Question:I'm buying a new set of tires. Should I have
them balanced?
Answer:Yes. Balancing helps to guarantee a smooth ride
at highway speeds, and it helps to maximize tire life. An out-of-balance
tire can be very annoying because it produces a shake that increases
in intensity the faster you go. The up-and-down shaking of the
wheel is hard on the suspension, not to mention your nerves, and
also increases tread wear. An out-of-balance tire can develop
a cupped wear pattern. So do yourself and your tires a favor
and have them balanced.
Almost all service facilities and tire stores today use an
off-car electronic spin balancer to balance the wheels. The tire
and wheel are mounted on the balancer, then spun to find any heavy
spots on the wheel. The balancer then indicates where weights
(and how much weight) need to be placed to counterbalance the
heavy spot.
Off-car spin balancers actually check two kinds of balance,
"static" and "dynamic." Static imbalance
causes a wheel to shake up and down as it spins, so static balance
is achieved when both halves of the tire wheel assembly weigh
exactly the same. Dynamic imbalance causes a tire and wheel to
shake back and forth or sideways as it spins. Dynamic balance
is achieved when the front and back sides of the wheel and tire
weigh the same.
