Tire & Wheel Weights

[GWcruiser]

Okay - I don't want a discussion of who does balancing better (static vs dynamic vs bubblegum). Some people swear we never visited the moon and aren't on Mars. Some people even swear a K&N air cleaner by itself will add 20% to your horsepower. Yet other will say their 1975 Harley will do 200 mph. So much for opinions. We also won't talk about how the shop has nearly destroyed the new rims.

So please answer only if you have personally looked at weight placement AFTER a balance.

I do want to know how many have seen weights applied almost 180 from each other. Yeah, that's right, after my latest road force dynamic balance (two shops did similar and failed miserably) I have three wheels with weights nearly 180 apart.

Not small weights either, 55 grams on the rim at angle 0, and another 98 grams of tape weights inside at angle 150.

I really don't understand how physics would let this be needed, so I'm curious if anyone else has had shops do this sort ludicrous balancing act?

Yes, by the way, it shakes enough to make my butt and hands numb. I even went so far as to start pulling weights off some wheels and adding them to other wheels and it started smoothing out (I added the 28 grams on top the row). So I'm now trying my luck at static balance... has got to be better than what I paid $25 a tire for.

And lastly, if anyone knows of a true professional tire shop in the Phoenix area ... one that can do lug centric balancing ... please-oh-please let me know.

 

[GWcruiser]

Well - took off all the weights, and with a HF bubble balancer ended up adding 2 ounces max to each wheel - balance isn't perfect, but so much better than what was there it is absolutely hilarious people put so much faith in $25 super-duper road force spin balancers...

They are only as good as the operator. And at least here, the operators are mostly idiots.

The 150 to 170 degree weight placement more or less proves the operators didn't square the hub to the cone and spun the wheel with what must have been a pretty obvious wobble.

My review of the HF $80 balancer? Sensitive to about 1.5 ounces. Anything less and the one I bought is "sticky" and won't show you smaller balance differences. Tried oiling the bearing, spinning or wearing in the bearing, nothing helped, so it's going back. I'll add that the balance would change about an ounce if you rotated the wheel on the cone. Your mileage may vary.

 

[GWcruiser]

ps: only ONE shop has worked on these tires... and the vehicle was factory new before they started... all the carnage is from them.

 

[jtwopark]

i just use golf balls inside the tires! 5 of them

 

[driveshafterw]

the guy youi dont have to go back to to fix and is the cheapest