PSA: Balancing our Hankook Tires

Wanted to let everyone know if you feel like your tire balance is off follow these steps for a perfect result the first time:
- Coordinate a time with the folks doing the road force balancing so you can get your vehicle lifted immediately upon arrival.
- Prior to the appointment get the tires nice and warm. Use the PSI screen to tell how hot they are, mine went up 5psi from cold to max temp.
- Show up and get it lifted ASAP! After that it's not time-sensitive.

The Hankook Ventus S1 noble2 tires have a double layer of spirally wrapped nylon. It's this use of nylon vs polyamide that cause the tires to flat spot in as little as a few hours, and for me at least, overnight every time. Here's a link with more info:
http://blog.tirerack.com/blog/roll-on/flatspotting-try-saying-no-to-nylon-and-yes-to-polyamide

I'm going to continue to update my other active thread "No Good Vibrations here" regarding my attempts to resolve this, but thought I'd break this out from that text-heavy thread into something clear and straightforward. Hope it helps someone!

I don't doubt there are different reinforcing materials, but polyamide and Nylon are the same thing. Polyamide is the generic chemical name and Nylon is a commercial brand name. Similar to Jacuzzi and spa. There are many flavors of nylon/polyamide: PA66, PA6, PA10, PA11, PA12, etc. Unfortunately, the article doesn't divulge which nylons perform better. I suspect the tire manufacturers do this on purpose to protect proprietary technologies.

My car is in service now for this. I thought the tire were defective and asking for new tires. Don't know the outcome. I have the V8 model.

I would think that increasing the inflation 1-2 pounds would reduce flat spotting.

lobsenza said:

I would think that increasing the inflation 1-2 pounds would reduce flat spotting.

Click to expand...

Increasing psi 3 lbs reduced flat spotting but did not eliminate it, unfortunately.

powerslide said:

I don't doubt there are different reinforcing materials, but polyamide and Nylon are the same thing. Polyamide is the generic chemical name and Nylon is a commercial brand name. Similar to Jacuzzi and spa. There are many flavors of nylon/polyamide: PA66, PA6, PA10, PA11, PA12, etc. Unfortunately, the article doesn't divulge which nylons perform better. I suspect the tire manufacturers do this on purpose to protect proprietary technologies.

Click to expand...

I'm not a tire engineer. This is one of the few unique qualities mentioned about this tire that I could find. I am damn sure none of the rest of the vehicles I've ever owned have flat spotted overnight (nevermind a few hours.) I thought it was something that only happened to vehicles left to sit for months/years. As far as I'm concerned, that's still true (plus extremely high performance tires on stuff like F1 cars, apparently.) I'm certainly open to alternative explanations!

Bernster said:

My car is in service now for this. I thought the tire were defective and asking for new tires. Don't know the outcome. I have the V8 model.

Click to expand...

Already replaced a couple of my tires. It won't completely fix the problem. I wouldn't put a stop on things already in process though, one of my initial wheel/tire came back with the tech note something like "tire and wheel not a good match." Replacement did help. Might have been one of the factors that allowed me to reach a balanced state after warming up. Most of my five service visits helped a little. Not going to rehash that nightmare as it's of little value to the community.

If your car still has balance issues after 10mi you should follow the steps above, and based on what I've learned if that doesn't fix the initial flatspotting push for replacements. I don't think you can get rid of the initial flatspotting unless you either replace the tires or run them at pressures that will reduce tread life and compromise performance.


Frankly I'd like to believe this is just a huge batch of tires that were messed up by Hankook. It still could be. I would actually love to be wrong because then I could just get replacements and be done with it. But I test drove several other vehicles on the lot and they all had the issue, plus in the "no good vibrations here" thread others mentioned that they'd either experienced this on their own vehicles, or one had even driven 3 cars off a dealer lot and they were all out of balance until warmed up.

NotMyMainAccount said:

Increasing psi 3 lbs reduced flat spotting but did not eliminate it, unfortunately.



I'm not a tire engineer. This is one of the few unique qualities mentioned about this tire that I could find. I am damn sure none of the rest of the vehicles I've ever owned have flat spotted overnight (nevermind a few hours.) I thought it was something that only happened to vehicles left to sit for months/years. As far as I'm concerned, that's still true (plus extremely high performance tires on stuff like F1 cars, apparently.) I'm certainly open to alternative explanations!



Already replaced a couple of my tires. It won't completely fix the problem. I wouldn't put a stop on things already in process though, one of my initial wheel/tire came back with the tech note something like "tire and wheel not a good match." Replacement did help. Might have been one of the factors that allowed me to reach a balanced state after warming up. Most of my five service visits helped a little. Not going to rehash that nightmare as it's of little value to the community.

If your car still has balance issues after 10mi you should follow the steps above, and based on what I've learned if that doesn't fix the initial flatspotting push for replacements. I don't think you can get rid of the initial flatspotting unless you either replace the tires or run them at pressures that will reduce tread life and compromise performance.


Frankly I'd like to believe this is just a huge batch of tires that were messed up by Hankook. It still could be. I would actually love to be wrong because then I could just get replacements and be done with it. But I test drove several other vehicles on the lot and they all had the issue, plus in the "no good vibrations here" thread others mentioned that they'd either experienced this on their own vehicles, or one had even driven 3 cars off a dealer lot and they were all out of balance until warmed up.

Click to expand...

+1. Raising tire pressure 2# did reduce the problem a bit. It now takes "only" about two miles for my problem to disappear.

PS: I'd like to say how much I appreciate the quality of your reporting and keeping us up to date on your experiences. GREAT job and thanx.

Overnight 'Flatspotting' is definitely an issue with the Hankook OEM tires. Much worse than I have experienced with other types/brands. In the cold weather it takes about 15 minutes of highway driving before they stop vibrating. Nothing severe but annoying nevertheless.

The issue partially depends on the height of the sidewall. Tires with shorter sidewalls are more prone to this issue.

i have noticed it slightly on my vehicle once or twice. But, I am in TX and the weather is warmer.