Time for new tires.
I have not seen much said about the Ceramic balancing beads since they were first installed by several members. Interested in feedback from those using the Ceramics from Innovative Balancing, please.

I have had good luck with the "Equal" product for the last 65,000 miles .... with none of the potential problems I was warned about such as clumping. But the Equal will clog Valve Stems if not cleared by a shot of air after reading tire pressure. Will Ceramics also?

Any other feedback...pro or con welcomed!

RJ

 

Ditto the shot of air and getting close to new tires. I've had good luck with the Couteract balancing beads. Maybe the Centramatics would be worth it for two reasons:
reusable with different wheels or tires
nothing in the wheel/tire combo to affect valve stems or clumping

 

My buddy used them on his 315's and they worked great.

 

The Ceramics will also clog valve stems but come with screened valve cores to eliminate the problem.

I put new Toyo H/Ts on last fall with the Innovative Balancing beads, working great.
What was interesting was the owner of the tire shop put the same tires on his dually the day before with Equal and it didn't work, didn't balance. These guys knew their stuff about beads, install wasn't the problem. He removed the tires and used the Innovative beads, problem solved. I think the shop was going to switch from Equal to Innovative after this experience but never followed up on it.

Lots of bead info at Innovative's website http://www.innovativebalancing.com/
Balance beads are one of the newer products that once you use you'll never go back to the primitive method of pounding lead weights on your rims. I use them on all my rigs, great on motorcycles too.

 

I installed the Innovative balance beads in my trucks' tires this past April. The tires were Michelin LT265x75R16's mounted on OEM alloy wheels. After doing all the hard work myself, I ended up being very disappointed. I posted my results on this site. After several lengthy e-mails with Robert (Innovative Balancing) it seems that my truck had one or more tires that had a lateral imbalance issue. According to Robert and I quote, "lateral imbalance is created when one side of the tire , in one spot only, is heavier than the exact opposite side, so this makes the tire wobble as the tire tries to right itself during rotation". The beads will not solve that problem. I finally gave up and removed the beads and had the tires re-balanced with weights. I think the beads are a great idea and I might try them again one of these days. I did learn one important thing and that is if you have a tire/wheel that has a lot of weight on one side and a small weight on the other side, that could indicate a lateral imbalance condition. My truck had two tires that were balanced that way and those were the culprits.

 

I used the antifreeze trick on my current set and it works awesome. 4k on the tires and theyare holding great. Its deffinately the smoothest my truck ever felt with these tire ive been running.

 

The wheel weights have to be at the point of imbalance and if a tire needs so much weight that it has to be put on both sides of the rim I would think it to be seriouslly out of round.
HC

 

The very best way to get your new tires balanced is to get a match mount with road force. The Hunter 9700 machine will do this and then if all your tires come out OK. Go home and install the beads into the valves yourself. You shouldn't have to touch the tires again! The weight balance will get the tires right on and the beads will keep them balanced as they wear.
The Hunter will tell you if the tire has any balance problems or heavy thick spots! You should only see a small 1-2 oz. weight on each side! I would reject any tire that is much worse than that. I just had 6 tires mounted and balanced, 5 had 25-30 lbs. road force and 2-4 ozs. to balance and the 6th had 85lbs but it only took 2 ozs. to balance. The limit for the 235 is 60 lb.road force. I sent the bad tire back!!
You will pay more up front but the results are very well worth the extra cost!!

You should watch when they do it or they will just slap the weights on and say they are good! Make sure you see the road force # for each tire.

 

Rick -
Do larger tires handle more road force....or less?
RJ

 

Small light weight tires SHOULD have less road force vibration than large heavy tires.
ex: 215/75R15 0 is perfect, 0-10 very good, 10-20 good, 20-30 fair, over 30 is bad!
235/85R16 0 is perfect 0-20 very good, 20-40 good, 40-60 fair, and over 60 is bad!
So if they are all close to zero the better!!! Realistic should be in good range.
The Hunter also checks for rim runout and bent.
Try it you be amazed!

 

It should be more. Road force is one of those things were the lower, the better.

Since it's proportional to tire size, a larger tire should have higher limits.

For example, 15# of road force is great on a LT style tire in 265 or 285 size.

That same 15# road force for a small econobox tire (say, 165-85r13) would represent a lot more variance, and hence a lower quality tire.

I just made up those numbers, the principle is the same.




I've had good results with the DynaBeads, and I ordered them based on Bill's favorable postings about them.

However, I'm wondering if I did something wrong with them. On my Nissan, there was a shimmy on the front end that would not go away.

I took it to a place that had a Road Force balancer and it seemed to lessen (marginally) but not eliminate the shimmy.

The place that had the gsp9700 was angry for me putting in the beads. They took them all out, as apparently the beads interfere with the road force balancer, or so they say.


In the end, I've decided that:
1) I'm not sure the beads are a replacement for a balance job. They worked VERY well on my truck (I took all the weights off), but didn't solve the shimmy on my car. I can't say for sure it was the tire balance, though, so I'm hesitant to say the beads didn't work, because I just can't say. I KNOW they worked on my truck, and worked well, so I'm going to say that there was some OTHER cause of the problems on my Nissan sedan.

2) The road force balancer is an impressive machine. Is it better than beads? I don't know. I like that it seems to accounts for more variables that won't show up under spin balancing.

But wouldn't the beads also account for this? I mean, the beads are balancing with the ACTUAL road force the tire sees-- it happens as you drive. The balancing machine can only simulate a certain load, and is much less than the actual weight of the car or truck.

Finally, the beads can adjust as the weight of your truck changes. The lead weights can't do that-- no matter how properly they are placed.


In the end, using the Road force machine for initial balance and then adding beads afterward is probably the best combination all around.
jmo

 

The Hunter, to make it simple measures the stiffness of the tread and sidewall.
A thick spot on a sidewall will always thump when that spot hits the ground, it won't flex as much as the rest of the sidewall. This cannot be fixed with balancing, you need a new tire!
The tire off the ground on the spin balancer can balance out to zero with very little weights. Although it will vibrate when it hits the thick/heavy spot.

The beads do the same job as the weights, but cannot balance a bad tire!!

I've had several customers that had vibrations and tried the beads and where not happy, the problem was that the tires had too much road force vibration. New tires were needed!

 

You probably won't find anyone with bigger tires, who drives faster than me. 39" tall, and I do 90mph every day.

And yes I have the innovative beads in my tires. They work very well. Just make sure you have enough OZ's in your tires. I run 10 oz per tire.

The beads give similar "smoothness" to a good weight balancing, the big difference, is if any mud gets inside your rim, the beads compansate to a point. Also the beads will be smooth for the life of your tire.

If anyone says bad things about the beads, I would say that they were not properly installed. The beads can't have moisture of liquid present inside the tire.

I won't weight balance another tire ever again.

 

RJ,
Go here (http://www.centramatic.com). I've had them through the middle of the last set of tires, and the set I just purchased last week. I love them. Will last the life of the truck, enough internal material to handle my P29575R16's BFG AT's without them being balanced. Perfectly smooth ride regardless of speed or driving style. Adjusts as tires wear.
BARTMAN

 

Thanks J.
The link won't work with the ( ) around it...but I typed it in and got it.
Will have to read some more .... but looks like another good way to "skin this cat" !
RJ