wheel balancing

[Smeeagain]

What difference does balancing the rear wheels make, or not, if any?

Thanks

Smee

[Steamyrotter]

mainly vibration at rear.
in excess could affect braking effect and premature wear on bushes

for cost of doing it is it worth the risk not to?

[Smeeagain]

oh yes absolutely - I have no probs in getting it done it just wanted to understand thats all.

Reason for asking is I had my wheels refurbed recently and balnced. But now there is a steerign wobble where there isn't before. So they checked and rebalanced and said one wheel needed weights (perhaps previous one had come off) but now it's worse than before. Tyres are all in good condition and no obvious defects.
But they only checked the fronts and I was wondering if it could be the rears. I also put a can of tyre magic in each tyre and thought it may be that but the supplier assures me not

Smee

[Raj]

If steering wheel wobble then unlikely to be the rear balancing as you'd feel it more under your seat etc.

Does it only happen at certain speeds, etc or all the time?

[Smeeagain]

Thats what I thought.

Its circa 68-75 mph and then disappears

[Raj]

Tbh that does sound like he front balancing.

I've been to a few different places before and all have balanced different on the same wheel/tyre setup as I was getting the same. Only one place in Brum that I tend to use now as thy seem to be he only ones to get it right.

[Raj]

Is the alloy running true or the hub?

[X5Sport]

It's a shame these places won't let you balance your own......I always used to and never had a problem.

Any crud on the hub will cause vibration, the mating faces need to be very clean.

Richard

[Smeeagain]

yes all clean and all running true. I will get them rebalanced elsewhere - annoying as its extra money (not a lot but I shouldn't have to pay for someone else to do the job right.

The refurbisher uses stick on weights (and no they haven't come off)  as opposed to my local place that uses clip on rim type weights - anyone any experience of that making a difference

Cheers

Smee

[X5Sport]

All mine are stick on ones.  Never noticed any real difference.  I think they try to avoid rim clip types on alloys as they will damage the rim.

Richard

[Smeeagain]

yes stick on would be my personal preference

[X5Sport]

I think part of the issue may be that tyre fitters may only see a very small error/movement in the balance gauge and ignore it which is fine on smaller wheels, but not on the bigger wheels we have where just the mass of the wheel and tyre amplifies a small imbalance. 

Some cars have such poor steering 'feel' that the feedback is non-existent, but others allow even these small imbalances to show up.

If I had the chance, I would carefully watch the balancing to make sure the needles etc don't move.  Of course digital systems may not have the resolution to show a small 1-2g of error, or have not been calibrated since 2000!

Richard

[Smeeagain]

Noted, thanks

[Raj]

I've just had the new rims fitted and the tyre place I use took an absolute age to get the balancing spot on. Even had to rotate the tyre on 2 of the rims to bring the weight down. Problem is as has been stated that most ignore a little 5g weight here and there as they sometimes just class that as acceptable but it all makes a difference when on the open road.