In support of home wheel balancing

Fred W · Sep 15, 2008

My last (prior) rear tire I got caught trying to stretch the mileage when it came time for a state safety inspection. The local stealer called me out on the skimpy tread and refused to give me a sticker until I changed it. Because I was too busy to mess with it at the time I bought the tire from them and had them install it.

Well that tire just wore out and I mounted a new Dunlop Roadsmart yesterday. When I was removing the old tire I noted they had used 6 stick-on balance weights, 1 1/2 ounces (42 grams) total, which sure seemed to me to be a lot of weight.

Being ever the anal retentive home mechanic, I balanced the bare, unshod rim on my static balancer, and wouldn't you know it the wheel itself requires 3/4 oz (21 grams) to balance out. But here's the kicker: The light spot was at the valve stem, not that heavy spot, as is commonly assumed!! So, naturally, when the dealership guy mounted the last tire, naturally he had lined up the tire's balance mark (light spot of the tire) with the valve stem creating the worst possible balance for that tire and rim.

When I mounted my new tire I oriented the yellow dot 180 degrees away from the valve stem and the mounted tire only required 10 grams of balance weight (still close to the valve stem). Apparently the tire was only unbalanced by ~11 grams. I now have the inner surface of the rim marked with a sharpie with the mis-balance info so I won't have to do it again.

Does any of this really matter in the long run? Probably not. I did get good life from that tire, ~6500 miles, a Pirelli Diablo Strada non E code. But I still like the idea of having less balancing weight(s) on the wheel.

Crash Cash · Sep 15, 2008

Once I had a front tire on my SV-650 that just happened to balance perfectly, and it seems this confused the hell out of the poor tire monkey, so he just stuck a 1oz weight randomly on the wheel. Not a 1/4oz weight, but a full 1oz clip-on. This was the same shop that mounted the front tire backwards on the DL-650 and couldn't put the fairing back together properly.

And people wonder why I pop $600 for a No-Mar... the money's almost secondary to the peace-of-mind that it's actually done right.

SkooterG · Sep 15, 2008

Yup. For quite a while I have espoused the advantages of doing your own tires, and doing a tire change like you did.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.

chrisflock · Sep 15, 2008

I took my car in once to have something done, I think to just replace 2 tires, and when I picked it up, it had a pretty bad shake. I took it back, they said they checked and it was fine, took it back again and made them go for a test ride with me, they 're-balanced' the wheel and told me they had to put the maximum possible weight on the tire, so it meant my rim was bent, and that I could drive the car for now but I should look for a new rim.

Of course, the car still shook so bad I couldn't drive it, I asked them if they could try turning the tire on the rim to get it better balanced. This time, I stood where I could watch when they spun it up on the balancer, and, big surprise, the tire was seriously out of round. Must have been some kind of horrible manufacturing defect, there was well over an inch of run-out on the tire. Rim was fine!

Any ***** could have seen that when they spun the tire up on the balancer, but of course the employee there never really looked at the tire, he just tossed the whole wheel on the machine, lowered the guard and hit the button.

If you didn't do it yourself...

Chris

Rondo777 · Sep 15, 2008

I started using Dynamic Balance Beads on my last set of new tires. HAppen to be Road Smarts as well. I just hit 4k miles on them, the tires still look new and The tires are still perfectly balanced and no wieghts at all. I still let the deal mount the tires but I instruct them not to balance them, I dump the beads in myself.

Fred W · Sep 15, 2008

SkooterG said:
Yup. For quite a while I have espoused the advantages of doing your own tires, and doing a tire change like you did.
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.

Interesting, Skoots. Your front wheel in the linky thread balanced much the same as my rear wheel. ie light at the valve stem by about 21 grams when the conventional wisdom is the stem is assumed to be the heavy spot.

I wonder how many other wheels also follow this pattern, and maybe the "conventional" ain't so wise anymore? Maybe the valve being the heavy spot went out with steel wheels?

SkooterG · Sep 15, 2008

Fred W said:
Interesting, Skoots. Your front wheel in the linky thread balanced much the same as my rear wheel. ie light at the valve stem by about 21 grams when the conventional wisdom is the stem is assumed to be the heavy spot.
I wonder how many other wheels also follow this pattern, and maybe the "conventional" ain't so wise anymore? Maybe the valve being the heavy spot went out with steel wheels?

Conventional wisdom of the valve stem being the heavy spot is most definitely BS as far as I am concerned.

I have 6 FJR wheels (not counting my two additional ones I recently received that are still in the box they were shipped in.) - 2 sets for my non-abs FJR, and then the two for my abs FJR. NONE of them balance with the heavy spot near the valve stem. Most are not 'heavy' directly across from the valve stem, but nowhere near the valve stem. And all of these even have the slightly heavier aluminum angled valve stems.

Knowing what I now know about the imbalance of the wheels only, not to mention tires, I chuckle heartily to myself when folks post (as they have many times in the past) that the shop that installed their tires said they didn't need any weight whatsoever - they were perfectly balanced. You KNOW the shops don't match the wheels/tires when they do it. So what are the odds of a wheel and tire having the same 'weight' of imbalance, and then being perfectly matched 180 degress apart?

Fred W · Sep 15, 2008

SkooterG said:
Knowing what I now know about the imbalance of the wheels only, not to mention tires, I chuckle heartily to myself when folks post (as they have many times in the past) that the shop that installed their tires said they didn't need any weight whatsoever - they were perfectly balanced. You KNOW the shops don't match the wheels/tires when they do it. So what are the odds of a wheel and tire having the same 'weight' of imbalance, and then being perfectly matched 180 degress apart?

Much more likely the pimpley face dude they pay min wage to mount and balance tires doesn't have an especially keen sense of understanding over what he is doing.

Not that there's anything wrong with pimples.

...or minimum wage.

Constant Mesh · Sep 15, 2008

I installed a RoadSmart on my rear wheel just a few days ago. When the old tire was off I used the Parnes balancer and found and marked the naked wheel's heavy spot. I didn't check to see how much weight would be required to balance the wheel.

When I installed the RoadSmart and positioned the yellow paint spot adjacent to the wheel's heavy spot magically it was balanced -- no weight was needed.

I compromised with the local dealer. I remove the wheel, remove the old tire and install the first bead of the new tire -- the easy parts. I let my dealer finish the tire installation by installing the second bead with his machine and then inflating the tire and verifying the symmetry of the tire on the wheel.

I finish the job by balancing and installing the wheel on the FJR. He charged me $7 for his effort. Getting that 2nd bead over the rim is difficult for one guy without the proper tools.

Crash Cash · Sep 15, 2008

Fred W said:
Much more likely the pimpley face dude they pay min wage to mount and balance tires doesn't have an especially keen sense of understanding over what he is doing.
Not that there's anything wrong with pimples.

...or minimum wage.

No, but when I pay $65/hr labor charge, I god-damned-well expect better than minimum wage work, by George!! Plus at least my local Suzuki & Yamaha dealers don't seem to have any pimply-faced dudes. They all are 25-30ish techs.

They just don't seem to care.

SkooterG · Sep 15, 2008

Crash Cash said:
No, but when I pay $65/hr labor charge, I

$65/hr?

For the love of Craig! (Thanks GunMd) Labor rates around here start at $75/hr. I've seen them up to $100/hr.

Fencer · Sep 15, 2008

SkooterG said:
Conventional wisdom of the valve stem being the heavy spot is most definitely BS as far as I am concerned.

I completely concure. The heavy spot can be any place on a given rim.

I've prob balanced 30 rims in the last year and found the spot to where-ever it chooses.

Fred W · Sep 16, 2008

Fencer said:
SkooterG said:

Conventional wisdom of the valve stem being the heavy spot is most definitely BS as far as I am concerned.

Click to expand...

I completely concure. The heavy spot can be any place on a given rim.

I've prob balanced 30 rims in the last year and found the spot to where-ever it chooses.

But the tire manufacturers still say to put the balance mark at the stem, for some reason.

I wonder why the wheel manufacturers don't stamp a heavy spot mark on the wheels somewhere.

Fred W · Sep 16, 2008

Constant Mesh said:
Getting that 2nd bead over the rim is difficult for one guy without the proper tools.

He he, tell me about it. I need to buy a replacement for my 3rd tire iron that seems to have walked off. :huh:

Just had to do my rear tire with only two on Sunday. B)

Crash Cash · Sep 16, 2008

SkooterG said:
Crash Cash said:

No, but when I pay $65/hr labor charge, I

Click to expand...

$65/hr?

For the love of Craig! (Thanks GunMd) Labor rates around here start at $75/hr. I've seen them up to $100/hr.

Yeah, but I was trying to make the point that labor *starts* way above minimum wage... plus I obviously haven't been in a dealership service department in a long time.

Crash Cash · Sep 16, 2008

Fred W said:
But the tire manufacturers still say to put the balance mark at the stem, for some reason.
I wonder why the wheel manufacturers don't stamp a heavy spot mark on the wheels somewhere.

Heck, some people can't deal with getting the directional arrows lined up right! You want to complicate things for them??

I've always wondered why the stem is considered the heavy spot, since you punch a hole out of the metal and replace it with a lighter rubber stem.

I'm also pretty sure, since most people have barely room-temperature IQs, that they don't care about how much weight is needed to balance, or that the rim might even HAVE a heavy spot. So the rim manufacturers skip a time consuming balance-and-mark operation and save time and money.

Ignacio · Sep 16, 2008

Crash Cash said:
I've always wondered why the stem is considered the heavy spot, since you punch a hole out of the metal and replace it with a lighter rubber stem.

True a stem's rubber is less dense, but it also does contain more dense brass or other metal inside for the mechanical workings. Also the stem assembly has has significantly more volume than the piece of punched aluminum it replaced. I don't know for sure, but I suspect the stem assembly is heavier than the metal that was removed.

fretbender · Sep 16, 2008

Fred W said:
My last (prior) rear tire I got caught trying to stretch the mileage when it came time for a state safety inspection. The local stealer called me out on the skimpy tread and refused to give me a sticker until I changed it. Because I was too busy to mess with it at the time I bought the tire from them and had them install it.
Well that tire just wore out and I mounted a new Dunlop Roadsmart yesterday. When I was removing the old tire I noted they had used 6 stick-on balance weights, 1 1/2 ounces (42 grams) total, which sure seemed to me to be a lot of weight.

Being ever the anal retentive home mechanic, I balanced the bare, unshod rim on my static balancer, and wouldn't you know it the wheel itself requires 3/4 oz (21 grams) to balance out. But here's the kicker: The light spot was at the valve stem, not that heavy spot, as is commonly assumed!! So, naturally, when the dealership guy mounted the last tire, naturally he had lined up the tire's balance mark (light spot of the tire) with the valve stem creating the worst possible balance for that tire and rim.

When I mounted my new tire I oriented the yellow dot 180 degrees away from the valve stem and the mounted tire only required 10 grams of balance weight (still close to the valve stem). Apparently the tire was only unbalanced by ~11 grams. I now have the inner surface of the rim marked with a sharpie with the mis-balance info so I won't have to do it again.

Does any of this really matter in the long run? Probably not. I did get good life from that tire, ~6500 miles, a Pirelli Diablo Strada non E code. But I still like the idea of having less balancing weight(s) on the wheel.

I got similar results with my front wheel last Sunday. I've put on a few tires that aren't marked with a heavy spot, so I decided to balance the wheel itself. I ended up using approx. 19.25 grams to balance the front wheel, epoxied to the inner portion of the wheel (the side hidden by the tire). That balance was done good enough that the wheel will stop in any position using the Marc Parnes static balancer. It then took another 8.75 grams (again, approximately) to balance out the combination wheel & tire. Again, the balance was good enough that there is no tendency to stop in any particular position using the MP balancer. I know it's a lot of weight, but it feels good. . .real good. I've got about 33k miles on my FJR now and out of 3 shop mounted tires and two personally mounted tires this is the best feel (lack of vibration) I've ever had from the front end. Well worth the effort.

DaveFJR · Sep 16, 2008

I think Constant Mesh has the right approach to balancing (least total amount of weight to balance. )

In support of home wheel balancing

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