) built the suspension too sensitive. This was the first time they put rack and pinion on the Passport/Rodeo and I think it just transfered too much thru the wheel. I guess they corrected it on later models by using rubber mounts etc.

Just do not trust most local tire shops to be able to get a perfect balance on their spin balance machine. Another note is the trueing guy said by shaving the high spots off the tire it would actuall last longer because the tire would roll smoother and not beat itself to death.

This should be a one time deal on a Cobra as you cannot rotate tires anyway due to differant sizes.