Wheel weights on the outside after balancing

that was stupid of them. go back and complain.

 

My tire guy did exactly the same thing about 22 months ago. But I didn't notice it until recently.

 

Unfortunately, another example of service staff who do not appear to give a rat's a-- about the work they do. They should be using weights with adhesive tape on one side, that adhere to the inside of the wheel.

 

I had that happen to me on my 04. I took it back to the tire place and they corrected the problem.

 

As PW points out, adhesive backed weights are used on alloy rims. It's not just the cosmetic issue, but the soft alloy can be scratched by the weight clamps.

Tom

 

That depends on if you want as near perfect balance or a visually pleasing wheel.

You can't truly balance a wheel if you limit the weights to only the inside edge. That would only compensate for a wheel and tire that is out of round and will not correct for a wheel that isn't true.

Personally I care more about balance than the visual appearance.

 

I saw this on my car as soon as they were done and I said hey! and they said, can't be helped if you want a balanced tire.

 

You are talking about dynamic balancing verses static balancing. Static balancing can be done with two dimensional placement of the weights. Dynamic balancing requires three dimensional placement.

Tom

 

DH has either personally balanced or supervised the balancing of all my tires. he has always insisted the job was done RIGHT. there have never been weights on the outside of my rims.

 

also, these places have fairly high turnover and let's face it, a guy who just puts tires on cars all day isn't exactly a certified professional. (yes, those chain stores do hire people at low level and low pay positions to only change oil and tires. the guys who do other services hold a different position with more pay.)

 

This is because there is plenty of room on the inside to move a weight back and forth in the Z axis, assuming you know what you are doing. It would take a seriously out of whack wheel/tire before you would need to put weigh on the outside, at which point you might want to consider a replacement.

Tom

 

Complete crock o' sh!t. They're supposed to know to use adhesive weights on alloy wheels without covers. When my dealer did this and scratched two wheels I quietly raised hell and got free new ones from him.

Toyota obviously designed the wheels to be balanced on the inner surface: they come from the factory that way and it looks stupid otherwise.

 

Good to know. I'll make sure to have them do it right next time I get a rotation.

 

Once you scratch the clearcoating on that nice aluminum wheel, which the pound-on wheel weight did, and you happen to drive in an area where road salt is used to deice in winter, expect filoform corrosion

 

We play with cars a lot, and are lucky enough to have our own mounting and balancing equipment. The prius wheel is not made to have weights on its outer rim. The inside rim has an indention similar to a steel rim and can accept hammer on weights, however one needs to use special coated weights that are also contoured properly for the rim.

For weights closer to the outside, stick on weights are used and should be placed in the area "behind" the spokes. They will not show and can not be seen from the outside. Our computer balancing machine has settings for several weight placement schemes. We just tell it the area where we want to put the weights and it tells us exactly where and how much.

One thing that hasn't been mentioned in earlier posts is that weights improperly placed on the outside rim of the wheel could fly off and go through something or somebody.

The attached picture is of my son balancing a wheel for his Jeep.

 

When my tire was patched at the Toyota dealer the guy used a weight on the outside. They fixed it when I returned the car. Stupidity is everywhere.

 

I love all this dirty talk ....

 

Nice!

What do you think of those Hunter GSP9700 Road Force machines? When I swapped the crap factory tires off my FJ for Goodyear Forterra TripleTred's, I had a slight vibration at highway speeds

Tracked down a Road Force shop and it took them 3 hours of playing around with the tires and wheels to get it just right. They even labeled which wheel goes to which corner of the FJ

Now, it's smooth and goes down the road with one finger on the wheel. Very impressive what that Hunter machine can do