Trust older tire balancing equipment?

[Corollaman]

Small one man shop across the street from me does auto repairs and also mounts and balances tires (all 4 for $50) my concern is I'm positive his balancing equipment has to be 20 years or older. Is there really much of a difference between newer and older eqyipment? I've seen him work on all cars older and newer including cars with TPMS. Since he's cheaper and near me should I go with the little guy or head to a tire shop?

 

[crazyoildude]

Its hard to say a lot of the tire shops have young bozos that think they know everything sometimes the small shops are the best... I see this a lot with transmission shops the chain shops are sometimes the worse ones while the small one or two man shops are great.

 

[Vern_in_IL]

Many, many times I've bought a set of new tires with balance, had them shake like a [censored], took them home, chucked them on the bubble balancer, and a static balance on one of them came out WAY better than the dynamic balance on the electronic machine. Go figure.

I've watched many shops balance my tires, have them zero balance it, then have them rotate the wheel 90* on the machine and spin them again...calls for weight 50% of the time.

Also, if it's WAY off, the correct fix (IMHO) is to try and spin the tire 180* and see if it gets better. I've gone so far as to spin the wheel, weight the wheel so it spins zero (static), put the tire back on and spin the assembly up, mark where it's calling for weight on the tire, and align that and the wheel weight 180* apart, remove the wheel weight, then balance from there. Aircraft wheels and tires are already marked for this, and for the life of me, I can't figure out why they don't do it with car wheels/tires.

Now I did work in a shop once where they had the electronic off the car machine and it's repeatability was awful or non-existent. So you never wanted to recheck as you would end up playing with it and chasing it for hours. But when you road tested the car it was smooth. But what I have actually found today is that the "new" tires are made so much better and if push comes to shove you may be able to get away without the precision balance. I truly believe that is how so many get by with the bubble balancers as you're just getting it a lot closer then it was.

The guy that balanced your tires might have been selling burgers at McDonalds last week. That's why I recommend going to that older shop, his equipment is paid for, and knows it like the back of his hands, I would prefer doing it myself, but outside of a bubble level I have no room. The nice expensive machines are only as good as the guy doing the work.

 

[Trav]

Nothing wrong with old equipment if he keeps it calibrated. Unless he is using an old bubble balancer it will will provide just a good a result as the newer machines of the same type.

 

[NHGUY]

Every 6 months,somebody needs to come in to calibrate.

 

[Oldmoparguy1]

It's all about the operator. In the early 60's I worked in a tire shop. We had a big old Bear mechanical balancer. I was working evenings, I taught myself to use the beast. I got so I could balance just about anything. My boss had problems with some types of tires. I'd get the customer aside and tell them to come back after 6pm. I would get their tires perfect. Within a few months, I had my own clientèle.

Wish I had one of those old Bear machines now.

 

[JustinH]

Does the old tire shop use stick on wheel weights, or the hammer on kind for steel wheels?

I surely wouldn't want anyone putting the hammer on weights on my 18 inch aluminum wheels.

 

[Tzu]

I have bought new tires from a chain store loose for years and years, and paid a local, TRUSTED guy to mount and balance them. Never had any issues with them even at high speeds. I recently put new Michelins on my truck and I picked them up earlier than he thought and had one yet to balance. I watched him put a 12" shaft with bearing through the rim and had it rotate on jack stands. He spun it just a little allowing heavy side to show, put on estimated weight to counter it, spun it 1/4 turn and if it didn't move, it was done. All 4 new tires cost me to install/balance with new valve stems = $40. Perfect job. Old ways don't mean bad ways.

 

[cpayne5]

Originally Posted By: Oldmoparguy1
It's all about the operator. In the early 60's I worked in a tire shop. We had a big old Bear mechanical balancer. I was working evenings, I taught myself to use the beast. I got so I could balance just about anything. My boss had problems with some types of tires. I'd get the customer aside and tell them to come back after 6pm. I would get their tires perfect. Within a few months, I had my own clientèle.

Wish I had one of those old Bear machines now.


My wife's grandfather has one in his basement. He's probably had it for 50-60 years.

 

[eljefino]

I've got an old snap-on hand-crank balancer for my hobby use.

A naked rim without tire or old weights is almost always 0 or .25 off. The tire adds the unbalance.

There are calibration screws, but they just adjust the amplitude of the displayed correction, near as I can tell. An off balance assembly shakes the "head" while a balanced one doesn't; this would be a hard thing to screw up.

My machine is "off" in that when it calls for 2 oz it only needs 1.5. I can compensate. I like to "lowball" the weight applied anyway in case the re-spin calls for 1/2 oz in a slightly different spot.

The buster in well-used equipment IMO is a worn arbor cone that doesn't let the wheel center hole fit flush. Replacements are $80-100 plus so they don't like to maintain them.

 

[CapriRacer]

I think the operator has as much to do with a good balance job as the machine.

A good operator will check his machine from time to time. If he is not getting repeatable results, he'll get it calibrated.

A bad operator won't know he has a problem - but his customers will.

Also, you guys are aware that you can still have a perfectly balanced tire and it can still be out of round - right? An out of round tire will cause a vibration that generally can not be fixed with balance weights. (Side note: It is possible to fix a vibration caused by an out of round tire using balance weights, but it is close to rocket science! The average tire buster wouldn't have a clue how to do it.)

 

[Papa Bear]

The old mechanic at the garage next to us when I was a kid ('50s-'60s) had an "on the car" balancer that he would attach a small plastic ball half-full of water onto the bumper and spin the tire up on the car with an electric motor for the front wheels and the car's own engine for the rear wheels.
A balancing assy was screwed to the wheel in place of the wheel cover and the old tech would add/subtract/change location of the balancing weight as the assembly rotated by means of 2 knobs.
The water in the plastic bubble would vibrate and dance until the tech hit the balance point when that water would literally go calm/flat/motionless.
It was like magic.

You not only FELT the car become vibration free but you SAW IT too.