mkirsch wrote: I would imagine race car tires and rims are made to more exacting specifications than your everyday car tires/rims. You certainly pay more for them, and you certainly don't get near the miles out of a set of racing slicks that you do out of a set of road tires. You gotta be getting SOMETHING for your money.
There has to be some level of balancing done to racing tires because racing is a precision sport, even if the cars are glorified wrecks on a dirt track. Any vibration is going to throw off the handling of the car.
I just don't see how balancing can NOT be beneficial.
Just because you don't directly feel it doesn't mean it's not helping.
These were sprint cars racing on clay tracks. Once in awhile we would have a balance issue when a large (about 5#s)chunk of clay would get stuck on a rim in one spot..Lots of wet clay (mud) all over the cars,,it is measured in pounds, not ounces like wheel weights.
Huntindog
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Lynnmor wrote: This subject comes up over and over but nobody ever considers the balance of the brake drums and hubs. I have checked every one that I have ever owned and all were considerably out of balance. Unless you balance the rotating parts as an assembly, you have balanced nothing. My current travel trailer has drums that are 2 to 5 oz. out of balance.
This is the most sense I've seen posted yet about tire balance.
I was lucky. I had some great lessons. When I was a kid in high school, I worked at a farm supply store that sold tires and they had a spin balancer that spun the tires on the vehicle while on the lift. When they didn't bounce in the shop, they didn't bounce on the road either. It took extra time to get it right. The useless balancer shown in the video is expressly designed to get the customer out the door, minus his $50 cash, with the least amount of shop time invested.
One thing I did learn was new tires don't need balance if everything else is right. First of all, they are made to a few .001's of an inch tolerance and there is no way that there is suddenly more rubber off to one side because the tire is thicker there. Most undamaged rims are fairly close to round too, especially the newer aluminum items.
I can see that brake hubs can be off balance, but at least the imbalanced weight is not on the high speed outer rim. But outer, overall rim and hub compounded run-out can add up a bit off when on the car, so re-mounting the tire/wheel is also an option during real on-vehicle spin balance.
The main reason tires need balance, on a good rim that was ok in the past, is that they are mounted slightly off center on the rim. This occurs when the soft, new bead slightly rolls instead of seating perfectly. They will visibly wobble just a bit if that happens and it is pretty common. If a shop mounted my new tires and they took 3 1/4 ounces or 2 1/2 ounces, like the video, I'd probably either ask to have them re-mounted on the rims mostly in hope they would center better, or refuse the "defective" tire. There are no such heavy weights needed on my old tires/wheels when I go in, so I am pretty suspicious when a newly mounted tire needs them and rightly so.
Wes
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Balancing the tires, then doing balance beads?!?!? wouldn't JUST the balance beads do the trick to balance the WHOLE system! no need to add more wt to the trailer tire than add the bead system IMHO.
WHether or not you balance the trailer tires, duals etc, reality is, the WHOLE system needs to be balanced. As one pointed out in some race programs, you get 5 lbs of mud on one side, or a rock between the duals.....I've had a few lbs of mud on my dumptruck duals to one side. That becomes noticeable! As it did on the race rig.
Reality is, do as you see fit. Some of us will, and some will not. I've got a trailer with over 100K miles, no tire has been balanced from day one, no issues with the bearings etc. Worn out a set of springs.....but that is another issue story.
Marty
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I use the balancing beads and start off with the trailer tires balanced. This assures the unbalanced trailer wheel assemblies are compensated for. Subsequently, any uneven wearing of the tires (including flat repairs) are compensated for by the beads without having them rebalanced.
Huntindog wrote: I've done it both ways. I notice no difference . I refuse to pay for it. When I get it done it's always as a sealer to the sale. I have different tire dealers quoting me the best price. A lot of times 2 or 3 will be tied for the lowest price. If one of them wants to throw in balancing, then he gets the sale. Sometimes nobody will, but lately they are hungry enough to do it.
But it doesn't bother me if they don't.
The tire wear argument is moot as most all TT tires are replaced due to age long before the tread is gone..Including mine and I tow a LOT.
I figure I have saved enough on balancing charges over the years to pay for at least a full set of tires.
I used to pit crew on a racecar team. Nobody at the track balanced their tires..And they go quite a bit faster than our TTs do.
And beleive me, with the money these race teams spend, the lack of balancing was NOT because of the cost!
If it had ANY benefit at all, they would be doing it.
From this article I would say NASCAR does balance tires. NASCAR tires
F1 also balances. Bridgestone just switched from lead to recyclable tin weights. They estimate they use over 1000 KG of weights during a season. Cars that are making multiple tire changes taking less than three seconds a time can't balance their wheels and brakes as an assembly.
I balance my trailer tires. Just because I can't feel it doesn't mean they aren't shaking.
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