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Wheel Balance Weight How much is too much please help RE960 Tires Wheels

2006Specb122

By 2006Specb122
in Wheels/Tires

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2006Specb122 Mentor

2006Specb122

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I just returned from America's Tire Company and as soon as I inspected my tires I was fairly unhappy. I need some advice from everyone about what to do.

 

I have two issues.

 

1. Upon first inspection of my new tires I noticed right away that right next to the valve stem on my front driver side rim there is a new chip in the paint. I'm not a tire installation expert but I'm guessing they grab the lip of the rim at some point during installation. Well three out of four rims still look good but this one is definately damaged. (Although I had my tires rotated regularly this is the first time they've been replaced so there was mounting involved.)

 

Ok so do I make a big deal about it? Anyone have experience with damaged rims during tire installation? I can't really be out of a car for any length of time. Would they just offer to have it repaired? How much doe something like that cost?

Do I bring it up and ask tha?t they make a note in my file and give me a HELL of a deal on my next set of tires? Do I shrug it off and say...no big deal they're just wheels? Any advice would help!!!

 

 

2. Upon further inspection of my new tires I found that they had used, what looks to me, like an excessive amount of lead weights in order to blance the tire.

 

I actually had spoken with America's Tire two days ago as they were trying to find some RE960s for my car. These tires are on a national back order and you cannot get them from Bridgestone right now. America's tire Company did a great job of trying to locate 4 tires for me. They came from different locations and I'm sure they had to pay for them to get shipped. Two of them didnt' even come from another America's store they ahd to buy from a wholesaler. Anyways I asked them if they thought the tires would all be good because my initial thought was that we were scraping the bottom of the tire stores to try and find me a set and I was worried we would get a hold of everyone's rejects.....

 

Does it look like I was right?

Again, I'm not the tire expert but I'm hoping to get some solid advice from everyone here.

 

I'm a lot like OCD and I am very observant. Before taking my car in to the Tire shop I checked out the 1/4" oz lead weights that were attached to each wheel.

I had 5, 3, and 2 1/4" oz lead weights on three of the rims. One of the rims had zero weights.

 

When I received my car back with the new tires the weight count looks like this:

I have 14, 12, and 11 1/4" oz lead weights on three of the rims and zero on the fourth.

 

OK so what happened? Was I right? Are three of these tires completely messed up? Will they change and get better over time? I don't like the idea of needing 14 lead weights stuck on the inside of my rim in order for the tire to ride correctly. Do I have a valid complaint? Am I insane?

 

 

OK please everyoen HELP me out. Give me some advice on what I should do in this situation.

 

I was going to come home today and write an amazing review on how America's Tire treated me and how they gave me three discounts in a row for coming down to their shop today but after looking at all the lead weights and then seeing the damaged rim.... I'm a little upset.

 

Thanks!

 

see pictures below

sorry the close up is blurry... I have a Kodak LS743 and it is horrible at close up pics...it take forever to take the picture and always comes out blurry... I'll have to try and figure that out some day

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2006Specb122 Mentor

2006Specb122

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OK looks like the picture uploading for Legacygt.com isn't quite working at the moment. I will upload pics ASAP but you don't really need the pics to start giving advice sinc I've typed up such a detailed report of my situation..

 

Thanks

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2006Specb122 Mentor

2006Specb122

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Does look like alot of weights, but so long as they're balanced it's not an issue

 

Thanks for stopping by so quickly and settling me down a little...

This store has always been good to me and I have no reason not to trust them but the amount of weights kind of freaked me out...then I found out it was on 3 out of 4 tires... WOW...

 

So you don't think I should make a big deal out of it... you don't think I have reject tires...they should work good....etc etc etc....

 

I'm just super O.C. about this sort of stuff...and it's my baby ...you know...

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whitetiger Grand Master

whitetiger

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that is in no way too much weight. Ive balanced some large pooly made chrome rims back when i was working at the dealership and had to use 2 to 3 times the amount of weight you have on your rims. what you have there is not that bad at all. as long as they are balanced, its ok.

 

the chip is worth complaining about though. i bet if you complain, they will pay for rim repair if you are a good customer. Odds are they have an older tire mounting machine which does grab the rim lip to put the tire one. you should find a shop with a newer style mounting machine that holds the wheel on the inside rather than on the lip.

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2006Specb122 Mentor

2006Specb122

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that is in no way too much weight. Ive balanced some large pooly made chrome rims back when i was working at the dealership and had to use 2 to 3 times the amount of weight you have on your rims. what you have there is not that bad at all. as long as they are balanced, its ok.

 

the chip is worth complaining about though. i bet if you complain, they will pay for rim repair if you are a good customer. Odds are they have an older tire mounting machine which does grab the rim lip to put the tire one. you should find a shop with a newer style mounting machine that holds the wheel on the inside rather than on the lip.

 

 

White tiger,

 

OK thanks for the info. Like I said I could understand if the rims were bad but on the last set of tires (same rims) I only had 5, 4, and 2 weigths per tire.

That's why I thought it could be bad tires....but I guess I can let that go....

 

 

 

I've never looked into rim repair. I'm sure there are places nearby I can check with but.... what do you think it would cost?

 

Should I get any other scratches or curb damage on all other rims done at the same time?

 

Will I have to take the tires off?

 

 

If it is under $40 then I don't know if it is worth it to take it to the tire shop and complain....

 

I just spent several hours at a gas station last week because the gas didn't pump my gas but the station thought it did... what a hassle....

 

I could call the manager and just see what he says i guess.....

 

But how can I prove they did it if I didn't have someone from the tire store inspect each rim with me before it went in....

 

 

I guess they'll just have to take my word for it since I've been such a good customer with them

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vet Proficient

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Sorry but that much weight would bother me too. Are they using a Hunter Road Force Balancer; it's supposed to be the shiznit. I would explain the situation (previous tires required way less weight) and ask them to break the bead and rotate the tires 180 degrees and try balancing again. What have others experienced with these tires in terms of amount of weight to balance?
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2006Specb122 Mentor

2006Specb122

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What does break the bead mean?

and rotate 180...hmmmm

 

OK...

The shop is America's Tire Co. ...biggest brand name around... I would think they would have the Hunter Road Force... I wonder if they use it for ALL jobs or only specialty ones... hmm...maybe they have it but did not use it...

 

 

I also heard that thing can detect a "bad" tire....

 

Like I said my initial worries are coming true since these tires were sold out but then all of a sudden they found me four tires from different places...now three of them require what looks to be a lot of weight...but another member said that the extra weight is a NON-ISSUE as long as it's balanced....

after a day of driving I am getting a SLIGHT shimmy on the steering wheel but it seems to come and go and it isn't REALLY BAD...

 

I'll probably go in or call on Monday morning just to mention it to them...see what they say...

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rurouni_x Proficient

rurouni_x

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dont worry about the wheel weights it looks like just one 3oz strip its no big deal as long as they balanced out. Or you can just have they flipped 180 and they might require less.

 

And another thing did the do a static balence with just the tape wieght of a dynamic with wieghts one the inside as well?

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vet Proficient

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What does break the bead mean?

and rotate 180...hmmmm

 

 

Let me just say that I don't know if there is a set amount of weight that is the limit between acceptable and unacceptable and if there is a set amount it could well be way more than you are running. However, personally I'd feel like you - why do these tires require so much more weight than my old tires?

Breaking the bead just means letting the air out and using the machine to push the tire edge off the rim (the first step in removing the tire from the rim) so that the tire is just flopping around loose on the rim. Then you can hold the wheel still and turn the tire half way around the rim. This is just a way to rule out the random possibility that the heaviest side of the tire is coincidently lined up with the heaviest side of the rim (assuming that no wheel or tire is in perfect balance). I think this is kinda standard procedure if you have trouble getting a wheel/tire balanced. I'm sure there are other tests that can be done to tell if either the wheel or tire is out of spec but since the wheels were fine with your old tires it seems that only the tires could be to blame. Good luck

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LawGT Rising Star

LawGT

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THat sucks re the chip on the wheels. That is definitely not cool. See if you can get $$ out of them.

 

Re the weights, I don't think it's a problem so long as there are no vibration issues. When I first got my 960's mounted, they vibrated at 60 mph. I drove them for 100 miles or so in the hwy and curves to wear them in a bit (heat cycle them?) and then took them back to get re-balanced. Now they are perfect. And now that I think about it, they used less weights the second time.

 

I don't know how true this is, but I've been told that tires sometimes deform a bit during shipping, which may result in lots of weight used to balance them originally "out of the box". After they are run and heat up, then they get back in shape (I guess similar to a tire that cold spots running good after they warm up).

 

So I say run them for a bit, and then take them back to get re-balanced.

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2006Specb122 Mentor

2006Specb122

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Thanks for all the info everyone!!!

 

Yes I'm going to go back in a few days...or a week... and have them balacned again... maybe after a "break in" period they will use less weight or be easier to balance....

 

I have to remember the tread is the heaviest part and on my last set there was like 4/32" left... not much to balance....

 

The scratch is little...forgot to show them when I went back to ask about the wegihts...

 

I'm not sure if it is worth the hassle... if I knew of a local repair shop I could ask them for a quote then ask America's tire for the money... or something....

maybe... who knows....what would it cost?

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2006Specb122 Mentor

2006Specb122

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I have an update on my tire situation.

I took it into the same America's Tire Co. location today and told them that I had a vibration above 60 and that the car pulled hard to the right.

 

I just drove nearly 800 miles so I had plenty of time to notice how it drove.

 

They said they would rebalance and they got me in pretty quick.

I noticed they were taking a little while with my tires.

Then I noticed them putting adapters on the machine.

 

Then they even switched machines and started using another machine.

This wasn't looking good.

 

I thought they were going to tell me the tires were defected.

 

Oh...and they said that if I have any more problems with the balance they can probably attempt to tire match the rims and tires at no extra charge.

Hmm... I'd like them to do that anyways and remove some of the extra weight from the wheels. (It's just a cleaner look to me.)

But I guess that's askign too much and they probably rarely do that.

 

 

 

When they were done the guy came out and said that each wheel was about 2 ounces off in weight. I asked how that could be since I bought the tires from them last week.

 

(remember my excessive weight issue)

 

He told me that one of their machines has a broken handle and that was throwing off their weight.

 

I think they need to throw out that machine or get it fixed.

 

The number of weights now sits at 9, 5, 3, and 11.

 

Its much more acceptable although still more than I had before.

 

The best part of course is that the car pulls only slightly to the right now.

(Maybe I should get a good allignment now... should it be perfect)

 

And the vibration feels like it is totally gone.

 

SO that's some good news.

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vet Proficient

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Glad you got some resolution. And no, it shouldn't pull in the least bit. I would also take them up on the offer to tire match the rims. That's the idea I was getting at when I mentioned rotating the tires 180 degrees on the wheel to see if that would lessen the amount of weight needed to balance out. You could also suggest to them that since they admit that their machine wasn't working properly to let you take it to another shop where they have the Hunter Road Force balancer. I don't mean to be anal about this but after all you paid a lot of bucks for top of the line tires and they should do what it takes to make you happy. Cheers
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2006Specb122 Mentor

2006Specb122

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yeah I'll check the toes....yes they do have the hunter road force there...but one of them was broken...I guess...

and yes I undrestood that their tire matching they mentioned was what you were talking about...

 

They said they to ask for that if the new balance didn't work out.......

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