| Author | Message | ||
     Nasty73z |
So I can't balance my rear wheel on the tire balancer at work, the shaft isn't correctly sized. The mechanic said I won't be able to tell a difference, that the new tires are well blanced from the factory. I am running Pilot Powers if that makes a difference. I would say screw it and run them unbalanced, but I met another board member the other night and he had an ounce on his back wheel with a Pilot Power so I am curious. Thanks! | ||
| Tpoppa |
Tire balancing absolutely necessary? YES! | ||
| Lake_bueller |
It's true that new tires are very well balanced from the factory. What isn't well balanced are the rims. I almost never need to add or subtract weights anymore. But I still check them. It's more for tread life than safety. | ||
| The_new_guy |
I agree that tires should be balanced but, let me share this story. I put pilot powers on my bike this summer. The dealer installed them. When I got the bike home, I noticed that the wheel weights did not look new. I also noticed that the front tire was mounted backwards. I was there when the dealer flipped my front tire around and it was not rebalanced. I'm not a knee dragger by any means but my bike rides/handles great. No shakes or anything. That was close to 2000 miles ago and the tires seem to be wearing normally. I'm not saying it's correct, I'm just sharing my experience. Gregg | ||
| Nutsnbolt |
You know, you could just static balance them and find out real quick, if you're concerned about it. I do it. Some skateboard berings, and a steel rod and your jack stands and you're good to go. Quite honestly, you could scrap the berings and just use the rod and jack stands. The heavy side will fall to the bottom. Mark it, spin it again (1-2 revolutions) and if that same spot hits the bottom, it's unbalanced. add a 1/4 (tape it to the top of the tire, spin it again, if it falls to that same spot again, add more. What you are looking for is to spin it a few times and it stops at random spots on the tire. Easy as pie. Really, you could google static balancer and see the ones they sell for 150 bucks and brainstorm it and make your own for about 10 bucks. It all works the same. Plus, go to any track out there and 9 out of 10 teams are using this exact method. Good luck Oh, yea, the answer to your question. Of course you need to balance them. | ||
| Moboy516 |
The indy shop the I use for tires and tire changes, isn't able to balance my tires. They have used the liquid balancer that you can buy. I have used it for about 9,000 miles, and it seems to work pretty well. Yeah, I know, it adds unsprung weight. I would buy tires from the local HD t-shirt shop, but they are twice as much. I would have the t-shirt boutique mount my tires, but the say that they won't because I didn't buy them there. Last time I took my bike to the t-shirt shack, they told me my I had a headlight out. That will be my last trip there. | ||
| Ft_bstrd |
I had mine balanced at the shop. The weights have fallen off. Do I take them back and pay to have them rebalanced? Do I ask them to rebalance for free? Do I just not worry about it? | ||
| Gentleman_jon |
Absolutely Necessary? NOT. Good idea? Certainly. I just did a pair of Pirelli Diablo Corsa lll's for a friend the other day on a static balancer he got on eBay for forty bucks. Worked fine once we lubricated the bearings. Took about 5 minutes. That being said, I installed a pair of Dunlop Qualifiers, without balancing, they ran fine for a couple hundred miles before picking up a ten penny nail. Installed the next pair and had them balanced. Frankly I could not notice ANY difference. Might affect wear though. Fat Man, Take them back, get them rebalanced for free. The most likely reason they fell off is that the tech forgot to clean the wheels properly with brake cleaner before sticking the weights on. Wheels are very dirty, and brake dust doesn't come off by just wiping it with your shirt sleeve. | ||
| New12r |
My front tire was not balanced and at 120mph the front shook so bad I almost got thrown from the bike. Individual results may vary but I pay to have balanced everytime. The shop that does my tires does them on a old azz static balancer, last set was installed before a Barber track day and I had no issues. | ||
| Tunes |
In the olden days of spoked wheels (ie. no mags), if you didn't balance the tires, you'd know it. I agree with Gentleman_jon.... Absolutely Necessary? NO. Good idea? Certainly. As long as they get the tire rotating the correct direction and align the valve stem dot, it should be close. Individual tires vary. On my S3, I noticed a front wheel weight fall off and almost immediately, the front tire started cupping. | ||
| Bake |
FT, take it back and pay if they insist, it's worth the money. | ||
| Cowboyup |
I just recently purchased a manual tire changer and changed my tires for the first time. I also made up my own static balancer out of inline skate frames, bearings, and wheels. I put the axel through the wheel and set it on the balancer. worked great. The best part was, I first balanced the wheels while the tires were off and found the heavy spot (which in both cases was nowhere near the valve stem) then lined up the painted dot with the heavy spot and both wheels balanced out perfectly with no weights needed. | ||
| Xbrad9r |
Moboy... "T-shirt boutique"...  | ||
| Nutsnbolt |
Moboy.... You just might be the funniest person I have encountered out of this whole experience of being on the bad web. T Shirt boutique. Priceless. The funniest part about all this, is that I took my bike into HD here in Jacksonville, NC and paid too much for a 1000 mile servicing and they didn't even attempt to reset my TPS. I'm still running into that debacle, and on the way out, no joke, the kid says after I start it up is that he thinks I have a head light out. I could barely get my bike out of there without running into the doors I was laughing so hard. He even stopped me outside to attempt to flick my brights on, but before he could do it, I stopped him and had to tell this kid that it's like that on purpose, to irritate the owners. Honest mistake, I guess, but dude, come on. So, yea, I'm hittin up Al and buying that do hickey to do it myself from now on. If I can get away with it, I'll just stop by every 20,000 miles or so, to get the forks done, unless I figure out how to do that myself by then. I always thought that the headlight thing just happened to me. So, yea, needless to say, it is the last time I have ever stepped in there. Like I said... Priceless. Rawk on. |
