Balancing 19.5's

brinson wrote:
How are most of you balancing your 19.5's? I had my tires rotated on my F450 and the tire shop said they could not balance them with conventional weights due to the rims requiring a different style of weight. They added 4oz of ceramic beads to each tire and the truck drives well up to 70mph. At 75mph it has vibration. Is it possibly not enough beads? I have been unsuccessful in finding a shop around here who would balance the tires with conventional weights.

Les Schwab has been balancing my 19.5's on my work trucks for 20 years no problem with lead. Don't look like anything special, lead on the lips, no shake. My visions on my old truck same place, same drill.

Find a better shop!
Standard 19.5 steel wheels uses the same weights as auto.

Slow down to 70, open a beer and enjoy the ride. :B

I don't have 19.5s, but I run 6-7oz of airsoft pellets in each wheel on my 17s.

It sounds like they didn't use enough beads in your tires (one or more requires a little more weight). Get them to add a little more, or you can purchase dynabeads and insert them through the valve stem; breaking the bead is not required.

I may stand corrected, but I think most 19.5 are only rated for 70 mph max. That said, I have ran my Michelin 19.5 up to 85 mph without a problem, but I do not make a habit of it.

I have had three different Les Schwab stores balance my aluminum Vision 19.5 wheels since about 2007. Never a problem, other than loosing a weight twice. They used the tape on weights on my aluminum wheels.

Maximum speed rating is 87mph. I believe as suggested, I need to find another tire shop. I did look ceramic bead application chart online and it looks like they may not have put enough weight in the tires. It says 6oz in single tire applications and 8oz in dual tires. That being said, I would prefer to have them balanced by a shop with weights.

brinson wrote:
I believe as suggested, I need to find another tire shop.

Yup....
I just put six new shoes on my F450, and I went to a small commercial tire place that works mostly on big rigs. 80mph, no vibrations at all, smooth as my Corvette. When it's only in 2nd heading for 3rd...

Here's what Paul Harvey used to call... "And now, the rest of the story"
Your beads-- it's BS. I have found that 90% of all tires shops by me cannot balance 19.5's because they do not have the proper hub/spindle cone to physically get a 19.5 on their balancer. So they didn't have the equipment to work on your rig, and they made up a line of BS.

I found out the hard way Pep Boys cannot work on 19.5's. After handing over my money and 3 hours in their shop, they finally admitted they hadn't even gotten one done due to them promising they DID have the equipment to work on them, when in fact, they didn't....

Boatycall wrote:

brinson wrote:
I believe as suggested, I need to find another tire shop.

Yup....
I just put six new shoes on my F450, and I went to a small commercial tire place that works mostly on big rigs. 80mph, no vibrations at all, smooth as my Corvette. When it's only in 2nd heading for 3rd...

Here's what Paul Harvey used to call... "And now, the rest of the story"
Your beads-- it's BS. I have found that 90% of all tires shops by me cannot balance 19.5's because they do not have the proper hub/spindle cone to physically get a 19.5 on their balancer. So they didn't have the equipment to work on your rig, and they made up a line of BS.

I found out the hard way Pep Boys cannot work on 19.5's. After handing over my money and 3 hours in their shop, they finally admitted they hadn't even gotten one done due to them promising they DID have the equipment to work on them, when in fact, they didn't....

That is basically the same story I got at 4 local shops. I am just going to have to search further from home. I did go to 2 truck shops. They did not want anything to do with the aluminum wheels.

FWIW...my 19.5" (motorhome) Goodyears were replaced AND balanced at a local CW. They put in the beads and told me for the first 5 miles or so, I would get vibration...then the bead bag would break distributing the beads...and no more vibration.

It worked. VERY happy. And less work for the shop(s). Also, a neighbor recently purchased a new Lincoln...and the tire sidewalls said "beads".

Again...FWIW.

I ran into issues with finding a place to balance my vision 19.5s on my last Ram 2500 including truck shops. A member here suggested he had very good results with Centramatics. I was looking into these but ended getting a DRW.


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