Quote:
Originally Posted by Bill
My experience is that tire shops charge a couple bucks extra for balancing tires, and they don't do it unless you ask. And yes, the little lead weights mean that the wheel, with its tire, was balanced at some time in the past. However, even if they change the tire, I don't think they pull off the old weights unless the wheel and new tire are rebalanced, so you could be running with an improper set of balancing weights.
Once balanced, I don't think there is a need to rebalance them, but I'll defer an expert on the topic.
Bill
|
Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes, and sometimes. The sometimes is the need to rebalance them. As a tire normally wears, it may wear more on one side, more in the middle, or more on both sides.......due to many factors too numerous to mention here. As tire rubber wears off, for any factor, it will change the weight of the tire in certain spots....therefore the balance.
In real simple terms: What the lead weights (key word is weight) do, is to compensate for the tire/wheel "light" spots for when the assembly is spinning. If a tire wears the rubber off equally, then there is no need to rebalance them. It's when rubber wears off in unequal amounts, then you need to recompensate for it.
On your TV, you can usually feel the vibration of an unbalanced tire, and then know to get it corrected. On your towed TrailManor (or trailers period), you probably won't feel the vibration, but just see the consequences of your trailer being bounced around from the unbalanced tires. From a tire store standpoint, we usually don't balance tires on utility trailers. They are very light and are going to bounce, jump, hop, and skip around regardless: a balanced tire won't stop this.
However, on heavier trailers, like horse and travel trailers, we do balance the tires.
I have a question that no one has ever answered satisfactorily. Where does worn tire tread (or shoe sole) rubber disappear to?
