So as a final consensus to you balance the rims, tires or wheels? I vote for wheels.
You mount the tires on the rims (or wheels) and then balance them combined. Most tires come with a marker on them to show the “heavy” side of the tire. If the wheel, or rim, has a heavy side, then you oppose them and that way the number of weights needed to balance the tire/wheel combo is reduced.
Once a tire is mounted on a wheel and balanced, it generally stays in balance. Weights can fall off, so re-balancing a tire (mounted on a wheel) is needed only if there is a problem. If you get a vibration, or if a tire is taken off the wheel to repair a flat then you need to balance it again.
Even though we’re talking about balancing rims, the weights are called “wheel weights”
LOL
@the same mountainbike, if you made some terrible mistake, I never saw it, however, I doubt that you did!.
I Believe The Machine Used For Balancing Is Commonly Referred To As A Wheel Balancer.
CSA
Tire is obvious. In my neck of the woods, “Wheel” can mean either the assembled tire and and metal OR just the metal. If someone tells me they have “mag wheels”, I don’t consider the decription to include the tires.
Even “mag wheel” has become a cloudy description. Originally it meant a racing wheel made of magnesium. Then it came to mean any replication of those original wheels, regardless of the material. Now one could even argue about whether the spoked alloy wheels are “mag wheels” or not. Having been around a while, I still think of “mag wheels” as being either 5-spoke or slotted. I don’t think of a spoked alloy wheel as being a “maf wheel”.
With large trucks, I typically thing of “rim” as just meaning the part that the beads seats into.
That’s the thng about nomenclatures. They can mean different thing to different people, in different regions, and even depending on the context of the statement. That’s why it’s silly to get hung up on them.
“…Most tires come with a marker on them to show the “heavy” side of the tire. If the wheel, or rim, has a heavy side, then you oppose them and that way the number of weights needed to balance the tire/wheel combo is reduced…”
Not exactly. The marks are uniformity low and high points (if you think “runout”, you’ll be close.), not balance marks. Matching those marks makes the assembly “rounder”, not require less weight.
- BUT -
Not only do many tires not come with those marks, you can’t be sure the wheel is marked by the valve hole (the usual way this is done). So any matching may or may not be effective - but there is no harm in doing so.
does a rear wheel that out of balance vibrate excessively or make a noise different that tom and ray’s innane banter? I see many cars that have wobbley rear wheel and a lot of wheel weights near potholes. Can you feel a badly balanced wheel at intown speed and driving conditions?
@Longprime,sometimes a tire out of round will make a terrible ruckus.I saw a Chevy PU going up the road one day that was jumping up and down(do some people not notice such things).
Anyway my brother(getting back to correctly balanced tires) had a new set of tires installed on his Toyota Tundra,by a retailer,this cat had put 6 ounces of weight on one side of one of the front tires[needless to say the results were terrible-the cure?{ went across the street and had them balanced correctly}]-Kevin
I think when the next rotation or sooner I’m going to ask for a spin balance if I get it cheap, or a static balance if its free. Tires currently look OK and no vibrations.
I’m unaware of any shop that does static balancing on car wheels anymore. Spin balancing is the standard, with road force balancing being the next step up. usually at some premium price.
I'm unaware of any shop that does static balancing on car wheels anymore. Spin balancing is the standard, with road force balancing being the next step up. usually at some premium price.
Maybe this is why I need to check the balance.
Do you know the difference between a static balance (also called a “bubble balance”) and a spin balance (also called a “dynamic balance”)?
A static balance is where the tech puts the wheel on a device with a bubble balance in the middle and a piece that rocks on a pivot point under the bubble balance. He then sets weights on the edge of the rim and moves them around to get the tire/wheel to sit level. he’ll then mark the tire, and place half of the “correct” weight on the outside of the rim and half on the inside of the rim (if he’s using clip weights)…or use tape weights (for alloy wheels).
A dynamic balance is where the wheel is spun on a machine and the machine identifys exactly how much weight goes where.
A “roda force balance” is a spin balance with the addition of a spinning drum applying simulated road force against the tread.
Do you actually have a shop that still does static balances?
Thankyou for the explanations. Yes I do know the difference. The last time I really paid attention to balancing was when dynamic balance was maybe an extra charge above static balancing.
As I said in 1st post, tires are lasting a very long time now-longer than some cars. A 70K mile tire with a few winter months/yr using snows, could take a hiway tire out 10 years before replacement.
The last time I bought tires was maybe 7 years ago. Studded snows. Dynamic balancing may not be as important on these tires because studs are always being thrown off. --Which brought me to this topic-I have removed all the studs and one of the tires had maybe 30% of the studs and another tire had nearly 100% of the studs.
Static balancing doesnt work too bad as long as the other parts in the rotating mass arent too far out of whack, on our Macks we never balanced the tires and usually they were alright up to 70 MPH or so(the other parts were so massive and those tall tires didnt rotate all that fast so a little imbalance wasnt noticeable)-Kevin