Balancing weights, how many is too many?

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Recently, I had to buy 4 new tires on a roadtrip.

Cooper Discoverer AT3 30 x 9.5 x 15 Load range C.

Today, I noticed on one wheel, there is a lot of weights on the rim, both sides, in the same part of the rim. This rim is on the driver's side front at the moment. Obviously the New tire itself was way out of balance.


There is a slight vibration beginning about 55mph.

The tires have about 1700 miles on them since they were installed mostly 55mph+ highway miles.

I am several hundred miles away from the tire dealer( not a chain) and unlikely to be in that tiny town again anytime in the forseeable future.

How many weights are too many?

Is a sign of a badly made tire? Dangerous?

The other three New tires do not have very many or very large weights on them, just this one.
The weights on both sides of the rim say 200 100 and 25.
Same sizes and numbers on both sides of the rim. This can't be 11.5 oz of lead on each side so that those numbers can't be grams. I'll guess the weights if they are lead, justging by fishineg weights, total about 2 OZ on each side of th erim.

AnD to surprise exactly nobody, the Lug nuts on the fronts were severly overtorqued. My 220 LBs and a 18 inch breaker bar had to use about 98% of my strength to loosen the lugs. The Lug nuts threads were damaged, luckily the studs were not. On the rears 2 of the 5 on each rim were extremely overtorqued, the three remainders were undertorqued, I'll guess the tight ones were about 180+Ft LB, the looser ones about 65Ft/LB.

I installed all new lugs today using a torque wrench.

Should I just try and get this tire rebalanced or remounted and rebalanced or try and see if Cooper will do anything for me?

There is a red dot on the whitewall side of the tire( which is on the inside) but it does not align with the tire weights. DOT code is 1717 on the tire in question.
 
I think first step would be to get the thing rebalanced. Call around a couple shops and see if any of them use a hunter "road force" balancer. It does a pretty good job of being able to correct for things like a wheel out of round. If you find someone who knows how to really work the machine, ask for a balance accuracy of
As to your wheel weight numbers, 200=2.00oz, 175=1.75oz, etc.


2oz per wheel falls pretty well average FWIW

Oh yeah and the weights should be made of a zinc or steel. Lead's been phased out for a while now
 
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Thanks for the info.

There are 3 weights on the rim on each side in the same point on the radius. A 200 100 and a 25 on each side of the rim in the same point on the radius, for a total of 650.

6.5 OZ required to counterbalance this One tire?

It seems and look like an excessive amount of weight added. I assume the slight vibration I am feeling is from this tire. There is one other weight on the inside of the rim on this wheel, I think it is a 50 and about 90 degrees away from the 325.

The vibration at 55Mph did not become noticeable until about 750 miles after purchase. It is slight.
 
Yes, have the tire(s) rebalanced.
I have heard(only heard) that there should be no more than 7 weights on a wheel. Now, does this mean only 7 oz? IDK!
What if they're 1/2 oz wgts? IDK that either.
CapriRacer, our tire guru may chime in.
 
Also, try rotating the tires BEFORE getting them rebalanced. If the problem is the tires, the vibration ought to move. If it doesn't move, then something else is vibrating and the only problem you have is how unattractive the amount of weights are.
 
There is no limit. It takes what it takes.

Yellow dot = heaviest part of tire. Used to be you would put this by the valve stem but that doesn't work on alloys because the stem is where it looks best, not lightest.
Red dot = highest radial force variation. Match it up with the mark on the rim that is the low spot. Again, probably not marked but there could be a punch or sticker on the rim.
If it has both...red rules.

A RoadForce balancer can find these points on the tire and rim, just find a shop that knows how to do it.

Not all companies use both dots and it can vary by plant. My new Continental winter tires had no dots so I had to match mount with a RoadForce balancer from scratch.
 
some places that have aa road force machine dont use it wjhen they balance your tires , cause its slower and takes more work. so ask if they use that feature on the machine
 
Originally Posted By: Chris142
Sometimes moving the tire 180 on the rim will help.


+1 this and a road force balance can make a world of difference. To answer your question there isn't really "too many" weights but that being said I would question the tire or the machine before lining your rim with weights
 
I had a similar thread going back in July https://bobistheoilguy.com/forums/ubbthreads.php/topics/4466267/Re:_New_DTD_wheels_for_the_For#Post4466267. On my Subaru, I had as many as 18 stick-on and one clip on weight on one of my factory wheel/tires! Also needed a lot of weight to balance new Walmart Douglas tires on new Discount Tire Direct wheels. 2 months later, all is well. No vibs or weird wear.
 
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My record is 8 oz to balance a tire. Even then you could feel the imbalance of the tire.

The tire had an additional problem of shimmying side-to-side. This was a craigslist purchase. The tires were WalMart Wintermark tires. I'm guessing the set I bought was a customer return at one point for this reason.
 
I bought tires on rims from a well known internet supplier. The new tires had a vibration so I contacted the supplier who said to get them re-balanced. I noticed they had a lot of weights.

A lot of weights came off and not many went back on. And the vibration was gone. I think there is some operator variability.

So get that wheel (at least) re-balanced including a road force balance. If that doesn't work, I'd get them all re-balanced.
 
Discount Tire, Americas Tire in CA has the Hunter Roadforce Elite Balancer which is the best you can get. Plus only $40 to balance all four. You could only balance the two front ones to see if there's a difference. Here's the Locator for the Hunter machines:

http://www.hunter.com/gsp9700
 
I would break beads and rotate the tire 180 degrees on the wheel and see if that helps. When i was in the business i spent a long time on my own mud terrains getting them to a position on the wheel that required the least amount of weight. Ended up with under 2 ounces each on 255 85 16.

If you see no improvement from spinning the tire, you know all the balance issues are in the tire itself. You can also spin just that wheel and see if it has any issues or needs weight.
 
Thanks for all the info.

I am not expecting to spend much time on the highway anytime soon, where the slight vibration at 55 is somewhat annoying. Hard to notice it at 65mph, I tend to only drive faster than that if I might be, or would otherwise be holding up traffic.

The vibration could Be my U joint closest to output shaft. I was under there yesterday and am unsure of it. Seems like the caps could be pushed in a little deeper.

The driveshaft is also pretty rusty.

The tires will definitely get professionally rebalanced before I next do some highway distance, but for now I am back to short trip slowspeedaroundtownsub45mphitis.
Irma could have changed that if it rode up the FLA west coast, but for now I am staying put and will attend to the driveshaft and tires when the budget permits, or it becomes highway extendo drive time.
 
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