Wheel balancing weights

Please don't advertise your intelligence by using insults.

I will continue to fit tyres to road and track cars the way I usually do.

If you do find some time read: http://www.carbibles.com/tyre_bible.html

Quote:

"The dots on the sidewall typically denote unformity and weight. It's impossible to manufacture a tyre which is perfectly balanced and perfectly manufactured in the belts. As a result, all tyres have a point on the tread which is lighter than the rest of the tyre - a thin spot if you like. It's fractional - you'd never notice it unless you used tyre manufacturing garage equipment to find it, but its there. When the tyre is manufactured, this point is found and a coloured dot is put on the sidewall of the tyre corresponding to the light spot. Typically this is a yellow dot (although some manufacturers use different colours just to confuse us) and is known as the weight mark. Typically the yellow dot should end up aligned to the valve stem on your wheel and tyre combo. This is because you can help minimize the amount of weight needed to balance the tyre and wheel combo by mounting the tyre so that its light point is matched up with the wheel's heavy balance point. Every wheel has a valve stem which cannot be moved so that is considered to be the heavy balance point for the wheel. (Trivia side note : wheels also have light and heavy spots. Typically the heaviest spot on the wheel is found during manufacture and the valve stem is then located diametrically opposite that point to help balance the wheel out)."
 
I might wonder if the wheel was round, but then the trend now over the last ten years or less is to put weights to the inside rim face so as not to damage the outer face. It sometimes seems to take more weight to make up the balance. But whats on there ? 300 or more grams ? It does seem like a lot.

Are they genuine e34 M5 late 18 inch rims or a close replica ? I can't really tell. But it might mean something.
 
That's basically what I've been saying, but the valve is almost never at the heavy side of the wheel.

I'll take the camera next time I'm getting some work done on the car, Kia leave the dots painted on the alloys when they leave the factory, if there's anything waiting for a PDI I can show you how the dot is rarely by the valve.
 
This is fine and does not matter what alloy brand or quality you have, it will vary on balancing weights each time you change tyre.

My tyre guy (also SoliD's :p) had to put on a lot more weights on the fronts when I had x4 Vreds fitted by him. The rears were fine but the fronts needed more weights and the machine could not zero in as quick as the rears did.

It took 2 attempts too because the first time I got slight vibrations at 80mph and now there is no such vibration.
 
[TW]Fox;14687466 said:
They are genuine Style 37's as fitted to late E39 Sport models.

BMW pourus alloy builds come and go. Perhaps it is a legacy, but it does look like a lot of weight. Can you count it/add it all up ? Just looks like loads. I'd not be suprized to see up to 200g perhaps on a BMW late decade wheel or an average of 90 or so grams. If theres one thing I have done, it's looked at a lot of road and race wheels. I could be horribly wrong somehow but Im sure thats a load there. the paradox is it could be perfectly within BMW tolerances but I wouldn't know that right now tbh.
 
It never had this much weight on it before and it was fine. The tyre fitter was, dare I say it... a bit slow and I dont mean in the time it took him to fit a tyre.
 
That's basically what I've been saying, but the valve is almost never at the heavy side of the wheel.

I'll take the camera next time I'm getting some work done on the car, Kia leave the dots painted on the alloys when they leave the factory, if there's anything waiting for a PDI I can show you how the dot is rarely by the valve.

I think you may have been mis-understanding me, all I am saying is you can fit the tyre so the lightest marked part of the tyre lines up with the valve on the tyre. I expect the rim is probably weighed without a valve.

I think this is the case with Fox's excessive balance weight issue. Spinning the tyre on thr rim and re-balance would show this.

It's fine about the pics, I see plenty of wheels at work including Magnesium rims from the Carrera GT and F430 Scud, which are balanced to very close tolerances, the GT has centre-mount rims so do the F430 Challenge cars which need to be nigh on perfect.
 
[TW]Fox;14687501 said:
It never had this much weight on it before and it was fine. The tyre fitter was, dare I say it... a bit slow and I dont mean in the time it took him to fit a tyre.

Bingo!
I wonder if he knew about paint markings.
 
Would be worth asking anyway, but sadly I expect you'll get told something along the lines of as long as it shows balanced on the machine......etc, but if you aren't happy with it they should at least check it, if you are being pernickity(sp?) then wheels should be balanced again after say 500miles after the tyre has scrubbed in, but the difference is usually that small no-one does it.
If you knew someone in that line of work who could help that would be a bonus.
 
I think you may have been mis-understanding me, all I am saying is you can fit the tyre so the lightest marked part of the tyre lines up with the valve on the tyre. I expect the rim is probably weighed without a valve.

Ah, I see, you weren't repeatedly saying what I thought you were, apologies for saying you were talking arse.
 
[TW]Fox;14687526 said:
Should I take it back and ask them to do it again? It's the same on the other side as well.

Yes. Tbh I had overlooked the tyre itself, but even though it's a goodyear, that possibility remains high if tyre isn't aligned or mounted 'correctly' ? ;)
 
[TW]Fox;14687526 said:
Should I take it back and ask them to do it again? It's the same on the other side as well.

I would go back and claim there is a terrible vibration at speed. With any luck, the foreman will look at the double decker weights and put a "faster" chap on it.
 
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