IceWater

The topic came up in another thread. When someone balances a tire, do they need to put weights on both the inside AND the outside to get the proper balance? Or can a wheel be balanced by placing weights only on the inside (assuming its not WAY out of wack)? It would be nice to not have to look at those weights and then get all the stupid adhesive off after they're removed.

Tom

Dave

I was told by a few tire guys years ago that to do it right, you usually end up with weights on both sides. The guys who will set you up with weight on the inside only may not be doing as gooda job. There was one guy who told me "no problem, just take the weights that the machine says to put on the outside, and put 'em on the inside 180 degrees from where the machine says". The fact that he worked for Sears kept me from pondering it for too long.

User 462021

To do it right you need weights on both sides. But, they don't have to be on the outter lip. You will never see new cars having "stick-on" weights on the outside of the rim. What they do is put two rows of weights on the inside of the rim. One row on outter most part of the rim and one row on the other side of the finished part of the rim. Not sure if this makes sense or not.

Lets say you have phone dials. You will have weights on the very inside edge and then you will have them right behind the actual phone dial. Out of view.

If you go to a tire shop and they say they can't do it like that, go somewhere else. Some places don't have a new enough machine.

You can take my word for it, I do this every day.

HTH!

Dave

Tim, That may work on some wheels, but take a look at a 8x16 Fuch with 10.3 mm offset, that second row would still be on the inner half of the tire.

The further in they are the more weight you have to add, you can add some serious unsprung weight that way.

User 462021

I know what you mean, in that case you either have to live with possible shaking or the unsightly look of the weights.

Their is also a way to balance wheels without weights. They do it will a lot of big rig tires. Somehow they put somekind of a fine sand type substance inside the actual tire and it just floats around in their. Only time I've seen it was taking a tire off once.

Damian in NJ

The two sets of wheels I use both have been successfully balanced using 'inner' weights only. (Cup 2 17's, and Boxter 16's with snows).

IceWater

What Tim is saying makes the most sense to me. I'll have to take a look at my 16" 968 wheels and see if it looks reasonable to put weights inside the front face. Hopefully Sears or NTB are willing to do that, since I have lifetime balancing on all of my tires from them. If not, I guess I have to find a more legit place...which might be tough in NH.

Thanks everyone,
Tom

Mike S.

Balancing on or near the inner and outer faces is create what is called a 2 plane balance and is necessary to remove the out of plane moment rotating moment that occurs as the wheel turns.

Mike