Chuck_S wrote:

Balancing trailer tires us usually a fruitless exercise and has as much potential to make them worse as better.
I don't agree with this

Simple reason is that hole in the center of an automobile wheel is a centering hole, exactly in the center. Tire balancing machines are designed for automobile wheels and depend on this being exactly in the center.


On trailer wheels it's just a hole in the middle so the spindle can stick thru, maybe or maybe not in the center. If you can get your trailer wheels balanced on a spindle that uses the lug holes and not the kinda-in-the-center-hole you're good.

This doesn't make sense to me due to the fact that the center hole on the rim is not a randomly drilled hole, it is set to go over the spindle end (hub) that the brake drum is mounted to and there is very little clearance around the perimiter of this hole so the studs do not center the wheel,the brake hub does.

I have balanced many tires over the years standard and high performance and have always used the center hole type balancer and as long as the machine is properly calibrated have not had any problems. The machine I use is a snapon WB260A and has a good track record. I peersonally feel there is no reason not to balance a trailer tire, it does spin as fast or faster than a car tire, it unsprung weight and with trailers not having shocks there is no snubbing effect to stop an out of balance tire from bouncing.
Just my thoughts on this, feel free to fire back

If you notice new trailers you'll never see wheel weights on the rims. This is because they aren't balanced, nor do they need to be.

-- Chuck