Should I Balance My New Tires?

I didn'r see any post about sand, I use beads.
MarvinDyna

Horizon170 wrote:
Tire balancing now days is Cave Man style. I use Balancing Beads, do it once and never worry until I install replacement tires.
Marvin

Personally, I would never pour sand in a tire and have it try to somehow bring things into balance every time you start moving. How much do you add with a tire that is 6 ounces out and a brake drum that is also out by the same amount? It would need somewhere between zero and twenty ounces to work, depending on how the the parts are indexed.

In my example, the 6 ounces are measured at the wheel where weights are normally attached. All of the sand cannot be at the same location, so that is why I used the twenty ounce figure. So quote a figure, how much of that over-priced sand is needed?

Balancing beads are okay for some applications, most notably lower speed applications. I won't use them, but some people think they work okay. No way would I use them for motorcycle tires.

Tire balancing now days is Cave Man style. I use Balancing Beads, do it once and never worry until I install replacement tires.
Marvin

Thanks, I work on my step-son's Street Glide so I don't really hate Harleys. :)

I have the simple Marc Parnes balancer and it works very well. And it has the adapters for my Interceptor so that works. But some of that stuff would be nice to have.

fj12ryder wrote:

2112 wrote:

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.

I've known guys that didn't get their bike tires balanced, and they're always surprised at how much more smoothly the bike rides when the tires are balanced. I've had a few tires not need anything, but most need some amount of weight to balance. Harley's usually don't get them balanced because A) the weights vibrate loose and fall off, or B) the bikes don't go fast enough to need balanced tires anyway.

Hey Howard, some pretty fancy/expensive bike wheel balance equipment available now days, for the bikes that do go fast.

Thanks for the Harley chuckle!
Jerry

2112 wrote:

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.

I've known guys that didn't get their bike tires balanced, and they're always surprised at how much more smoothly the bike rides when the tires are balanced. I've had a few tires not need anything, but most need some amount of weight to balance. Harley's usually don't get them balanced because A) the weights vibrate loose and fall off, or B) the bikes don't go fast enough to need balanced tires anyway.

My bike tires always get balanced but then my bike will run 150+ if I'm insane enough to do it... I'm not.

2112 wrote:

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.

Might want to try beads in the bike tires.

fj12ryder wrote:

mike-s wrote:

fj12ryder wrote:
So you don't balance the wheels/tires on your car either? Many shops balance tires off the vehicle, so what's the difference. I do agree that balancing on the vehicle is best, but sometimes that simply isn't done.

What did I say to give you that idea? Brake rotors tend to be much more in balance than trailer drums, which have a large part of their mass farther from the axle. I suspect vehicle drums are also better than trailer drums - unless you buy the cheapest you can find, like trailers have.

Actually this is what gave me that idea:

"Unless the brake hubs are balanced separately, doing just the tires/wheels can make things better or worse. You can also make things better or worse simply based on how the hub/wheel are clocked."

After all not all vehicles are equipped with disc brakes front and rear. I didn't see any exceptions mentioned, as you did in this post.

Cars and trucks have their drums balanced...trailers do not.