I have a BMW 525 and recently took off my snow tires and replaced them with previously mounted and balanced summer tires. These mounted tires have been lying flat for about 4 months. The dealership balanced the tires because they said that after lying around for an extended time, they could lose their balance. True?
NO!
How could your summer tires possibly lose their balance while they were sitting around doing nothing?
There’s no way. None, Zero, Zip, Zilch, Nada.
You’ve been had.
i agree; that’s bunk.
should one assume a service advisor told you this. 
Did they also recommend you change the air in those tires? At the preferred-customer discount?
And don’t let them sell you on tire rotation…your tires rotate every time you drive.
Recommendations:
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Do not continue to utilize this dealership for maintenance and repair, as they have demonstrated that they are not to be trusted.
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No matter where you take your car for service, be sure to use the manufacturer’s maintenance schedule, rather than the maintenance schedule suggested by the service facility. As you have found out from experience, many dealerships and some independent service facilities will suggest service procedures that are totally unnecessary in order to boost their income.
yep hate when the kids pull the weights off,and move them around.
I agree, that is complete BS. Find someone else to do your work.
This is what happens when you allow a commission salesman to recommend car service…Why in the world would you take your car to a dealership to have tires mounted?? That’s a DIY project…
Don’t say that. Someone is going to read it and take it on face value. Then in six months we will get a message about the bad advice that was given.
i’ll play devil’s advocate here for a minute with a few points.
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since the op’s conversations were no doubt with a service advisor it’s quite possible the serv. adv. honestly believes this to be the case since most serv. advisors are not mechanically stute.
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the most important one. the dealer has no way in the world of knowing how long those tires have been sitting around, if they’re in balance or not, or anything else about them UNLESS the dealer is the one who removed them from the car originally.
if the dealer installs those tires without balancing and there is even a hint of shake, guess who is going to get the blame? it will then be the dealer’s fault for not checking the balance before installation.
i’ll qualify my answer based on whether the dealer was the one who removed the tires originally.
op, did the dealer perform the last tire swap?
(one other little monkey wrench in the works here. if the dealer originally removed those tires and the vehicle was taken back to have the summer tires installed did the op make the serv. adv. aware of it?
the s.a. and the tech in the shop are not going to remember details because there has been too much water under the bridge in 4 months time. as far as they know those tires/wheels could have just been purchased off of eBay.)
Lying flat for 4 months is not going to throw the balance off, but how long had it been before they were removed was the previous balance done? They could have needed balancing when they were removed as tires do go out of balance with normal driving. You may want the snow tires balanced before mounting them next fall.
The thing I would do is have each tire marked as to its location when its removed so that it can go back in the same position if you don’t want to rotate tires (I wouldn’t on this car) or so the tech will know where to put them if you do.
If they weren’t removed from the wheels, the balance hasn’t changed. If they were removed, not marked for position and put back on, the balance is off.