Tyre balancing

[Bobupndown]

Seeking views of the collective...
Is there a maximum amount of weights which should be used when balancing a wheel / tyre?

Had new Continental Cross Contact ATRs fitted to my Freelander 2 on Thursday by a "well known High Street chain". Washing the car today I noticed what seems to be a roll of stick on weights used on 2 of the wheels. Counted 130g on the one pictured below.
Is this excessive? Surely by rotating the tyre to a different position would have meant less weights used?
While I don't suppose there will be any issue like this it does look unsightly with weights being visible either side of a spoke on a 5 spoke wheel.
Should I complain and ask them to refit the tyres or just leave it?

 

[Pete.]

The wheel should be pretty well balanced, it's tyres that are variable, as your title says.

I see no harm in the extra weights though it does beg the question how good is continental's quality control.

 

[roofman]

Seeking views of the collective...
Is there a maximum amount of weights which should be used when balancing a wheel / tyre?

Had new Continental Cross Contact ATRs fitted to my Freelander 2 on Thursday by a "well known High Street chain". Washing the car today I noticed what seems to be a roll of stick on weights used on 2 of the wheels. Counted 130g on the one pictured below.
Is this excessive? Surely by rotating the tyre to a different position would have meant less weights used?
While I don't suppose there will be any issue like this it does look unsightly with weights being visible either side of a spoke on a 5 spoke wheel.
Should I complain and ask them to refit the tyres or just leave it?
View attachment 369566

for new tyres i would take that back and tell them to rotate the tyre

 

[Hood]

Not sure about cars but bikes usually have a max allowable weight for balancing in the owners manual.
Have they got the dot lined up properly with regards the valve?

 

[cheb]

My view on balancing tyres on wheels? I don't and haven't done for years. Get up to a good speed after they been done with a very light touch on the steering wheel to feel any shuddering and if there's none all is good. Maybe I've been lucky with tyres but I've never needed to go back and balance any. As to them being visible, meh it's a vehicle to be driven not a concours or museum exhibit.

Caveat: I'm a scratty peasant who drives vans.

 

[tom2207]

and check the wheel for shape too ,,, but Id be turning the tire 180 and trying again

 

[roofman]

My view on balancing tyres on wheels? I don't and haven't done for years. Get up to a good speed after they been done with a very light touch on the steering wheel to feel any shuddering and if there's none all is good. Maybe I've been lucky with tyres but I've never needed to go back and balance any. As to them being visible, meh it's a vehicle to be driven not a concours or museum exhibit.

Caveat: I'm a scratty peasant who drives vans.

i am also a van peasant with a tad of scruffy rat mixed in,do a lot of motorway miles and a wheel out of balance is the most annoying thing out there

 

[tom2207]

i am also a van peasant with a tad of scruffy rat mixed in,do a lot of motorway miles and a wheel out of balance is the most annoying thing out there

Nothing ruins driving faster than crappy tires ,,, if you want to sell a car put a full set of tires on , and the difference it makes is huge ,,,

 

[Kram]

130g is quite a bit, yes its excessive but not much to do about it unless you want to reject the tyre.

Could be that the fitter gave zero care to do it properly and just slapped a few extra weights. If you can be bothered to pull the wheel off and check yourself.. tho car wheels, not having a hub or bearings built in would be a bit harder to static balance at home.

 

[carbonarc]

Hi Bobupndown tyre makers usually carryout a static balance test on newly made casings and provide a marking in the form of a red dot on the wall. This is intended to assist tyre fitters to locate the coloured dot at the wheel valve position and minimise dynamic balance weights.

 

[cheb]

None of my vans have had alloy wheels, are they more prone to going out of shape, steel rims just dent a bit.

 

[Bobupndown]

Hi Bobupndown tyre makers usually carryout a static balance test on newly made casings and provide a marking in the form of a red dot on the wall. This is intended to assist tyre fitters to locate the coloured dot at the wheel valve position and minimise dynamic balance weights.

Yep aware of this, checked the tyres don't see any yellow or red dots.

I suspect its just a lazy fitter who slapped on a load of weights rather than removing and refitting the tyre.
Am I just being OCD though or should I get them to balance them again?

 

[MetalMonkey]

The steel weights always look a lot more scary than the old lead weights as they cover a lot more area.
Is the weight all on one side of the wheel or do you have a lot on the opposite side as well - if so they have been chasing weights because of an error. If not it may well be genuinely that far out.

Other probelms may be a dirty or poorly mated surface with the balancer which has thrown it out. Presumably they didn't have that many weights on when they went in?
Rotating the tyre and lining up the dots etc doesn't usually make *that* much practical difference to be honest - well in my limited experience anyway. Maybe if you have some really chunky rubber that isn't well balanced to start with.

You could certainly query it with them, but I've found err.. "well known highstreet tyre fitting chains" are typically not all that great on customer service, hence why I do mine myself now.

 

[carbonarc]

Yep aware of this, checked the tyres don't see any yellow or red dots.

I suspect its just a lazy fitter who slapped on a load of weights rather than removing and refitting the tyre.
Am I just being OCD though or should I get them to balance them again?

It could be the Continental marked tyres are fakes. Get back to supplier and ask about weight markings and perhaps suggest you will contact your local Trading Standards Department for advice.

 

[Robotstar5]

I had a set of Pirelli Scorpion tyres fitted to my Freelander I in 2011 at a cost of nearly £600, I wasn't happy with the way it vibrated when driving so took it to a different tyre place to be checked, they said the previous fitters had "counter balanced" the wheels which means they left the old weights on and just added new ones. The second place added quite a lot of weights to a couple of wheels and although it didn't vibrate I wasn't happy so contacted Pirelli sending photo's of the weights fitted.

Example

They agreed it seemed excessive and arranged for one of their tyre technicians to meet me at the second tyre place where they had all the tyres off, checked them, fitted a couple of new tyres the tech had bought and found one of the bare rims was out of balance before adding a tyre!.

I was impressed with Pirelli's response as they must have paid the tyre centre for the time/labour involved = happy customer who would recommend them to others.

Edit: I didn't go back to the original tyre place as I had to use them as approved Black Circles fitters, but the way they torqued the Alloy wheels up to 150nM instead of 90nM meant I wouldn't trust them again, they did get a really bad review off me on Black Circles, they are no longer an approved fitting centre

 

[sako243]

Shame that my only experience of Pirelli Scorpions has been four tyres with radial splits (no damage) out of 12 total. Never had any other brand do that.

 

[8ob]

I have no confidence in the tyre fitters around here. the knuckle scrapers loose their heads up their own arses and end up adding more weights to offset others they incorrectly added/placed.

Bob

 

[roofman]

I have no confidence in the tyre fitters around here. the knuckle scrapers loose their heads up their own arses and end up adding more weights to offset others they incorrectly added/placed.

Bob

yep very hard to get a good balancer around these parts too...they should have the machines calibrated regularly but they don't, tire places just seem to employ young kids who smoke too much weed and arnt bothered getting it right these days

 

[bourbon]

I've Just had a proper repair done on a brand new (3 days old) tyre that I managed to pick up a screw in. Kwik fit were the only ones I could get into same day. I watched the guy take the tyre off, do the proper internal repair on it. Rebalancing was done incredibly quickly and accurately. No vibration at all. Bonus, they didn't charge me either!

 

[Tinbasherdan]

On the topic, has anyone used balance beads? I’ve got 37” tyres on the Landy and I haven’t found anyone brave enough to put them on a balancer, beads supposedly just sort themselves out