Wheel & Tire Balance

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Wes Davis

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Not too long ago there was a thread about special wheel alignments. Something about balancing the wheel and tire seperately then mounting the wheel in the tire with the two heavy points directly opposite of each other to cancel out then using weights to fine tune. Does this process have a name? Does anyone know of a website that gives specific instructions? I want to be able to go to my local custom wheel and tire shop and plop down some official paperwork instructions and say 'this is what I want' so they don't think I am crazy. I have had my wheels balanced twice by your standard everyday garage but seem to still have problems. I am pretty sure it is the wheels because the vibration changes from steering to butt during four point tire rotations. The vibration is slight at 80mph but I am looking for perfect and will pay what it takes. Thanks
 
I'm not sure if there is a name for it.



In order to do it, both the wheel and tire need to be marked as far as where the heavy points are. There is really no way for a regular shop to balance a tire or a wheel on its own...they must be balanced together.



Even if you mount the heavy points opposite of each other, that is no guarentee that you won't need weights or very little weights....in the end, there is no once solid method for getting a "weight-free" balance, other then luck.
 
its called force balance.. the machine is a hunter gsp9700

the machine checks the wheel for out of roundness and then the tire.. it tries to make the best possible mount of the tire and then balances.. they say they can eleminate vibration from tiress and wheels..

troy



here is the link to find one in your area..



http://www.gsp9700.com/pub/search/findgsp9700.cfm



link to the gsp9700 web page..
 
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I might have posted that..I read the article in popular mechanics, maybe 2 yrs ago..to ahieve perfect balance...some new tires come with a white or a yellow dot..the manfacturer has determined that that is the heavy side....spin the wheel with stem installed, no tire, to determine the heavy side..mount the dot on the tire opposite of the wheel heavy side...then do a ballance...



I have always been given a hard time to get that done that way....so what I do, is if the tire takes up to 2oz of weight...I make them break it down..slip the tire around and rebalance till the wieghts are below 2oz...good luck
 
A force balance is where force is applied to the tire while it is being spun to check for out-of-balance. This best simulates how a tire/wheel acts on the road opposed to a tradtional "open air" balance machine. The proper name is "road force balance machine"



The machine also uses radar to check for wheel and tire radial and lateral run out; how true round and cosistant sized the two are. Based on this, the machine will notify the tech if there is too much of either, in which case the tire/wheel is supposed to be replaced. If the two are too far out of balance, the machine will recommend a 180° spin of the tire on the wheel to try to achieve a better match.



You must remember that the machine doesn't do anything then tell the operator what is ideal, it is up to the operator to either dismount the tire and rotate it, or replace the tire/wheel (at your cost).



Also, keep in mind that while the higher-end tires are marked with a yellow dot for the heavy point, and a red triangle for the most out-of-round point, the majority of the time, these mean nothing in mounting....a tire can be ideally mounted with either of these two marks anywhere, there is no "ideal" point to line anything up.



Another thing, it depends on what weights you want. If you use the adhesive weights on the inside of the wheel, you won't get as well of a balance as you will with hammer on weights
 
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Keep in mind though that the stick-on weights can be better for the rim than the hammer-on weights. I had a really nice pair of american racing rims that when bought with the (325x60xr15 all terrains, about 31x12.8) tires used stick-on weights. Great ride. When time came for new tires a different place mounted them, and they used hammer-on weights. HORRIBLE ride, much worse than the old tires of the same size. Turns out they did the easy balance method which is typically referred to as a static balance, where the weights are only on one side of the rim. With tires this heavy and wide(each tire/rim was 75 lbs.), static just won't do. Took it back again, this time they dynamically balanced them, which means they put weights on both the inside and outside lips of the rim. STILL had horrible problems. Took it back AGAIN, they 'dynamically' balanced them but when I inspected the rims before I left, found out that 1) they had once again only statically balance them, so we took a step back, and 2) THERE WERE STILL STICK ON WEIGHTS ON TWO OF THE WHEELS. THAT's why they took so much weight to balance, those morons. So with me watching, they took off all the weights, dynamically balanced, and I was finallly out the door.

Turns out though that all the hammering on of those weights at several different places took their toll on the rims. Corrosion spread under the clearcoat, and killed two of the rims. They were still physically good, just looked horrible. If I ever get nice rims again, I'm going only with stick-on weights.

--Bob
 
BoB-

Sounds like you got an incepetent shop. No good shop would ever put hammer-on weights on aftermarket wheels (except off road wheels where appearance isn't ideal...but them again, on an offroad rig, who cares about a little tire vibration?) Anyway, that sucks. Things hopefully woulda turned out much better had you went to a better shop.
 
I have an appointment at a shop that has the GSP9700 tomorrow. The guy on the phone said they will do to the wheels and tires what ever the machine tells them to do. $40.00 base charge and $5.00 each tire if they have to remove the tire from the rim to adjust per the machine. I will give a review after a road test on the highway.
 
Ok here is how things turned out.



Took my Trac to a local Goodyear Tire and Auto Center with the GSP9700

Three of my tires had to be removed and repositioned on the rim for optimum balancing.

One tire was discovered to be so out of balance that they could not get it within specs. The auto center called Goodyear and Goodyear told them to give me a new tire. I just happened to have aftermarket Eagle GT2's on the Trac.

Five tires mounted to rims and balanced, nitrogen fill in all four tires $113.21.

Let me warn you that this is a very long process so give yourself plenty of time if you take your Trac in for this service. Goodyear says at least 30 minutes per tire.

My balancing issues are completely resolved and the Trac has never felt better. The steering even has a different feel to it. I am not sure if it is the balancing or the nitrogen. The $113.00 plus free tire is well worth it in my opinion and I would suggest that you have your tires balanced with this machine even if you don't think you currently have a problem. I was told that the normal charge for this service is as follows.

$40.00 base balance load test.

$5.00 each if the tire has to be removed and repositioned.

$30.00 for nitrogen fill.

I had to pay a little extra for the work they had to do on the bad tire. Basically I paid for balancing and removing of five tires instead of four.
 
Also, keep in mind that while the higher-end tires are marked with a yellow dot for the heavy point, and a red triangle for the most out-of-round point, the majority of the time, these mean nothing in mounting....a tire can be ideally mounted with either of these two marks anywhere, there is no "ideal" point to line anything up.
Click to expand...



I got some Yokohamas for my wife's car, told the tire shop to be sure to put the yellow dot by the valve stem. My understanding is that the valve stem is positioned on the light spot of the rim, so if you do it that way theroretically it takes less weight to balance.

My buds at the tire shop said it didn't really matter but they'd humor me. :p

The only time they move tires on the rim is when they absolutely won't balance because you can't get enough weight where you need it. Mostly you only see that on really big tires.

The yellow dots on the Trac's REVO's are all over the place and none of them needed very much weight.
 

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