Wheel Balancing Weights vs Beads?

Beads are my preference. One time only for the life of the tire. A pint of antifreeze 50/50 mixture will also work in an emergency if you have trouble on the road. Some off road Guys with monster tires use Golf Balls.

Had new tires put on at CW in Elkhart (no longer there) probably 10 years ago. Balanced with beads they did what they were supposed to do BUT 1st trip out on a county road front right tire goes down. We had service truck come out- took 2 hours to get there. They put on our spare which luckily is mounted on a rim because by the time we got stopped on a 2 lane road where we could be seen the rim was demolished. We headed for CW headquarters in Kentucky- what a joke did not even want to talk to us. Long story short after Michelin said it was not their problem, Elkhart admitted kid who did the job did not replace the valve stems with new proper ones and a bead got caught causing the tire to go flat slowly. CW finally made everything right and covered our costs and had no more problems for the 7 years we had the tires. New tires are not balanced with beads. This was on a 32' class A which we still own. Luckily we kept the tire and Michelin had us drop it off at a dealer to send back to them for inspection. Can't say beads are bad just make sure everything is done correctly.

RLS7201 wrote:
Beads only do static balancing.

Ummm, it's just the opposite. The beads don't do anything when the wheel is static.

Beads only do static balancing. Dynamic balancing, with weights is necessary for a steering axle.

Richard

When they plug up your valve stem...

Good old wheel weights work better, cost less, and are trouble free. Make your tire dealer recommend a place that can balance your wheels.

The Centramatic's work well, ran them on a class 8 truck. Buddy runs beads in his class A and swears by them, had the conversation just today. He's got beads in front and is getting new rears soon and plans on beading.

Beads work fine. In some ways, they're superior to wheel weights: they can't come loose or fall off, and they will automatically compensate for changes in balance as the tire wears or (to some extent, at least) as dirt or whatever gets stuck to the wheel.

The Cadillac equivalent to beads are Centramatic rings; they're roughly beads in their own separate hoop-shaped tube. I suppose the Centramatics may have some advantages for out-of-round or non-concentric tires (so long as the rings themselves remain concentric). The other obvious advantage to Centramatics, that doesn't apply at all in your case, is that they can be installed without having to dismount the tires.

Balancing beads work better than weights, as long as the wheels and tires run true. They cannot compensate for a wheel or tire that is not concentric to the hub, and can magnify that issue if it exists.

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