On one of the other sites I visit I've just read a post saying that the non driven wheels of a car are not balanced so shouldn't be swapped around.
Before I post back, is this right? Mine seem to have weights on.
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>> Before I post back, is this right? Mine seem to have weights on.
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Rubbish IMO. An out of balance (or unbalanced) wheel will be felt on any axle.
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IME an out of balance wheel would be felt more on the front wheels of any modern FWD vehicle, more than the back.
I agree with ON. You're being told BS.
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Yep, that's what I thought - thanks.
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If you're going to swap them over it might be an idea to have them re-balanced.
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All four should, nay must, be balanced. Done automatically when I got them done on The Lad's 107 a few days ago.
Without getting into new ones front or rear debate I have in past put new tyres on rear and moved rears forward to even up wear. Wouldn't previously have bothered with a re-balance but had episode with old Berlingo where rears to front created an imbalance.
More worrying than the vibration itself was fact that Mrs B couldn't detect it. Not even after I pointed out the resonance from the dog guard.
Last edited by: Bromptonaut on Wed 5 Oct 16 at 09:10
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In my experience front wheel balancing is vital, and an unbalanced wheel or one that has lost its weights is very unpleasant to drive with.
Rear wheel balancing is less important but still desirable, but of course becomes important if you ever swap them round.
It is possible to have wheels balanced on the car, which takes into account unbalance in the hub and drive train, not just the wheel/tyre. If that is done then the wheel obviously cannot be moved to another position without rebalancing. Also it is important that if ever removed it is replaced in the same orientation. For that reason some hubs have a spike which engages with a hole in the wheel, so that it can only be replaced in one position.
But basic wheel balancing is carried out on the wheel/tyre entirely separately from the car, so is balanced per se, and it's position on the car is irrelevant.
Wheels are balanced in two directions. Rotationally, as when a spinning bicycle wheel stops with the tyre valve at the lowest point, but also laterally to prevent shimmy, especially important on a steered wheel.
Last edited by: Cliff Pope on Wed 5 Oct 16 at 09:27
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Also IIRC wheels are marked with an indicator re its balance and also some tyres are marked with a similar marker.
I do not recall further details on how to "exploit" these balancing aids prior to adding weights.
I wonder how often these are correctly aligned when fitting tyres.
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The red dots are for matching with similar dots on the wheel for matching by run-out (the high spot on the tyre goes at the low spot on the wheel).
Alternatively the yellow dot (opposite heavy side of tyre) can be aligned with the valve.
Or something like that. When my indy friend fits tyres he puts the relevant mark by the valve with the expectation that it will reduce the weight that needs to be added.
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>> The red dots are for matching with similar dots on the wheel for matching by
>> run-out (the high spot on the tyre goes at the low spot on the wheel).
>> Alternatively the yellow dot (opposite heavy side of tyre) can be aligned with the valve.
It's not always that simple if you read this from about two thirds of the way down, from 'Coloured dots and stripes - whats that all about?': www.carbibles.com/tyre_bible_pg2.html
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>>It is possible to have wheels balanced on the car,
if either you have too much money, or it is a racing car...
Agree with Cliff. It matters less on the rear wheels; if you've got a badly balanced front wheel - maybe the weights have come off - then swap it to the back and driving will be much more pleasant. UNTIL you reach a place to have it rebalanced.
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>> >>It is possible to have wheels balanced on the car,
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>> if either you have too much money, or it is a racing car...
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£168 plus VAT for 4 wheels:
vibrationfree.co.uk/our-services/wheel-balancing/
Volvo 240s have the spikes so that the wheels will only fit in one position, so someone must once have thought full balancing mattered on an ordinary car.
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>>£168 plus VAT for 4 wheels:
I certainly don't have £181.60 to throw away each time I buy tyres!
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>> >>It is possible to have wheels balanced on the car,
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>> if either you have too much money, or it is a racing car...
Local Vauxhall garage used to do it, and it cost no more than the other method of balancing.
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I'm sure I've had on-car balancing too, and it wasn't any extra. Maybe there are different kinds.
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>> I'm sure I've had on-car balancing too, and it wasn't any extra. Maybe there are
>> different kinds.
Pretty sure it used to be standard practice. Off car balancing came in around the eighties.
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I'm not sure I can ever remember having wheels balanced on the car.
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>> I'm not sure I can ever remember having wheels balanced on the car.
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I think it used to be commonly available. A Google search revealed that the original Minis had to be balanced on the car because of the weight of the front-wheel driveshafts and the relatively lower weight of the small wheels themselves.
I found an HJ thread from 2003 to which I am surprised to find I contributed, and it appears from the posts that on-car balancing was readily available, but not usually necessary.
The device for doing it was invented in 1945.
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A search of the Volvo Owners Club forum shows a thread where someone asks about the purpose of the locating pin, and the answer that it was for on-car wheel balancing.
"Clan" posted that he worked in garages in the 70s and 80s and it was used for difficult cases where off-car balancing failed to eliminate vibration.
They continued to fit the pins to the end of of the 240 range in 1993. I don't know about later models.
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IIRC all early balancing was on the car.Also,surely,IRS is more likely to be affected by out-of balance wheels than vehicles with soild rear axles.
Last edited by: jc2 on Wed 5 Oct 16 at 19:07
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Rear wheel balancing is vital imho.
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For what little it's worth, I had to get a puncture repaired in very rural Ireland a few years ago. Only place that could do it was a tractor repair place in the middle of nowhere.
It was a back wheel puncture and they didn't balance the wheel after the repair. Must say, that tyre lasted another 40,000 miles or so and I never once noticed anything untoward.
RWD car though, if that makes a difference?
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>> It was a back wheel puncture and they didn't balance the wheel after the repair.
A little trick they do is mark the tyre where the valve is with something like a wax crayon, so they fit the tyre back on in the same place afterwards. There is no need to rebalance the wheel.
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>> >> There is no need to rebalance the wheel.
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But I understood that part of the necessity for balancing after assembly is that even if they manufactured wheels and tyres so that they were perfectly balanced individually, you cannot guarantee that the tyre beads will always sit in precisely the same degree of depth on the rim.
You see this when changing a tyre - you can bounce it about as it springs out onto the rim, but there is bound to be a very small degree of latitude - the rubber is stretchy and compressible, and a minute difference would mean the whole weight of the tyre is shifted perhaps significantly - hence the need for balancing them together as a pair.
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>> A little trick they do is mark the tyre where the valve is with something
>> like a wax crayon, so they fit the tyre back on in the same place
>> afterwards. There is no need to rebalance the wheel.
Strongly disagree. The repair is unbalancing the wheel. It needs rebalancing afterwards.
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>> Strongly disagree. The repair is unbalancing the wheel. It needs rebalancing afterwards.
How exactly is a small vulcanised patch, or rubber bung insert going to affect the balance of the tyre? You're talking an gram in weight at the very most.
If it needs rebalancing after being repaired, chances are it was already out of balance before the repair.
Last edited by: VxFan on Thu 6 Oct 16 at 10:39
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Wheel balancing? - Old Navy
