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Bought 4 new tires at the local Discount Tire store. Mounted and balanced by them. I looked at the back side today of one of the wheels and there is what appears to be excess weight. All the wheels have about the same amount. Does this look "normal" for new tires? Tires are BF Goodrich Radial T/A
Each of those segments are about 1/4 of an ounce, so 3 ounces total is not that much, as long as they zero out on the machine, and there's no significant run-out.
Duke, Check to see that all four of your tires tire are mounted in their proper positions regarding the manufacturer's check. New tires will have a yellow paint dot on the sidewall which indicates the lightest spot on the tire. This should be aligned with the valve stem (the rim's heaviest spot) I am always surprised at how many tire techs are either unaware of this or simply ignore it. It will make a difference in how much weight the tire takes to balance. I insist on this being properly located on every tire I purchase. Greg
I agree with OldCarBum, my tire people spin the tire to get it close to balance and use minimum weight.
+1. After a tire repair on my wife's car, it appeared the wheel had excessive weight.
I had the tech at Discount Tire break the tire down and spin it 180.
[QUOTE=Greg;1599432565]Duke, Check to see that all four of your tires tire are mounted in their proper positions regarding the manufacturer's check. New tires will have a yellow paint dot on the sidewall which indicates the lightest spot on the tire. This should be aligned with the valve stem (the rim's heaviest spot) I am always surprised at how many tire techs are either unaware of this or simply ignore it. It will make a difference in how much weight the tire takes to balance. I insist on this being properly located on every tire I purchase. Greg
[QUOTE]
Back in the day I had a car sensitive to wheel/tire balance. The yellow dot method made a huge difference.
My first try would be spinning the tire on the wheel 90-180, as several others have suggested, or using the hi/lo dots, if present.
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In addition to what the others have said..
You have a couple of other options as well...
First, you might drive them for a few days then go back in and have them re-balanced. I believe Discount will do this for no charge.
Another option is to go in and ask for them to put them on the mounting machine, lower the pressures to 5-7 psi and perform a bead massage, then re-balance in conjunction with a tooling check on each wheel on the balancer.
Both of these options will ensure that the bead is fully seated.
Often times, the bead will seat just a bit crooked, for lack of a better term, and may take some exercising to fully seat itself into the bead seat and completely flush against the rim flange.
The tooling check is to make absolutely sure that the machine is set up correctly and true. If you really want a reaction out of the tire store guys, ask them to balance each wheel with a pin plate instead of a dual taper collet. It'll take 3x as long, but there won't be any question about it being right.
All of that said, 3 oz will be well within their accepted specs, and isn't really all that bad considering we're mounting a 30 year old tire design onto a 40 year old wheel. Alloy wheels of that era are not necessarily know for being perfectly true themselves, and older tire designs, even when newly manufactured are notoriously tough to make uniform. FWIW, I put Coopers on mine, and was able to do everything listed above along with a few other tricks... two tires took less than an ounce, but the other two are at 3 and 3.25, split evenly between the inner and outer flanges.
I looked at all the tires and none had any paint spots on them. I guess I'll just wait and drive it to see how it is. To be honest, it looked like a bunch of high schoolers doing the tire mounting.
wheel weights
