The development of the theory of discontinuous dynamical systems and differential inclusions was not only due to research in the field of abstract mathematics but also a result of studies of particular problems in mechanics. One of first methods, used for the analysis of dynamics in discontinuous mechanical systems, was the harmonic balance method developed in the thirties of the 20th century. In our work the results of analysis obtained by the method of harmonic balance, which is an approximate method, are compared with the results obtained by rigorous mathematical methods and numerical simulation.