rbc123

so I am looking around for a local tire installer with Road Force equipt. and talking to a Ford dealer who has it. Then he brings up "bagging" instead of machine balance. Claims cheaper and never need to balance again.
I have searched our forums but no mention of this. Basically they put about 6 OZ's of tiny beads inside your tire. Then as tire spins on road the beads spread out within tire and everything is balanced out.
Has anyone used this method or have some knowledge about it??
RBC

rbc123

I found some more info. and they don't sound so good,
Oh well.....
RBC

808Bill

What did you find out?

gnat

I admit my grasp of Physics is pretty poor, but I fail to see how this would be anything but snake oil...

Either the centrifugal force forces the beads into the first place they settle or the interior texture keeps them bouncing. In the former I'd think it's more likely to make the balance WORSE and in the later I wouldn't expect it to do anything.

Basically I see no way for the beads to naturally find the areas that need additional weight. Even if by the magic and randomness they did find the right spots, with nothing to hold them in place it's all for naught as soon as you slow down/stop and the beads move.

Silk

DBJoe996

Another one for "what this noise I'm hearing when I slow down" ohhhh, it's the beads inside my tires

Chris(MA)

Even in that promo video, did you notice how the bottle is very wobbly until the beads spread out? if that works the same in the tire then your wheels will wobble every time you accelerate to speed, not exactly ideal, even if they do self balance after a certain threshold.

gnat

Which also sounds a bit like "marbles in a coffee can"

gnat

This is where my poor math comes into play, but I suspect that the speed required for a quick balancing is faster than most cars can accelerate (especially with their wheels trying to bounce everywhere?), much less what is doable in normal driving.

I also question if normal driving would ever achieve the balance (notice the "slow" speeds in the video were only done after an initial high speed). How much must stop/go commuting SUCK with this "balancing" procedure?

5CHN3LL

Sounds like you'd need more "beads" every time the wheel leaves the tire, unless the tire and wheel always get mounted in the same orientation. Or I'm too stupid to understand the concept.

dan_189

This seems not worth it, standard lead stick on weights work just fine.

Get nitrogen fill as well.

JohnCA58

I use them on certain vehicle's and motorcycle's, they work great on 18 wheeler also, what I have found is when using them on my Harley and BMW, the acceleration on the BMW K1600 is so fast I would get the wobble the faster I went, it work ok on steady cruise, the Harley even with 152 h.p. didn't accelerate like the BMW and worked great all the way to 130 mph. I keep using them on the Harley but never on the BMW, I wouldn't use them on the P-car.
I laugh every time I here about using nitrogen in tires, most tires are installed with a lube which introduce moisture into the tire, so nitrogen is a waste, now using a non water base lube and sucking down the tire with vacuum pump to vaporize the moisture out would work.

Ogr8frogy

I have heard of this before, but it was always with the 4wheel drive trucks with large tread tires and in those cases the guys loved it cause they would balance those big tires easier and not have to worry about losing wheel weights when aired down or hitting rocks and ruts and mud.

Southern Man

I just heard about this last week. It was in reference to truck tires, and how we might address some vibration I have in the front end of an RV I just bought. It sure wasn't in reference to my P car though.