I just got my new set of 17's and 18's and just noticed that both 18's and one 17 have numerous stick on weights at various locations but one 17 doesn't have a single weight on it. Nothing at all. Is this possible? I have a feeling they missed this one.

-Tim

First of all, when a wheel is balanced, there should only be weights placed in one spot for either side of the wheel. If you have weights that seem to be randomly placed, they have not been balanced correctly.

It is possible to have a wheel not require any weights, I have had this happen a couple times, but it is rare. However, because the other three were not balanced properly, I could only imaging that this wheel was missed.

I suggest taking them to a reputable tire shop and get them properly balanced, especially with new rubber.

[This message has been edited by AutoTech (edited 12-25-2007).]

It is possible for a wheel with a tire mounted to be unbalanced in two ways. One way is for the wheel to be heavier in one part of it's diameter than another. The symptom for this kind of unbalance is wheel hop. To properly balance this kind of unbalance with a sticky weight, you would need only weight placed opposite the heavy area.
The other kind of unbalance is for the wheel to be heavier on the inside for one area of the diameter, and heavier on the outside at the opposite side of the diameter. The symptom for this kind of unbalance is a shaking steering wheel -- that is, wheel wobble. To fix this with standard clip-on weights, you would clip one on the outside and one on the inside at opposite sides of the diameter. With sticky weights, it would be more difficult, and may not be possible at all to correct. But that's why, on a correctly balanced wheel, you can have more than one weight.

yes, i have seen it a few times too. when i have mine balanced, i dont have any weights put on the outside rim lip. they can put beat on weights on the inside all they want. then, they should put the stick on weights on the inside of the rim as close to the outside as possible. some shops say the middle so i dont know for sure on that one BUT one piece of advice i will hand out here is,after they put the stick on weights on,cover them with a strip of duct tape. if the rim is black like mine, use black duct tape and you cant even see it. it keeps the weights on..truuuust me!! and before you take them the wheels, clean them real good and remove all the other weights.

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Keith
Topsail Beach,NC
86&87 Fiero GT
86&96 Corvette
04 Harley Davidson Softail
73 Lotus Europa Twin Cam
86 Lotus Turbo Esprit

"He who dies with the most toys wins!!!"

While it does cause some heartburn, it's totally possible for a wheel/tire assembly to not need any balancing weights. I've seen it many times. Three do, one doesn't.

How does it do at higher speeds? If you don't feel anything with the buttometer, I wouldn't worry about it.

Most places now only put the weights all in one place. The older way, and just as good in my opinion was putting them in 2 places and moving one or the other to attain balance. I have had wheels with no weights too. On the race car, we did our own balancing sometimes and did it by moving the tire around the rim until it (usually) balanced. Then you never had to worry about a weight coming off or getting knocked off. Guy that does mine now, spins the wheel on the car with a motor while its off the ground. Then he feels the fender and tapes on weights trial and error until he cant feel the fender vibrate. This also balances the whole assembly with brake, lug nuts, center cap etc. Then I put a dab of paint on the end of one stud closest to valve stem so I put it in the same position if I take it off. I dont ever rotate tires and Ive had them stay in perfect balance for 4 or 5 years.

I remember one time many years ago getting my wheels dynamically balanced after a tire purchase and one wheel needed no weight added. The guy kept checking it and shaking his head. It is just a chance occurrence that the imbalance of the rim and the imbalance of the tire just happened to be canceling effects.
In theory, a tire and a rim’s center of gravity could be located and the tire installed in an orientation to minimize the need for weights. While this is, of course, an impractical procedure, it has got to eventually happen by chance.
I guarantee that if you flip a coin enough times you will eventually get heads ten times in a row.
How could it possibly be that a tire mounted on a rim would never accidentally be balanced? It is a certainty that it will happen over and over.

When I worked at Super Shops I would balance my rim without a tire, then put the tire on and find the imbalance of the tire, rotate the tire around so that its imbalance was opposite the rim's, then pull the weights off to do a normal balance. The upshot was that a third of the time I could achieve balance with one ounce or less of weights, and often times no weights required at all. I only did this on my own tires/rims because customers didn't have any desire to pay the extra labor we would have had to charge to do it for them.

JazzMan

Also seems to me that the tire has a small color dot on the sidewall from the factory that marked the heavy side of the tire. It was supposed to be mounted so that it lined up opposite the valve stem if I remember right. Tire shops rarely do it anymore. I only know of one shop here that does it.

I have a set of 4 18" rims and tires 3 don't have weights 1 does brought it to a different shop to have them rebalanced and the said they were fine.

I have been driving with a license since I was 15. I turned 60 on the 23rd. I have had 2 tires in 45 years that did not need a weight added to be true.

i too have had new rims and new tires not need weight, but i wouldnt count on it. most tire shops barely know how to do tires. as for weighs in multiple locations on the same plane, this is probably due to the machine being messed up or improper ballancing procedure. there are numerous ways to mess either one up. my shop has the road force ballancer(cue drum roll) its basicly a 15k machine that adds more work on me for things you wont ever notice but... it does clarify alot of things. first of all, rims are cast, then machined to fit all the sizes out there so they arent actually round. they can vary .02-.002 in. up or down, left or right on each bead. tires also arent round either, and they also contain lots of springs(the steel cords). so between the tire and rim you can get high and low spots in one to three harmonics. this is what people wihtout this overpriced machine are messing with when they balance a tire and it still vibrates so they unmount the tire, rotate it 180 and try again.

if you have 4 new tires and 4 new rims then go to tirerack and find a shop that has this balancer, i think its a gsp 9700 made by hunter. if you dont have new rims then find a shop with the newest looking machine(its super easy to tell the new from old) and find a better shop.

While recently doing the Toyota weird balance dance (still not totally resolved), I learned that some wheels are "lug centric" (most) & some are "hub centric" (Toyota)
There is a machine (Hunter GPS 2300?) that with the 'Haweka' adapter can (for the most part) balance the "hub centric" wheels. It also puts a load against the rotating
tire and will give the "lateral load variance?". With all the options, this machine can tell the operator : which tire to put on which wheel (indexed for balance), which way
the tire should rotate (if applicable) and on which position on the car. It's made the truck tolerable. For some whacky reason the symptoms seem to be temperature
related, i.e. : less symptomatic when the temps. are below around 55* F., and the shaking is harmonic, meaning on a long sweeper the vib. comes and goes, if while in
shaking mode the road straightens out it'll continue to shake till the next curve, if while exiting the curve it's not shaking it'll stay that way till the next curve. QUITE
aggravating! My point being some vehicles are more forgiving than others, some Toyotas don't like tires that aren't expensive. My research showed that Michelans
seemed to have the least amount of "out of balance" issues. YMMV

Norm

I did have a problem with one tire on my vette when I got new tires. The spinning drum type balancer could not get it balanced. The did it the old way with 2 weights and moved them together or apart on bubble balancer and it came out fine. Vibration totally disappeared. I do know that at least some of the computer balancers have diff setting from average to fine and I think most places just set it to get the most done the quickest.

The balancers we use are set at 1/4 ounce increments.