Front wheel vibration

My 1996 110 CSW Haas been happily running on its standard steel wheels for the relatively short time I've owned it.
Last weekend I hastily fitted a set of alloy wheels I'd bought off flea bay. These wheels were previously fitted to a similar aged 90 and I had the pictures showing them fitted. He had them installed with spacers but said they fit fine without, which they do.
They are a Compomotive alloy wheel and are also marked 'Land rover' in the casting.

I wasn't feeling to good when I was fitting them so had no time to prepare surfaces and cleans the wheels, which looked like they'd been stood for a while.

During this last week of driving I've found that they have a fairly heavy vibration on the front wheels/wheel at about 50 mph that I'm not happy to drive through, it's that bad.

Today I took them to my reputable tyre fitter bloke to get them all balanced and the mating faces cleaned. Upon collection they said one of them had puncture repair fluid in and "that would be the cause of the vibration". Fair enough, I thought.
Upon road test it was apparent that it was still there and just as bad, maybe another 5mph up the range but definitely still there. I went back to be told "no mate, you don't need to clean the faces, the rattle gun makes sure they are flat onto the hub"......hmmm right.

Knowing I was being fobbed off and not wanting to do any further work on it, I'm planning on doing the clean myself....

What are your thoughts? Some crap behind a wheel mating face? Any other ideas?

Wrong wheel nuts?

Did you put alloy nuts on or the steel original ones?

Try the wheels off the back fitted to the front to see if it's still there, also fitting with a gun doesn't mean that they are fitted flush. I see plenty of cars on my travels with wobbly wheels

+1 for swapping wheels around

Shouldn't tighten ally wheels with a bloody rattle gun, I broke a breaker bar getting nuts aff an Audi that Kwik Fit had tightened up.

They distort the ally if too tight, should use a short bar or a torque wrench

Yep, got proper ally type wheel nuts fitted.

When I fitted them I used my torque wrench, I always would. Him telling me about the rattle gun made me shudder......and leave.

Right, wheel swap it is, job for the morning and an excuse to not help digging in the garden.

btw, you can buy torque limited sockets you can use on a rattle.. doubt they did mind. quite fancy some

trax said:

btw, you can buy torque limited sockets you can use on a rattle.. doubt they did mind. quite fancy some

Click to expand...

like these

Torque Sticks, Torque Sockets and Other Discount Tools

I took the suspected o/s/f wheel off and cleaned the wheel and hub mating faces but that made no difference. As I was driving up the road I could lean out and actually see the wheel shaking!
I then took it off and swapped it with the o/s/r......result?
.
.
.
shaking gone, from the front anyway. I can still just about detect a slight vibration from the rear now but it's bearable and only just detectable.
I'll get it checked and rebalanced somewhere else or swap it with the spare. If the wheel is bent I can get that repaired.

Nah, sod it. Why should I pay out again to the the same thing done somewhere else?

I thought rather than whinge about them behind their back I'd let them know what I thought so it could be rectified. Well, it worked. I contacted them from their website and within 10 mins they called to apologise and promise to resolve it as soon as possible.

So, tomorrow Morning I'm going back and I expect to be treated like a Lord who's dropping £50 notes out of his pockets.