Tire balance Question


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Old 12-10-19, 06:10 AM
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Tire balance Question

I had a large lag type screw impale itself in one of my F150's tires that only had 16k on it. The hole was too large to repair so dealer mounted up a new tire. When mounting the wheel back on the truck, I noticed there seems to be a lot of weights on the back of the wheel. There is a large lead clip on weight on one side and 180 degrees across the wheel, there is maybe 8-10 stick on weights. I'm guessing the dealer uses one of the off the vehicle balancing machines where the tire goes under a hood.

I'm just curious about 1) the large amount of weight on the tire, 2) 2 different style weights used, and 3) I've never seen weights used 180 degrees apart like this. Is this normal?
 
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Old 12-10-19, 08:34 AM
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180 deg apart doesn't make sense on the same side of the rim, that simply counter acts each other. If they are on the inside and outside (against the face) countering each other, then that's a completely different story and most likely correct. Bottom line, does the truck shimmy at highway speeds?
 
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Old 12-10-19, 08:35 AM
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I have had people balance tires that didn't know what they were doing and they ended up chasing the machine. Attaching weights exactly 180° from others. I wasn't happy and got a supervisor involved and they removed all the weights and started over. In the end the proper balancing took much less weight and none were directly across from each other.
 
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Old 12-10-19, 08:37 AM
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OEM's balance the tire and rim separately, then mount so the high/low sides are opposite, that way the assembly is balanced with the minimal amount of weight possible.

Repair shops dont do that, they just install the tire and then balance what they get so some times you can get a really large amount of weight on one side.

A better shop would see this and adjust but that requires the tire to be partially removed and well, they dont get paid for that!
 
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Old 12-10-19, 09:50 AM
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The tire is on the rear and so far with limited miles, it seems to ride ok. I'm going to go back by the shop and talk to them. They've been really good in the past, maybe this is a random problem or maybe they have an explanation.
 
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Old 12-10-19, 02:10 PM
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Sounds like a new guy on balance machine. Never should have weights 180 from each other.
 
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Old 12-11-19, 09:38 AM
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Went back to the store with the tire. They explained to me that's probably what the machine told them to do. He explained the machine tells them where to add weight to the inside as well as the outside of the tire. Mine is a F150 sport wheel so there's no lip on the outside to clip a weight to, so they use the stick ons on the inside but close to the outside as possible.

He took the tire back to the machine and rebalanced it. It came back with just slightly less weight in both positions but still 180 degrees apart.

Guess times have changed since 50 yrs ago when I used the bubble balancer in the gas station. Time will tell, we'll see how this tire does in a few months when I rotate it to the front. Thanks for the replies.
 
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Old 12-11-19, 09:52 AM
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The better Hunter machines can "match mount" the rim to the tire, which would minimize the amount of weights used. This requires measuring the run out of the wheel itself (no tire), then mounting the tire, then removing the tire and rotating it to the position indicated by the balancer. Then you install the weights. I doubt they did this as it is an extra step and wouldn't really be noticeable on a truck. A sports car, yes. Also, you may have a bent rim or got a crappy tire. A bent rim would be detectable using a Hunter Road Force Balancer (GSP9700), but again, this would require and extra step of measuring the wheel itself, which most shops don't do. Bottom line is, how does it ride?
 
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Old 12-11-19, 10:03 AM
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So far, so good. This is a truck I bought new and only have 16k miles on it so doubt the rim is bad. I haven't hit anything with it.

I put a set of Coopers on my prior '05 F150 and had a lot of problems from the get go with balance on them so think I know what to look for in balance. There's no "bunny hop" going on that I can feel and no jittery tailgate like I remember seeing with that truck.

Since the Cooper experience, I've gone back to running nothing but Michelins. This is a Defender M/S tire.

They used a total of 2 1/4 oz with the stick on's and the lead style weight appears to be 1 oz. So 3 1/4 oz does not seem excessive for a big truck tire?
 

Last edited by gastorms1; 12-11-19 at 10:31 AM.
 

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