At home tire/wheel balancing?

[TJ Hopland]

Every time I have have to buy tires or have to drive something that vibrates down the road I am reminded how it seems like no shops either know or care enough to actually be able to balance usually a new tire you just bought from them. 

Do the currently available new bubble balancers work?  Vintage ones?  How about the spin balance machines?  Prices on used ones seem to be around $200 to about $3000 and within that full range you see them that look like they have been sitting outside getting rained on and that say things like has an error. 

New seems to be $800 to like $8,000.  There are some localish sellers selling 'import' models for around $1200.  Hard to tell what you are getting with those but reviews from non full time shop people seem to be good.  I got some friends with shop space that also hate out of balance tires.     

[Dave Shepherd]

Another  balance issue is the road force variation problems, this again requires more specialized equipment.

[The Tassie Devil(le)]

The old Bubble Balancers were good for their time.   By that, I mean, good for the suspensions of the cars back then.   The modern cars do perform better with the you-beaut dynamic balancers, as the latest independent suspensions do like perfectly balanced wheels and tyres.

Bruce,

[bcroe]

Long ago I saw a machine wheeled up to spin my
front tires on the car, then a unit inserted in
place of a wheel cover was adjusted to make it
run smooth.  Then it told where weight was needed. 
I saw one of these make my tire perfectly smooth
at 120 mph.  Rear, guess the best way was move 
the tire from the front to the rear after balancing. 

I have gotten such equipment but running it remains
as a future project.  Wish someone would tell me
what is with putting a pair of weights on opposite
sides and rotation on a tire, 2 identical weights
will not compensate for a tire heavy on one side. 
Bruce Roe

[Cadman-iac]

 Hi Bruce,

 Having seen that done and actually using one a couple times, I want to warn you that when you balance this way you are actually balancing all of the rotating assembly, that is your tire, rotor or drum included. It's recommended that you mark your wheel and the rotor/ drum so if removed you can reinstall it in the same position. Otherwise you will have a worse balancing issue than you did previously.
 Don't move the wheel/tire to another position on the car as that eliminates any balance you had.

 As to the technical reasons why weights can be placed opposite each other, I don't know. I've seen it work though.  I  questioned that too and never got a satisfactory answer.

 Rick

[TJ Hopland]

I think the having weights opposite sides is the 'operator' just blindly following what the machine is telling them and apparently you can get into situations where they just keep adding weights till they run out of weights or space to mount them which ever comes first.  That is apparently when the skill comes in and a skilled person would remove the existing weights and re mount the tire on the machine and try again this time paying extra attention to see if something isn't right.  That is also when they can try things like re mounting the tire rotated on the rim to see if that makes a difference. 

My guess these days is about 93.6593% of the people that work in tire shops fall into that category of blindly follow what the machine says.  On one of my many returns to a tire shop to try and at least get it so the weights didn't fly off a few blocks from the shop at less than 20mph I asked the guy what would happen if he balanced the wheel then set it on the floor then put it back on the machine?  He said he tried that and it would be out of balance.  I said I ain't no technician but doesn't that seem like a problem?  He then said my wheels don't really fit on their machine because they are missing a part......  again I said seems like that could be a problem.....  then I met the owner of the shop and wow I don't know how they stayed in biz.  The did go out of biz about a year later. 

[Abe Lugo]

I added the balance beads through the valve stem at home.  I want to say it works.  Did the amount required and no vibration.
I know when the time comes to change the tires it will be a mess.

[TJ Hopland]

I did wonder about the beads and the mess when it comes time to change them.  I also wonder if they would go through the 67-78's Eldo's heavy truck like valve stem.

[Abe Lugo]

The beads are very small and is use a turkey baster-like injector to put them in.  Bit that can be a mess as well.

[35-709]

You are talking dynamic vs static balancing.  An internet search will bring up explanations of both and why they are needed - or not.

[marty55cdv]

  Back in the day (35 years ago) I used a static Bubble balancer to balance the occasional 74 super beetle with front struts to get rid of 50 + mph hour shaking. Spin balancers didn't seem to help, technology has improved for sure but the bubble balancer was new technology once too.   

[Big Fins]

We used bubble balancers for years with great results.

Like anything else, it's the operator that brings the end results.

Now a days, the tire dude pushes buttons and does what he is told by the machine. No thought or skill involved.

[jwwseville60]

I recently put on the new Truespoke Kelsey Hayes wire wheels on my 1970 FW.
I needed to buy the special arm attachment because they balance at the hub.
No tire balancer shop within 150 miles had the arm.

[TJ Hopland]

Arm attachment?  I can't quite imagine how that works.  I have seen something called a pin plate set advertised as an option.  Have not yet figured out what they do but they are really expensive.  I was thinking maybe they let you use wheel studs?

I did end up buying used machine.  Took it to a friends home shop that has the tire machine.  Was not able to do a proper test run when I dropped it off but it seems to be in decent working condition and has most of the cone bits needed for most wheels. Have not checked to see if he has had time to move things around and get it properly set up and tested.  I really want to try it and see if I can do a better job than 95% of the shops I have been to. 

[Big Fins]

What gets me is when you ask the store manager if you can teach the tire changer how to balance the tire properly, they look at you like, 'You have to be kidding? You teach us?' Then you try to note to him/her what you see being done wrong and they don't believe a word you're saying.

[TJ Hopland]

Ya on I think the 5th attempt to get the new tires I had just bought from this local shop balanced I started asking questions.  I'm not talking about balanced to ride like a Cadillac, I would have been content to just have the weights not fly off on the way out of their lot and be able to hold the steering wheel when going over 30.  Sticking stick on weights on the outside of aluminum wheels was a nice touch too.

I asked the tech what would happen if you did your magic on the machine then set the wheel on the ground then stuck it back on the machine?  He says it will be out of balance probably because they don't fit the machine correctly.......   This is after they first told me some of my rims were bad which I didn't think was possible with aluminum, thought they just cracked but I had 4 more almost identical rims which I brought them and they said were fine.  Then they blamed the wheels and not having any weights that fit them.  They were only the most popular American Racing rims in the 90's that it seems like every truck had which is likely how 3 of my last 4 trucks had them.  So I then bought a set of like new factory steel wheels which was about the time they mentioned they don't fit on their machine.....

That's just one story.   The 'bent' rim has always been a popular excuse and with cars like my Eldo that I have had a long time and several sets of tires for I just rotate through the rims when a shop says there is a bad one.  I bring them a 'bad' one from the last set of tires and they say ya this ones good.   

[The Tassie Devil(le)]

What gets me is when you ask the store manager if you can teach the tire changer how to balance the tire properly, they look at you like, 'You have to be kidding? You teach us?' Then you try to note to him/her what you see being done wrong and they don't believe a word you're saying.

I had to teach the staff at a tyre shop in Connecticut how to change the tyres on the Cadillac Front Wheel Drive rims when I wanted two tyres replaced for my '72 Eldorado back in 2008.

I took the wheels to the shop to have the tyres replaced (One had separated Steel Belts) and left them to be done and came back 4 hours later.   The Manager said they couldn't get the tyres off so therefore not done.

I politely asked if I could show them what to do, and after some discussion, (to show that I knew what I was talking about) I was let behind the safety chain.   Within a couple of minutes, I had the old tyre demounted, and the new tyre back on the rim, and then let them do the second one.

They had never thought of putting the rim on backwards on the changer.   I reminded them that 1957 Chevrolets had to be done that way.   How can professionals easily forget such stuff.

Luckily that didn't proceed too far the first time or they could have destroyed the rims, like a shop in Australia did to a set of 1968 Eldorado rims.   They got the tyres changed, but bent the rims.   I found this out when I supplied a fellow Cadillac owner here with a good set of rims.

As for the balancing, they said that they couldn't do it because they had to supply new weights, and they didn't have the correct CAX weights.   I told them to use Stick-on weights so I could mount the wheel trims.

Bruce.  

[bcroe]

When I had a nearly new car with new tires (previous
century), I bought this rotating channel with beads
in it, sheet metal center slipped between the lugs
and the tire.  This really did work, at considerable
speed the balance was perfect.  The eventual problem
(car is past 300K miles) was the beads wore spots in
their (plastic) channel and could no longer freely
move to the ideal spot.  Product disappeared. 

I remember hearing those on car balancers would not
work if the wheel position was changed.  That because
the car parts are also in the balance.  IF that were
true, then no balancer would succeed, that leaves
car parts in their unbalanced state, and the ONLY
balancer that worked would be on car. 

In fact, the car parts arrive balanced already, in
some cases this obvious.  They are much closer to
the center of rotation, moving at much lower
velocity, so they have much less impact on the
balance.  So I have always ignored this rumor.
Bruce Roe

[Big Fins]

Luckily that didn't proceed too far the first time or they could have destroyed the rims, like a shop in Australia did to a set of 1968 Eldorado rims.   They got the tyres changed, but bent the rims.   I found this out when I supplied a fellow Cadillac owner here with a good set of rims.

This is the exact reason I bought 4 new rims for my car and won't let some tire flunky anywhere near them without me being there. If the shop won't let me, I put them right back in my pick up. I won't even take the car to them and their stud twisting air impact guns.

 

[Big Fins]

When I had a nearly new car with new tires (previous
century), I bought this rotating channel with beads
in it, sheet metal center slipped between the lugs
and the tire.  This really did work, at considerable
speed the balance was perfect.  The eventual problem
(car is past 300K miles) was the beads wore spots in
their (plastic) channel and could no longer freely
move to the ideal spot.  Product disappeared. 

I remember hearing those on car balancers would not
work if the wheel position was changed.  That because
the car parts are also in the balance.  IF that were
true, then no balancer would succeed, that leaves
car parts in their unbalanced state, and the ONLY
balancer that worked would be on car. 

In fact, the car parts arrive balanced already, in
some cases this obvious.  They are much closer to
the center of rotation, moving at much lower
velocity, so they have much less impact on the
balance.  So I have always ignored this rumor.
Bruce Roe

They are still available, but maybe not for passenger car wheels. They are called Centri-Matics and are made for 22.5" & 24.5 Class 8 truck wheels. About $250 each.