Car Wheel Balancing

[Spanner Man]

Good morning all.


Operator error seems to be the biggest problem in this area methinks. Balancing is a bit of an art which takes a while to get right.

I always dynamically balance wheels of 3.5 inches in width & above.
Dynamic balancing takes into account side to side oscillations of the wheel, whereas static balancing only corrects up & down imbalance.
I suspect that as wheels on cars have got increasingly wider over the last few years it's become increasingly important to dynamically balance them.

As Embee points out some wheels are quite out of balance without a tyre fitted. The worst I've seen was an early R1 rear wheel that wanted over 100 grammes without a tyre fitted! I too have spent quite a while moving a tyre round the wheel in order to avoid putting half a church roof on the rim.

My balancer spins the wheel on it's bearings, whereas most do not. Often this highlights problems with the wheel bearings, which could also give you the symptoms of imbalance.


Cheers.


P.S. Thanks for the plug Trev.