Tire/wheel required no weight to balance?

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The Critic

The Critic

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I took my friend's 2012 Civic to my local tire shop for a new set of tires. This car has steel wheels with 195/65-15 tires.

We decided on a set of Michelin Premier A/S tires.

I watched as the new tires were installed. One tire assembly required 0 weight. Two tire assemblies called for 0.50 oz/each. One tire assembly required 1.25 oz.

The balancer used was a Hunter GSP9200 with the smartweight feature.

I understand that the amount of weight needed is not a big deal, and the overall road force value is much more important.

But it still makes me curious - how is it possible for a tire/wheel assembly to be within spec with no weight needed?
 
Quote:
But it still makes me curious - how is it possible for a tire/wheel assembly to be within spec with no weight needed?


Michelin tires might be made to a higher spec / standard compared to a low cost tire ?
 
Originally Posted By: Mr Nice
Quote:
But it still makes me curious - how is it possible for a tire/wheel assembly to be within spec with no weight needed?


Michelin tires might be made to a higher spec / standard compared to a low cost tire ?


Statistics is statistics...ad sometimes, a perfect, random result occurs, and this time it was someone who was paying attention that noticed the apparent oddity of it.

99+ percent of tyre buyers would never have notice, nor though it an oddity.

I would ask a tyre installer how many he sees in a day that don't need weights...might be one a day, one a week, but the odds are still there.
 
Hello, This is one example of why I love numbers.
By the very same token, how many times do you see a steel wheel with no weights on the outside edge?
There may very well be weight on the inside edge but like has been said here, it's just an occurrence.

I wish "they'd" spin each wheel empty then spin each tire unmounted and match 'em so the least weight was used in total. Kira
 
Originally Posted By: Kira

I wish "they'd" spin each wheel empty then spin each tire unmounted and match 'em so the least weight was used in total. Kira


I have my own tire equipment and have, from curiosity, thrown empty rims on the balancer. Mostly to see if they wobble. They're usually within .25 oz of dead-on. It's the tire that throws most of the weight off. When you think about it, the weight is more outside and so the leverage works to exaggerate its effect.
 
Originally Posted By: eljefino
Originally Posted By: Kira

I wish "they'd" spin each wheel empty then spin each tire unmounted and match 'em so the least weight was used in total. Kira


I have my own tire equipment and have, from curiosity, thrown empty rims on the balancer. Mostly to see if they wobble. They're usually within .25 oz of dead-on. It's the tire that throws most of the weight off. When you think about it, the weight is more outside and so the leverage works to exaggerate its effect.

Yeah, Ive match mounted tires and wheels before and have never got more than .5oz out of doing that. It was a huge pain too, requiring
1. Mount the tire and spin balance in a special mode.
2. Pop the bead and spin the tire 180 degrees on the wheel.
3. Spin again. Now the balancer will show where the tire needs to be on the wheel.
4. Pop the bead again and spin so it is in the right spot.
5. Put on balancer again for final weight check.
 
I've had tires installed with zero weight sometimes. It's not common, and never more than one per set. I always inspect my tires after an install or re-balance to observe where the weights are and if they've moved.
 
Originally Posted By: Mr Nice
Quote:
But it still makes me curious - how is it possible for a tire/wheel assembly to be within spec with no weight needed?


Michelin tires might be made to a higher spec / standard compared to a low cost tire ?



No way, dumped Chinese tires are every bit as good as michelins. After all, michelins crack and Chinese dumped tires are dot approved.
 
I suppose if the installer recognized the factory run out or balance marks on the rim, and the tire is marked for run out and balance, he could have a decent chance of getting it balanced without weights.
My yokohamas balanced with very little weight just by lining up the light spot with the valve stem on some Chinese rims. The kid who installed the Michelins on the factory rims on the Tracker had to use a lot of weight as I'm sure he didn't know to try to match the rim and tire to start...
 
In the early '90s I worked at a combination auto parts store/service shop in Minnesota. We sold and installed some generic tires that came in three quality levels - cheapest, most expensive, and in-between. Sometimes the most expensive ones would balance with no weight; maybe 5-10% of them. In general the cheapest tires needed more weights which made me feel they were definitely inferior, but I don't remember anybody complaining about them or trying to return them. Even cheap tires can perform well as long as they're balanced properly.
 
A little off topic but,

I have black painted steel rims.
I took some 'orange' paint and painted around each wheel weight.
If one ever falls off, I will know right away.
 
When I used to work at a tire shop, once I had a vehicle that 2 tires took no weights. I double checked to verify, then put them on the vehicle.

I also made a note on the work order saying that 2 tires took 'zero' weight to balance, so the customer wouldn't think I forgot to balance his tires...
 
It's just luck that a tire/wheel assembly doesn't require weight.

It's not super uncommon. When I had my Cooper CS5s installed one tire took no weight on the outside. It does have some on the inside, I think.

When I used to install tires it would happen every once in a while.
 
It happens quite often if the tires were made by Michelin, Continental, or Bridgestone. It seems to be more common on tires made by them that are thinner and have less material such as Uniroyal or General.

Probably not something common with tires made by Cooper.

On rims, Toyota steel rims are balanced. Other OEM rims [steel or aluminum] are usually within a quarter of an ounce.

Aftermarket rims, in general, are terrible. Bare aftermarket rims can be ounces out of balance. I imagine the really expensive ones are balanced or close to it. Doesn't seem to matter where they were made either, some of the worst I've seen were made in USA.
 
Just luck I guess. 2 of the 4 Kumhos on my Accord didn't require any weights to balance. I thought this was odd but after 3 yrs, the tires are still smooth & vibration-free.
 
I recently had 4 new tires installed. Only 1 required weights.

I am not seeing any issues with the work.
 
I used to sell and mount Michelin tires, it was not uncommon to require zero weight. This was trackside so the tires were only performance DOT or non-DOT track tires.
 
Originally Posted By: JHZR2


No way, dumped Chinese tires are every bit as good as michelins. After all, michelins crack and Chinese dumped tires are dot approved.


you need some kind of sarcasm smilie in there incase a newbie takes you seriously
 
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