Tire Balance Beads ?

If you are going to trust them to balance your tires I would use enough to do the job completely. That way if you lose a weight or add a TPMS system, your tires wear or anything else changes the weight of the tire your balance should be ok.

Some of those beans and powders used for tire balance require special inflator valve to prevent clogging. We use the Centramatics on our wheels and love it when tires get changed we do not have to add new beads. After the mh sits for awhile we can feel the balancing take place as we start out. Never have to rotate anymore.

Cost wise however, beads should be considerably cheaper and from the reports on the forums, seem to work very well.

We use beads instead of weights on our Suncruiser 37F. They seem to work fine.

Equal in mine. Just make sure the tire shop puts in the right valve stems.

Since trailer drums or hubs are not balanced from the factory and the tires may be considerably out of balance, how would one guess the proper amount of beads to put in a tire? For example; I have had drums out of balance by 5.5 oz. and tires a similar amount. Depending on the orientation of the tire, I would need something between 1 and 15 ounces to bring it into balance, and then the balancing process would need to start all over again after each stop. Makes no sense to me. I actually balance the entire assembly and leave the gimmicks to others.

I run Equal in my F350 DRW 4X running Toyo Open Country and no other weights, ride smooth and wear is smooth. The balancing media company tells you how much to put in according to tire size, it comes in different size packages.

Lynnmor wrote:
Since trailer drums or hubs are not balanced from the factory and the tires may be considerably out of balance, how would one guess the proper amount of beads to put in a tire? For example; I have had drums out of balance by 5.5 oz. and tires a similar amount. Depending on the orientation of the tire, I would need something between 1 and 15 ounces to bring it into balance, and then the balancing process would need to start all over again after each stop. Makes no sense to me. I actually balance the entire assembly and leave the gimmicks to others.

According to the Dyna Bead people, "extra" beads just distribute themselves around you tire equally, so only the ones that accumulate in the light spot of the tire actually affect the balance.

I use them on the MH, truck, and trailer. All tires roll smooth and are wearing evenly. MH and trailer have beads only, truck has weights and beads.

Optimistic Paranoid wrote:
I've been thinking about running Dyna Beads in my tires. Wondering if anyone here is using them in their tires? And if so, how they like them?

Apparently, you can either run a large amount of them, in lieu of regular wheel weights, or balance the tire normally and add a smaller amount of beads to help maintain the balance as the tire wears. I think I'm leaning towards the later.

We’re running 19.5” H rated tires on our Dodge, using conventional weights and beads.....you couldn’t ask for a smoother ride!

I started out with Dyna Beads on my motorcycle. I consider them expensive, but easy to use on a tire that is already mounted on a rim. They are small enough to fit through the valve stem.

I have been using airsoft pellets for the last few tires on my bike and on my truck. Since the airsoft are larger you need to break the bead to install them. I just show up at the tire shop with a ziplock pre-weighed. I just buy a container of them for a few bucks from Walmart. Just be sure they are not the ones that leave a mark.

I have 6-7oz per tire on my truck (265/70-17), and about 3oz on my bike tires (185/60-16ish in size). They do a fantastic job. They have not come apart in my bike tires after approx 12k miles of life, and the truck rides fine after a lot more miles than that.

You can hear them cascading against the inner part of the wheel when going slow, but that is the only 'issue' I've had, and that doesn't bother me.

I just had new steer tires (19.5") put on and the tire shop asked if I wanted Equal balancing. I didn't know anything about it so I checked with my buddy who is maintenance director for a large truck leasing company managing literally hundreds of tractor-trailer rigs and a manufacturers' tire program. He said that's what they use in all their tires, so that's what I'm using.