Wheel Balancing

[Smiffy69]

Todays daft question....... 

I am about to change the tyres on the 7 as the old ones are just about legal.  The ones currently fitted are the originals when I built the car but do not seem to have any balancing weights on them.  I assume this means that either 

a) they are not balanced or b) when fitted as new balancing is not required (which seems unlikely).

So If I therefore assume a) is true they are not balanced.  Given that I have not had any noticable vibration does that mean you can get away with not balancing the wheels on a 7 ?

Said it was a daft question .....  

[ECR]

No, you do need your wheels balanced on a seven . It could be that you were lucky when the tyres were fitted and any out of balance in the wheel was counteracted by out of balance in the tyre ...

[aerobod - near CYYC]

It is highly unlikely all 4 wheels are perfectly balanced, 1 would say about 1 in 20 tyre/wheel combinations I have had are balanced without adding weight. Are there any witness marks (sticky patches or tape remnants) on the inside of the wheels showing where double sided tape existed to hold the weights on, but the weights have since fallen or been knocked off?
 

[JNC]

You don't say what wheels you have ? , On my 7 I have the ten spoke alloys that I have had stripped and recoated silver , When the tyre fitter tried to balance the wheels he had to do them backwards because the front centre hole where the cap goes isn't machined so the centring cone had to be fitted in the rear of the wheel and a rubber cup on the front to hold the wheel while being balanced. So check yours before the guy spends ages trying and failing .

[Expat]

Yes, Get them balanced, at least ar the front, the rears matter less slightly less.

Don't forget to get the tyres inflated to about 30 lbs/sq. in. before balancing. If you leave them at 18 or so there is a very real possibility that the tyre will deform when rotated at high speed and probably make balancing impossible. And don't forget to let some air out afterwards!

[7 wonders of the world]

ALL wheels should be balanced without exception, with the tyre mounted as per manufacturers guidance ie with coloured dot inline of opposite the valve - depending on tyre make

An unbalanced wheel will give suspension components and bearings a good kicking otherwise, and are liable to premature locking under braking on the area that goes light - which leads to flat spots.

Badly blanced wheels will break contact with the ground at speeds too.

Providing the tyres is fully popped onto the rim 18 or 30 psi will make sod all difference, I've tried it several times on many machines in the past - as the balance speed of the machine is only  circa 300 rpm (circa 20mph)

Ask the guy before he starts when the machine was last calibrated and ask him to set it to balance tolerance to zero, many are set to 5g or even 10g tolerance, and make sure they measure the rim etc correctly and not guess it.

And if they double balance the wheels as they did on 2 of my 4 tintop wheels..................

[SM25T]

I had Toyo T1R fitted to 5 wheels and they tried to balance them at 18psi. Kept adding weights one side then the other. Realised the sidewall was flexing .... so removed all weights and started again at 30psi. Easy to balance with few weights.

[Smiffy69]

So its as I suspected - they need balancing.

What is surprising then that the setup I have had from new has no wheel balancing.  The Tyres and rims are Avon CR500 on 15" rims .  

Given the feedback above then maybe new builds should go and get their wheels balanced as a matter of precaution.

As always thanks everyone for the feedback