Rickson wheel/tire advice
I was hoping to get some advice here on a set of Rickson wheels that have come up on craigslist. A set of 4 for $700. I'm interested in getting them, but not sure what size tire to get. I have ...
Forum Discussion
I bought the Michelin XDS2 tires for wet weather traction. These tires each have 400 tread blocks and 1,000 factory cut sipes. The extra thickness in the sidewalls is supplemented by sacrificial rub ribs to afford protection from scraping the sidewalls against concrete curbs.
I also got the tires from Costco. And no, Costco wouldn't mount them for me. But I didn't care. I mounted them myself. I just wanted Costco's lower price, which was around $375 each at the time, if I recall correctly. This was about 3 or 4 years ago, so $403 seems like a normal price creep.
The tires had to be special ordered of course. I found that mine were Made in France. I guess the XDS2 was Michelin's "Halo" tire at the time, manufactured at Michelin's headquarters, so to speak.
Match mounting? I aligned the painted red dot on the tires that indicates the maximum radial force variation with the stamp mark on the wheels that indicates the point of minimum radial run out as manufactured. Not all wheels have this stamped mark. My wheels not only had the stamped mark, but also had a neon green sticker over the stamped mark. Over time, the label wears off and washes away, which is why Accuride stamps the point of minimum radial runout to leave an indelible mark that outlasts the sticker. This is how new tire and wheel assemblies are match mounted in production.
If my wheels didn't have the stamp mark, then I would align the yellow dot on the tire, which indicates the tire's lightest point, with the valve stem hole on the wheel, which when fitted with a clamp in metal valve stem (highly recommended over the snap in style) is the heaviest point of the wheel on balance. That would be the weight method of match mounting... not as optimal as the red dot to the wheel mark, but it is a start.
Spin balancing? Road-Force testing with a Hunter 9700? Ha! People are kidding themselves. As already mentioned earlier in the thread, machine balancing a tire and wheel assembly is all about the FIT UP ADAPTER to the machine. I have taken truck tire and wheel assemblies to reputable shops like Les Schwab and Firestone, calling ahead of time first to make sure they had both a Hunter 9700 and a technician on hand who knew how to use it. I've gone in, and paid for one tire and wheel assembly to be balanced... whatever price they wanted, with only one catch: That they remove the tire from the machine after they "road force" balanced it, and remount the tire to the same machine to prove that it was indeed balanced.
NO ONE could do it. Oh sure, they could stop the tire from spinning, and restart the machine again and it would show 0.0 balance. But restarting a spin is quite different from taking the tire and wheel assembly off of the machine, and putting it back on the machine. Every time the technician unchucked and rechucked the tire and wheel assembly back to the machine, the balance was not only different, it was WAY, WAY, WAY, WAAAAAY different.
Why? What is being "balanced" so carefully is the relationship of the tire and wheel assembly to the spindle of the machine. Well who cares about that? I want the tire and wheel assembly to be balanced to the spindle of my truck. A huge part of the problem lies in the various centering adapters that a shop carries to use on the machine. THERE IS NO ACCURATE CONICAL ONE SIZE FITS ALL. PERIOD. My vehicle manufacture (Ford, forgive me) even issued several technical service bulletins on this issue, instructing shops to obtain specific adapters for the hubcentric wheels that Ford fits their trucks with. Without precise centering of the tire and wheel assembly on the balancing machine, the so called balance doesn't mean jack diddly squat, Road Force or not.
So how do I balance my self mounted tire and wheel assemblies on my truck's spindles? Dynamically. I use Centramatics, which balance the entire rotating assembly, including my hub, brake rotor, and any mud or rocks that temporarily get stuck in the meaty treadblocks of the XDS2 tires. No beads beating up the insides of the tire casing either, since Centramatics oil suspended BB's are encapsulated into their own tube that is circumferentially wrapped around a thin flat plate disk that is captured between the hub and wheel.
I kept with the smaller tire (stock) tire size, 225's instead of 245's, in order to not exacerbate additional loads on the wheel bearings and steering gear. I also wanted to maintain original factory gearing and low end grunt, as well as lower center of gravity and better fuel economy.
Your mileage may vary, but that is my experience with the Michelin XDS2, Costco, mounting, and balancing.
I also got the tires from Costco. And no, Costco wouldn't mount them for me. But I didn't care. I mounted them myself. I just wanted Costco's lower price, which was around $375 each at the time, if I recall correctly. This was about 3 or 4 years ago, so $403 seems like a normal price creep.
The tires had to be special ordered of course. I found that mine were Made in France. I guess the XDS2 was Michelin's "Halo" tire at the time, manufactured at Michelin's headquarters, so to speak.
Match mounting? I aligned the painted red dot on the tires that indicates the maximum radial force variation with the stamp mark on the wheels that indicates the point of minimum radial run out as manufactured. Not all wheels have this stamped mark. My wheels not only had the stamped mark, but also had a neon green sticker over the stamped mark. Over time, the label wears off and washes away, which is why Accuride stamps the point of minimum radial runout to leave an indelible mark that outlasts the sticker. This is how new tire and wheel assemblies are match mounted in production.
If my wheels didn't have the stamp mark, then I would align the yellow dot on the tire, which indicates the tire's lightest point, with the valve stem hole on the wheel, which when fitted with a clamp in metal valve stem (highly recommended over the snap in style) is the heaviest point of the wheel on balance. That would be the weight method of match mounting... not as optimal as the red dot to the wheel mark, but it is a start.
Spin balancing? Road-Force testing with a Hunter 9700? Ha! People are kidding themselves. As already mentioned earlier in the thread, machine balancing a tire and wheel assembly is all about the FIT UP ADAPTER to the machine. I have taken truck tire and wheel assemblies to reputable shops like Les Schwab and Firestone, calling ahead of time first to make sure they had both a Hunter 9700 and a technician on hand who knew how to use it. I've gone in, and paid for one tire and wheel assembly to be balanced... whatever price they wanted, with only one catch: That they remove the tire from the machine after they "road force" balanced it, and remount the tire to the same machine to prove that it was indeed balanced.
NO ONE could do it. Oh sure, they could stop the tire from spinning, and restart the machine again and it would show 0.0 balance. But restarting a spin is quite different from taking the tire and wheel assembly off of the machine, and putting it back on the machine. Every time the technician unchucked and rechucked the tire and wheel assembly back to the machine, the balance was not only different, it was WAY, WAY, WAY, WAAAAAY different.
Why? What is being "balanced" so carefully is the relationship of the tire and wheel assembly to the spindle of the machine. Well who cares about that? I want the tire and wheel assembly to be balanced to the spindle of my truck. A huge part of the problem lies in the various centering adapters that a shop carries to use on the machine. THERE IS NO ACCURATE CONICAL ONE SIZE FITS ALL. PERIOD. My vehicle manufacture (Ford, forgive me) even issued several technical service bulletins on this issue, instructing shops to obtain specific adapters for the hubcentric wheels that Ford fits their trucks with. Without precise centering of the tire and wheel assembly on the balancing machine, the so called balance doesn't mean jack diddly squat, Road Force or not.
So how do I balance my self mounted tire and wheel assemblies on my truck's spindles? Dynamically. I use Centramatics, which balance the entire rotating assembly, including my hub, brake rotor, and any mud or rocks that temporarily get stuck in the meaty treadblocks of the XDS2 tires. No beads beating up the insides of the tire casing either, since Centramatics oil suspended BB's are encapsulated into their own tube that is circumferentially wrapped around a thin flat plate disk that is captured between the hub and wheel.
I kept with the smaller tire (stock) tire size, 225's instead of 245's, in order to not exacerbate additional loads on the wheel bearings and steering gear. I also wanted to maintain original factory gearing and low end grunt, as well as lower center of gravity and better fuel economy.
Your mileage may vary, but that is my experience with the Michelin XDS2, Costco, mounting, and balancing.
