Wheel Balancing Weights
 

I had my rear tires replaced a few weeks ago and just noticed while cleaning the wheels that there were only 2 balancing weights on one wheel and none on the other.

Is it possible that the weights were not neccessary? that after mounting the tire, it was perfectly balanced? It's kind of hard to tell just from driving because its the back wheels. Would you feel vibration in the steering wheel if its the back wheels? With the roads in NY, its hard to tell if its the road or the tires. Basically, I'm not sure if this is normal, or if the tire shop just did a crappy job of balancing.

Should I spend the money to have it re-balanced? I would go back to where I had it installed, but I had an argument with the guy for scratching up my wheels and would rather not go back.

Do any of the rims and tires shake? If not, you're okay. Had you waxed the inside of your rims prior to balancing? I did that, and one time I threw almost all the new weights as they did not clean the rims when they installed the new weights (they looked clean to them, and they were, but they were coated with wax). I now strip all my rims of weights and wax before having new tires installed.

It's definitely possible. If the wheel was out of balance you would feel it at highway speeds.

if they were match mounted it's possible.

but it's also possible it fell off. :D this is why i wipe down the inside of the wheels (and remove the weights, center cap, valve cap) before going to the tire shop to get tires mounted.

and press down on the weights before i take it out for a spin.

I had this same issue, so i asked...

what happens is "high" end tires usually come with a red dot of paint or yellow, or both, marking the high point on the tire based on harmonics. what these guys do is then make sure this red dot on the tire lines up with the shrader valve on the wheel, which is the low harmonic point of the wheel. if there is no red dot, they use the yellow. and gets you an almost perfect balanced wheel.

http://www.tireteam.com/blog/wp-cont...dyellowdot.jpg

But I had my guys balance the tire, and all of the sudden weights where needed... so in my opinion these guys are just getting lazy with the whole balance part, and figured out that if the dot system works just run with it.

You're right, they are lazy. A good shop will break the bead on tire/rim and shift the weight of the tire around to reduce the balance weights on the rim.

I always wondered what the dots were for.

I'm gonna look for a newly paved road to get a better feel for any wheel shake.
At what speed is reasonable? Would you feel it at 60mph? 80mph?

if the marking on the wheel was lost then it might be difficult for them to find it i guess. the valve stem is not guaranteed the heaviest part of the wheel.

Wait! Which weights are you referring to? The rims come from the factory with these little square weights attached on the inside of each rim. Are those what you're talking about???

correct.
http://www.ckrccrawlers.com/images/WheelWeights.jpg

If the rear wheels are out of balance you'll never feel it in the steering wheel, you will only feel it in the front wheels as they are directly connected to the steering wheel.

As far as the weights go, its entirely possible that the wheel didn't take any weights, you see it every so often. Two weights is actually the MOST I would say is acceptable to be on the wheel. One the inner most part of the barrel and one on the outter most part behind the actual face of the rim. That would be dynamic balancing, weights on only one place on the inside of the rim are only static balanced and although most of the time you wont actually feel the difference it is an inferior way of balancing the wheel.

I took my tire in to Discount tire to get a patch repair. I'm washing the car now and notice that the wheel that was fixed are missing weights. I know this because the adhesive is still on the rim where the weights were. Should I be worried, or did they probably just rebalance the tire.

They removed the tire, so it would have had to be re balanced.