When mounting a tire...

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I'm fixing to buy a set of Bridgestone tires and I'm trying to remember... it is the little yellow circle on the sidewall that needs to be aligned with the valve stem or the little white circle?

The tire manufacturer claims they place a little circle on the side way and if it is lined with the valve stem then the tire / wheel will be closer to being balanced even before taking it to the balance machine... which results in less weight to balance the tire / wheel combination.

I just couldn't remember if it was the little yellow circle or the little whiter circle?
 
It will sometimes have a red and a yellow dot. Always red dot. If just a yellow dot then do yellow. Im pretty sure the white dots are manufacture dots.
 
Originally Posted By: ArcticDriver
Are you mounting these yourself?

If not then the tire shop knows the proper procedure.


One would hope......After having Mavis Tire ruin not one but four of my center caps during a tire replacement job I have my doubts. Knowing the proper procedure could help the OP know if the job was done correctly. Some of these high volume tire shops hire some real gems for help.
 
This. I see many tire shops mount tires in a random orientation, not aligning red dot to the valve hole at all. Frustrating me to see that or to drive knowing it. I’m still OCD on this...
 
Rockrz,

First, matching dots is about uniformity (think out-of-round and you'll be close). It's NOT about balance.

Second, there is no universal standard. Each tire manufacturer does his own thing and it even varies from plant to plant. For example, (if I remember correctly) BMW and Mercedes require white dots, where Ford requires fluorescent green.

And it's the same for wheels.

- BUT -

The most common dot usage is a red dot that is matched up to the valve hole. Just keep in mind that this might not be doing any good. It won't be doing anything bad, but it just may be a waste of time and effort.
 
After lining up the dot with the valve stem mostly for looks, I've had to break it back down and move it opposite the valve stem many times to true up the tire anyway. Plus whatever dot marking they use, there is no way to know how much weight or run out you are even dealing with. Could be very little, or a lot. Most tires are not even marked, so I don't think it is a big deal to put the dot anywhere in most cases. If you look at some of the OE tires that are marked, the red dots are never lined up with the valve stem, but a sticker on the wheel that is usually long gone when installing replacement tires.
 
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Originally Posted By: demarpaint
Originally Posted By: ArcticDriver
Are you mounting these yourself?

If not then the tire shop knows the proper procedure.


One would hope......After having Mavis Tire ruin not one but four of my center caps during a tire replacement job I have my doubts. Knowing the proper procedure could help the OP know if the job was done correctly. Some of these high volume tire shops hire some real gems for help.


Aha...I see the reason for your diligence then.
 
Originally Posted By: CapriRacer
Rockrz,

First, matching dots is about uniformity (think out-of-round and you'll be close). It's NOT about balance.

Second, there is no universal standard. Each tire manufacturer does his own thing and it even varies from plant to plant. For example, (if I remember correctly) BMW and Mercedes require white dots, where Ford requires fluorescent green.

And it's the same for wheels.

- BUT -

The most common dot usage is a red dot that is matched up to the valve hole. Just keep in mind that this might not be doing any good. It won't be doing anything bad, but it just may be a waste of time and effort.


I have found the green dots offer better rotational balance on the front but the reds are a clear winner on the rears.
 
Originally Posted By: Traction
Most tires are not even marked, so I don't think it is a big deal to put the dot anywhere in most cases.


This.

I mount BMW/Mini OE tires on the regular. I line up the dot when it's present (normally it's not), and there aren't any that have two dots.
 
Yes, the dots do actually mean something... they have smart balancing machines now tat tell you were to place the tire on the wheels for best match mounting so it takes as little weight as possible to balance the tire/ wheel assembly

Problem is, most tire shops just throw the weights on and don't match mount the tire to the wheel according to what the smart balance machine is saying to do so these guys are useless the majority of the time.

This is why I'm having my tires shipped in (free shipping, no sales tax = best deal) so I can mark where I want the tire to be positioned related to the valve stem to get it match mounted based on the marking the tire manufacturer puts on the tire... and I have my own computerized spin balancer and I will balance them myself.

If any of these call for a large amount of weight I will take that one to a shop with a smart balancer and insist they turn the tire on the rim according to the position the smart balancer is saying to put it at
 
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Lining up to the valve stem hole really does nothing. Unless you still have the mark on the rim where to line the tire up to, it really does not make much difference. Our OEM rims come with a mark to line the yellow dot up to ( a yellow sticker) but that gets removed after the tire is installed. It is never at the valve stem.
 
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You can see the sticker here. The yellow dot on the tire is on the inside of the rim. To have all four yellow dots on the outside would mean having four tires for the left hand side only.

 
From what a motorcycle mechanic told me, yellow dot lines up to the valve stem or the "heaviest" point on the wheel. Bridgestone does this quite a bit.

I don't see cars with markings on their wheels for the purpose of tire mounting, Honda does mark some of their steelies with a blue dot from the factory. I worked at a dealer eons ago, and I did see base model CR-Vs with blue dots on the wheel rims.
 
Originally Posted By: mightymousetech
You can see the sticker here. The yellow dot on the tire is on the inside of the rim. To have all four yellow dots on the outside would mean having four tires for the left hand side only.




Thanks for the photo. That should prove that the valve hole isn't always the low spot of the wheel.

And just so everyone understands, the matching of dots is about runout, not balance. It's used to make a *rounder* assembly.

And another FYI - I don't know of any automobile manufacturer who doesn't match mount - and I'll bet that if you watch as they unload cars off the transporter, you'll see these dots that we have been talking about (If they are large like the ones on the photo, they are supposed to be removed during presale prep.)

Oh and while I don't know that anyone is using this system, but I have seen marks that are only visible using black light.
 
To further clarify, uniformity and the amount of weight required to balance a tire....are two separate issues.
 
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