Tire Balance at Dealer?

After finally wearing out my rear pr-2 (without having to change it due to a nail or spike. ). I took my tire off and took it to the dealer. I asked the dealer to change it with a pr-4 and use only the center weights if needed. Of course the tire came back with stick on weights. I pointed this out and they took it out back and it came back with no weights. Seems like now it does not need any weights? Why the stick on's then. They insisted that that was right.

Funny thing is that the exact same thing happened when they put on the previous pr-2. Came back with stick-on's after I requested the center weights. I asked them to re-balance Then it came back with a statement that it now needs no weight?

Am I having my leg pulled or could this possibly happen?

Re: TIRE BALANCE AT DEALER. ???

Sounds a bit fishy to me. Unless they didn't mount the rim onto the balancer properly, or was slightly ajar, or their balancer is borked.

Back in high school, when i worked as a tire-jockey at Firestone, we would mount the tire on the balancer, balance the tire, then loosen and rotate the rim about 120?, then tighten and check the balance.

I use the same process when I balance my bike tires (I use a static balancer I got from Harbor Freight).

Re: TIRE BALANCE AT DEALER. ???

Michelin make a very accurate tyre, but the alloy wheel is normally what needs the weights... if they unseated the tyre and tried reseating it several times they may have got lucky... but I would have my doubts.....

As to a dealer doing what they did, personally I wouldn't have gone back a second time......

I stopped using the tyre shop because of their inability to fit a new valve at every tyre change, despite charging for it AND they were about to attack my anodised alloy rim with a steel wire brush to get rubber residue off.... which if course you can do with bufsol and a rag.....

I prefer to fit my own and now use Dynabeads.... no ugly steel weights to drop off later and perfect balance throughout the now longer life of the tyre.... more even wear too....

Don't rule out the possibility that their balancer hasn't been maintained and doesn't give uniform results.

--Mark

The 2 stick on's where not huge so I do not think it was a lot of weight.
This is the local dealer that is know for st1300 service, especially on the police bikes. They appear well equipped and have a large staff of mechanics.

But now after that, this will linger in the back of my head. balanced or not balanced?

When the Honda dealer put 25 g of stick-on weights on my ST's PR3s and Dunlop E3s on the 'Wing and then the weights started to easily come off in my hand before I even got the wheels back on the bike, I finally found the correct center-clip weights and put them on at the same locations , but on the rib. I also started to hear from others where the stick-ons fell off soon for them. The stick-ons are also much more cheaper for the dealer so they can make more profit for the same balancing fee. I also ended up also adding "CounterAct Beads" to fine tune the balance now and in the future wear.

Re: TIRE BALANCE AT DEALER. ???

Firstpeke said:

I prefer to fit my own and now use Dynabeads...

Click to expand...

I haven't used the beads, but I'm curious. Why would a shop waste floor space and waste resources (money, people) to calibrate their equipment, when they could just toss in some beads?
Also, if you consider they'd save (the shop and to the customer) on the cost of rim weights and the time that it takes to balance a wheel, why aren't all shops pushing bead use?

Same reason many things are still done the way they have always been..... resistance to change.

Beads can take a few minutes to install through the valve stem..... you can balance on a machine in less than that if you are any good.... but it is only balanced at that moment..... this dynamic balance changes the moment it is rolled down the road on the bike....

Beads balance dynamically as you ride..... despite all evidence by those who fit and use them, folk simply refuse to believe they work..... and I am sure there is less money to be made from beads than traditional weights..... in terms of gross margin and net profit.

Re: TIRE BALANCE AT DEALER. ???

Nothing surprises me with soCal dealerships, sounds par for the course.

FWIW, I rode for a few years without balancing tires and never noticed any difference. Back in the mid-80s a decent tire was $50 and the place I bought tires from mounted for free, but wanted $10 extra to balance it. One time I decided to try not balancing, figuring my first freeway blast would tell me if it was out of balance enough to matter. I couldn't tell any difference, so I kept doing it for a few years and never noticed any vibrations or funny wear pattern. Eventually tires got more expensive, and everybody started charging for mount/balance as a single charge, so I started balancing again.

3 local shops here and 2 use beads. I guess I kinda talked one of them in to it and the mechanic was a friend of another shops mechanic and now we have 2. Me and my big mouth..LOL It helps that I sell all the computers to the Honda dealer.

[quote;1755561]A few days later, we had to take his front rim off for some farkling....the four bolts at the base of the forks,securing the axel needed a 2 foot bar to losen them....way over torqued...[/quote]

And **that** my friends, is why I do *all* work on my bikes (cages) ...

you can bet the folks at that shop would hear from me in a big way ...