meme this question

[Steve Viegas]

Why is it acceptable to have to balance tires? Tires might rotate at 2000 RPM on a race car...I have other parts of my car that rotate at much higher speeds, but I assume they are built to higher tolerances.

Is it because rubber is harder to work with than other materials? is it because it is simply cheaper to fix it after the fact? Is it because tires may wear unevenly? Hard braking etc.?

Just curious...

[fastfredracing]

How about a video?

[nota]

Originally Posted by Steve Viegas

Why is it acceptable to have to balance tires? Tires might rotate at 2000 RPM on a race car...I have other parts of my car that rotate at much higher speeds, but I assume they are built to higher tolerances.

Is it because rubber is harder to work with than other materials? is it because it is simply cheaper to fix it after the fact? Is it because tires may wear unevenly? Hard braking etc.?

Just curious...

most fast spinning stuff is balanced after it is made
things like driveshafts or flywheels require careful balancing

[masraum]

stuff that spins gets balanced, but the all metal stuff doesn't usually need to be rebalanced. You can actually send your driveshaft(s) off to get balanced, or if you get new u-joints installed by a driveshaft place, I think they often do it automatically. Crankshafts get balanced, but then don't need to be rebalanced again unless you have them modified in some way.
Tires also need to be balanced, and some are worse than others. I assume it's more expensive to make them more accurately, but even if they are better to start, it just means that less will be required to balance them. But they're still likely to require something to balance them.

[nota]

any one try to balance a wheel by it's self ?

guess most of the imbalance is in the tyre
but why would a spoke cast wheel be in balance with its mass distribution

[oldE]

Why wouldn't a wheel without a tire be balanced? They are pretty much symmetrical.

Tires are built of layers of rubber, fabric and belts. Although the manufacturer endeavors to space the overlaps in the woven materials, there are still heavy sectors and light sectors. Thus, when they are mounted you have to balance it or deal with the vibration.
Some high end tires require less remedial balancing.

Best
Les

[CurtEgerer]

Never balanced tires on my rally car. For unpaved roads it made no difference really. But the surprising thing was driving on paved road sections, it was never horrible and actually quite good. Maybe balancing is overrated ....

[vonsmog]

When I turned in my Jeep GC for the cash for clunkers deal, I pulled all four tires and mounted four used beat tires to drive it to the dealership to turn it in. I didn't balance them and it was unsafe to drive it over 45 mph it was bouncing around so much!