Is 8oz of wheel balancing weights excessive?

[oh snap]

Seems like a lot...

I took my wheels off for the first time since I changed the tires last year to inspect/clean the brakes/wheel wells. I was surprised at how many wheel weights there were, especially since they are opposite sides of each other and in some cases stacked. This wheel was the worst, two others had around 4.5 and 7oz, and the last one had around 2oz of weight, which is about what I was expecting. Is so much weight normal for fuchs?

[wildcat077]

That is way too much ... obviously the tire guy wasn't very experienced or his machine needed recalibration !

A dedicated shop will rotate your tire a quarter turn at a time and retry to balance using the least amout of lead as possible ... anyways that's what they do when i have my tires installed !

Cheers !
Phil

[John1180]

The tire might be part of the problem, not had very good luck with Kumho's

[Mike80911]

Try breaking the bead on the tire and spinning it 180 degrees on the rim. When you balance a tire you are trying to equalize the heavy spot on the tire and rim. Sometimes moving the tire on the rim will lessen the amount of weight needed.

[gtc]

What's the most anyone here has seen a bare fuch out of balance? I've had a couple spun up to check for straightness, and they were both practically perfect.

[oh snap]

Thanks for the feedback all. I will try another tire shop, the guy that did them didnt seem like a perfectionist. Anyone else have a hard time with kumhos specifically?

[80-911SC]

my current set is really good .. the last set did have one "bad" tire .. they replaced it though .. it was not 8 oz off .. it was closer to 2 ....

are you sure that 8oz .... most weights are not 1oz those are tape weights and should be 1/4 i think .... but I am not a tire guy ....

[oh snap]

Each square is marked as 1/4oz, and I count 32 of them, so I'm pretty sure. I'm not a wheel and tire guy though so someone correct me if I'm wrong.

Maybe its a combination of factors. The tire shop did not have my car ready when they were supposed to and I said "no problem, I can come back in a couple of hours." Came back and they still hadn't started yet, so I waited in the lobby. It seemed like they pulled a guy from somewhere to finally get it done so if the wheels/tires were a little tricky it wasn't a good day to have them balanced properly.

Funny is that the wheel with 2oz on them has a different kind of weight on it. Wonder if they even tried to do it or just left the wheel as it was... or maybe they ran out of weights after the first 3 wheels. Heh

[jason2guy]

getting tires for these cars is a nightmare. every single time i buy a new set there is at least 1 bad one. it just happend last month. got a bad michellin if u can believe that. the thing is the front end is sensitive to any irregularity in the tire or the balance job. as to the comment above regarding tire guys-- what?! they will rotate the tire on the rim such as to use the least amount of weight as possible?? u must have a really great tire guy! the gorrilas i have to supervise as they change my tires would never, mount the tire, check the balance then take it off the balancer and rotate the tire to try to improve the quality of the job. its crazy, i wont even go into how when i went to tire shop and strolled into the shop area to see what was happinin i arived just in time to see a guy putting a massive floor jack under the middle of the car without even looking where the thing was gonna hit. luckily i stopped him before it was to late.

oh as far as ur weights-- yeah i think thats too much.
go to the hunter site and find a shop w/a road force machine near u.
if a shop has that machine that means they care-- at least a little bit

[wildcat077]

Originally Posted by jason2guy

getting tires for these cars is a nightmare. every single time i buy a new set there is at least 1 bad one. it just happend last month. got a bad michellin if u can believe that. the thing is the front end is sensitive to any irregularity in the tire or the balance job. as to the comment above regarding tire guys-- what?! they will rotate the tire on the rim such as to use the least amount of weight as possible?? u must have a really great tire guy! the gorrilas i have to supervise as they change my tires would never, mount the tire, check the balance then take it off the balancer and rotate the tire to try to improve the quality of the job. its crazy, i wont even go into how when i went to tire shop and strolled into the shop area to see what was happinin i arived just in time to see a guy putting a massive floor jack under the middle of the car without even looking where the thing was gonna hit. luckily i stopped him before it was to late.

oh as far as ur weights-- yeah i think thats too much.
go to the hunter site and find a shop w/a road force machine near u.
if a shop has that machine that means they care-- at least a little bit

Jason,

The kid who installs my tires is 20 years old and his dad owns the tire shop ... he's been doing tires and alignments since he's 13 and is a true pimple faced garage rat ... lol
That kid is so dedicated it's almost unbelievable the passion he takes in his job.
He was asking where i got my metal tires valves on my Fikses so i went and dropped him off a brand new set of four for free yesterday morning,the look on his face was priceless
He's the only person who has touched any of my wheels for the last two years ...

Cheers !
Phil

[kwyjibo]

ok, I have 3 questions from the photo:
1. Doesn't it seem logical that if you removed the 10 weights at the "top" and removed 10 from the "bottom" -assuming that they are exactly 180 degrees apart... that they'd be balanced? (see #2 below for a complicating matter)
2. The weights are not taped in at the same radius. The ones at the top are on the barrel of the wheel while the stack at the bottom are barely off the spokes. Unless my high school physics is failing me, don't you need more weight if you put it closer to the axis?
And 3. I always wondered is it important to place the weights more or less the same offset (from the plane of center of mass)? I ask this because weights taped inside wheels can be put in at or near the center but weights that are hammered on are at the most extreme offset position.

[tchanson]

That seems like alot of weights.

Maybe a bad Kumho?

I had a new set of Michelin Pilot Super Sports mounted on Fikses a few months ago, and two required a 1/2 oz, and the other two required no weights at all.



Tim

[911dean]

That's definetly excessive. Think of the 8 ounces as a half pound. That's alot of weight to add.
Dean

[911pcars]

Originally Posted by kwyjibo

ok, I have 3 questions from the photo:
1. Doesn't it seem logical that if you removed the 10 weights at the "top" and removed 10 from the "bottom" -assuming that they are exactly 180 degrees apart... that they'd be balanced? (see #2 below for a complicating matter)
2. The weights are not taped in at the same radius. The ones at the top are on the barrel of the wheel while the stack at the bottom are barely off the spokes. Unless my high school physics is failing me, don't you need more weight if you put it closer to the axis?
And 3. I always wondered is it important to place the weights more or less the same offset (from the plane of center of mass)? I ask this because weights taped inside wheels can be put in at or near the center but weights that are hammered on are at the most extreme offset position.

This would be the case if the wheel/tire assy. is narrow. A modern tire/wheel isn't. Tire balance involves mores than one axis. The width of the assembly must also be taken into account (much like balancing a crankshaft or other long shaft). The tire balance machine merely indicates where the weights should be placed and how much to achieve dynamic balance - never mind aesthetic considerations.

Sherwood

[ratpiper71T]

I've noticed on other types of vehicles, as the tires wore, the amount of weight the placed increased especially for vehicle which wore the tires in an undesirable fashion-high profile truck like tires and or cars with the suspension bushing worn- then the balance logically was out of wack and needs more weight to bring it into range, I guess-- well and some tires just plain suck.

[toddu]

Bent rim maybe.....

Todd

[RWebb]

that is an extreme amount of weight - maybe a record

contact the shop that installed it; also maybe contact Kumho

what are the other tires/wheels like?

[Eagledriver]

Any time you have weight 180 degrees out on the same side of the wheel (inside or outside), you have unecessary weight. It just needs to be rebalanced correctly.

-Andy

[JJ 911SC]

Was that done at CDN tire or Wal-Mart

Actually, after seeing this thread this morning, I mentioned this to a Porsche owner who is the mechanic manager at a CDN Tire store in Ottawa, and as a side note serviced the only certified 1989 Ruf Yellowbird in North America (Ottawa owner).

So his answer is pretty well as some listed below; its way too much. They need to do a 180 degree shift (their machine do that while the tire is mounted) and if that does not work, they do the 90 degree shift.

Do the tire has a red or yellow dot on the sidewall.

[JJ 911SC]

Originally Posted by oh snap

... Funny is that the wheel with 2oz on them has a different kind of weight on it. Wonder if they even tried to do it or just left the wheel as it was... or maybe they ran out of weights after the first 3 wheels. Heh [/img]

That is why one should take the weight off the rim if going for a balancing...