Centreless wheels

PardonTheWait · 22 May 2012 at 21:39

I have some questions.

a) What is the actual point of centreless wheels? Is there some advantage I haven't been made aware of? Why do Peugeot/Citroen do it, is it purely aesthetic?

b) Why can hardly anyone balance them? Are they that uncommon? Surely there's enough Pugs about for tyre fitters to bother getting the attachment for the machine.

c) Why can't I get a straight answer from anyone about why they can't balance them? I've been told that centreless wheels don't need balancing by several tyre fitters which smells strongly of bull**** to me and I've had a few centreless wheels balanced before (they needed it) - I presume they just say this because they don't have the machine.

If anyone doesn't know what I mean by centreless wheels:

No centre cap. Looks nice, pain in the arse.

Phil W · 22 May 2012 at 21:46

Just the way they are designed i suppose. I've had a couple of sets of wheels like this (Saxo VTR and VTS wheels). Luckily my local ATS had the right machine.

MissChief · 22 May 2012 at 22:35

I would assume it's just aesthetics. When i got tyres from national Auto centre (possibly my first mistake!) they didn't have the right machine to balance the wheels but only told me AFTER they'd fitted my tyres! I had to drive to Edinburgh to get them balanced. I shall ASK from now on before I go getting tyres from anywhere else!

Disco Boy · 22 May 2012 at 22:59

Was it just me that had never thought of this, and took quite a while to work out what the OP was talking about, even with the picture?

danza · 22 May 2012 at 23:06

I ordered a couple of new tyres through Black Circles this afternoon, and the garage stated that they were unable to fit/balance tyres to some Citroen/Peugeot/whatever wheels. I wondered why, and now I know.

james.miller · 22 May 2012 at 23:09

lol I've just this minute ordered two tyres from black circles and wondered exactly this

There are lots of garages around this area that apparently cant balance them, but luckily a few that can within 10 miles or so. Annoying

Zuma · 22 May 2012 at 23:19

normal tyre balancers have a rotating shaft that needs to pass through the centre of the wheel when you bolt it on. some balancers have an attachment that gets around this, but i don't know if it affects how well the tyre gets balanced
i used to have this problem all the time when i had a citroen 2cv. most tyre fitters dont have the adapter, but i didn't know any modern cars had this issue.

PardonTheWait · 22 May 2012 at 23:27

Zuma said:
normal tyre balancers have a rotating shaft that needs to pass through the centre of the wheel when you bolt it on. some balancers have an attachment that gets around this, but i don't know if it affects how well the tyre gets balanced
i used to have this problem all the time when i had a citroen 2cv. most tyre fitters dont have the adapter, but i didn't know any modern cars had this issue.

Doesn't affect how well they balance at all, it's just as you say - most garages/tyre fitters just don't have the extra attachment for balancing these wheels, so can't and don't balance them at all.

As far as I know centreless wheels are almost exclusive to PSA. I've had three sets of pug wheels now that are centreless, and there's loads more. I've just always been puzzled as to why they bother - I do think they look better than wheels with centre caps/holes, but let's be honest, not by much, and they're a tremendous pain when it comes to getting new tyres or having your wheels balanced.

I do wonder though about the 'don't need balancing' thing. Whether or not it actually works (and I can tell you it doesn't) is that the intention? Surely it can't be.

Last time I got one balanced I ended up going to a pug main dealer and they charged me £15!

PhillyDee · 23 May 2012 at 07:48

Wheels require balancing due to the varying amounts of rubber and metal strapping in the tyres. The wheel hub should already be spot on, balancing is for the tyres not the wheels. No idea why they would claim otherwise?

dalin80 · 23 May 2012 at 08:19

A wheel itself may be a tiny bit out but its usually insignificant compared to the tyre.

Most garages use a bubble balancer-

http://www.automotivetools.com/Ranger/Wheel-Balancer-Bubble-Balancer/RWS-1B/273/Product.aspx

Which are frankly, cheaper, faster, more reliable and easier to use then the stupidly expensive electronic balancers.

Only the electronic balancers which are usually only at tyre fitters (rather then all round garages) can support the solid wheels that are pretty rare and hardly seen so its usually not worth bothering to buy a £1500 machine + £500 attachment to balance 8 or so wheels a year for a couple of quid each.

Maccapacca · 23 May 2012 at 08:26

All they need is a stud pattern fitting rather than the tube and ratchet cone, probably they need quite a lot of different types or one adjustable one which needs setting up.

Dogbreath · 23 May 2012 at 08:31

dalin80 said:
A wheel itself may be a tiny bit out but its usually insignificant compared to the tyre.

Most garages use a bubble balancer-

http://www.automotivetools.com/Ranger/Wheel-Balancer-Bubble-Balancer/RWS-1B/273/Product.aspx

Which are frankly, cheaper, faster, more reliable and easier to use then the stupidly expensive electronic balancers.

A bubble balancer only gives static balance; you can add weight on the wrong side of the rim and get it to balance on one of these but it can still be far enough out to vibrate.

wingnutta · 23 May 2012 at 08:35

I owned two Peugeots for over 8 years and i never once came across this problem? As someone else said - i never even knew it existed! I must have been REALLY lucky whenever i have got my tyres done?? What i cant understand is why a lot of places dont have the attatchment when the PSA group are huge!! Strange one that....

Greebo · 23 May 2012 at 08:48

PhillyDee said:
Wheels require balancing due to the varying amounts of rubber and metal strapping in the tyres. The wheel hub should already be spot on, balancing is for the tyres not the wheels. No idea why they would claim otherwise?

You may say that but wheels are not balanced at all. The local main car accessories place who specialise in alloy wheels have a super duper laser balancer and they say that some brand new alloy wheels are terrible and wildy unbalanced before you even put a tyre on.......

g60dubster · 23 May 2012 at 09:50

Greebo said:
You may say that but wheels are not balanced at all. The local main car accessories place who specialise in alloy wheels have a super duper laser balancer and they say that some brand new alloy wheels are terrible and wildy unbalanced before you even put a tyre on.......

probably cheapo replica wheels or really cheap brands, high quality wheels will be balanced as part of the production process. my bbs wheels are perfectly balanced, know this as tyre fitter tried to put a huge amount of weight to balance and blamed the wheel, turned out to be a bad tyre as the wheel alone required zero weights.

Nomisf · 23 May 2012 at 09:57

I saw this thread, and I knew before I even clicked there would be a Peugeot Cyclone alloy in here

Greebo · 23 May 2012 at 10:07

g60dubster said:
probably cheapo replica wheels or really cheap brands, high quality wheels will be balanced as part of the production process. my bbs wheels are perfectly balanced, know this as tyre fitter tried to put a huge amount of weight to balance and blamed the wheel, turned out to be a bad tyre as the wheel alone required zero weights.

Probably true as they sell a wide range of wheels from the bargain basement to mega expensive ones.

I was just point out that don't assume that all wheels are perfectly balanced before you even put a tyre on

Eliot · 23 May 2012 at 10:11

I love my cyclones

Pain to get them balanced but they look lovely.
If only they had them in 16 too. Im aware there are 17 inch lion's but they are made of cheese.

Only 1 of 5 tyre places i've tried does them right so naturally they get all my custom

Eliot · 23 May 2012 at 10:13

PardonTheWait said:
Doesn't affect how well they balance at all, it's just as you say - most garages/tyre fitters just don't have the extra attachment for balancing these wheels, so can't and don't balance them at all.

As far as I know centreless wheels are almost exclusive to PSA. I've had three sets of pug wheels now that are centreless, and there's loads more. I've just always been puzzled as to why they bother - I do think they look better than wheels with centre caps/holes, but let's be honest, not by much, and they're a tremendous pain when it comes to getting new tyres or having your wheels balanced.

I do wonder though about the 'don't need balancing' thing. Whether or not it actually works (and I can tell you it doesn't) is that the intention? Surely it can't be.

Last time I got one balanced I ended up going to a pug main dealer and they charged me £15!

thats a good idea. peugeot have newish alloys that are centreless so i suppose they woud have the equipment for a while.

spoogle · 23 May 2012 at 10:19

A) Purely aesthetic, no mechanical advantage, just the French being different

B) It requires a non-standard 4 stud connection to the balancing machine, most places should have them. It's a total pain to do as everytime you need to put this connection onto the machine you have to recalibrate it.

Edit - shown above in that vid

C) They do need balancing, it's a wheel, all wheels should be balanced. They'll sometimes not bother balancing the back wheels as you're unlikely to notice it, but this is just through laziness and to save time.

Centreless wheels

Tea Drinker