Should I Balance My New Tires?

TooManyTents wrote:
...
The question I would ask myself is "Why would I NOT balance the tires?" What is there to be gained by not balancing?

Because every trailer I have bought did not have the tires balanced. The only set of TT tires I have bought were in 2008 from a truck/trailer tire dealer. He insisted I was wasting my money balancing my trailer tires so I didn't. I have never noticed any imbalance issues on any tire I have owned, a total of 20 tires over the years.

My motorcycles are the same way but there is a dot to line up with the stem. But after some crown wear on the front tire they become unbalanced, I can feel it. The bike shop tells me balancing them at that point causes the front tire to wear out prematurely. I had one balanced and sure enough I was back buying a new tire after about 500 miles.

Discount Tires has the best price around for the GY Endurance so I'll have them install the tires. They charge $6 each for mounting and balance so balanced they get.

Thanks for all the feedback. It's always entertaining.

my BIL was a truck driver and he told me yes they tow better. I hate it when he's right.

Interesting. I can buy a lot of boxes of stick on weights for 200 bucks, but then I have a wheel balance machine.

Have any of you folks ever used these?

http://www.centramatic.com/balancers.rhtml

I have used balance beads for several years now and cannot prove the work, but I have no other balancing done and am showing no abnormal tread wear in two sets of tires. And the tire doesn't care where it gets rotated to. Any vibration at any axle gets automatically smoothed out.

Grit dog wrote:

Boon Docker wrote:
Sure makes a person wonder sometime how old/young some of the people are on this forum.

Theres no wonderin. It’s perty obvious, lol. Great entertainment value!
This has been a good week for gong show threads!

And so I’m not off topic, balance your trailer tires, your bearings will thank you for it. Oh and regarding clocking them with the brakes....why? If both are balanced it don’t matter. And if the brakes are out of balance, refer back to physics class. Lot more inertia from a tire that far away from the hub than the brake drum.

Agree 100 percent.

SidecarFlip wrote:

Boon Docker wrote:
Sure makes a person wonder sometime how old/young some of the people are on this forum.

I'll come clean, I'll be 69 in July. I only feel that old when I'm taking a leak however.:B

Same here, on the 11th. But as one of my favorite shirts say: "You're only young once, but you can be immature forever". :)

Boon Docker wrote:
Sure makes a person wonder sometime how old/young some of the people are on this forum.

Theres no wonderin. It’s perty obvious, lol. Great entertainment value!
This has been a good week for gong show threads!

And so I’m not off topic, balance your trailer tires, your bearings will thank you for it. Oh and regarding clocking them with the brakes....why? If both are balanced it don’t matter. And if the brakes are out of balance, refer back to physics class. Lot more inertia from a tire that far away from the hub than the brake drum.

SidecarFlip wrote:

Boon Docker wrote:
Sure makes a person wonder sometime how old/young some of the people are on this forum.

I'll come clean, I'll be 69 in July. I only feel that old when I'm taking a leak however.:B

:)

Nowhere around me balances rim and tire assemblies on the vehicle, so I gotta go with the in shop machine. But I know if that machine is not calibrated, results aren't good. I've had tire rims rebalanced 3 times in a row to get a smooth ride.