wheel balancing, how often?

Mon Jul 30, 2012 7:53 am

as per title, how often e30 owners do it? reason why I'm asking is that I had it done and tracking too in may this year, and car was smooth on the road for some time, I only drive it couple times a week if that, but driving last week on motorway noticed a bit of shake above 50mph which disappears after 65, I'd think it's not balanced front wheels. I have other car it's jeep cherokee, did the balancing a year ago, so about 5000 miles later it's still smooth.
I would think it is bad roads, but in jeep I don't slow down on speed bumps!

Mon Jul 30, 2012 8:14 am

I cant stand unbalanced wheels. There are two types of wheel balancer, One the uses the center of the wheel, and locks on using a cone adaptor - these are crap and will never balance a wheel properly!

The other type uses the four or five bolts and the correct spigot size to attach the wheel to the balancer just like it would be attached to the car. This is the only machine that will balance the wheel properly. Much more expensive machine and not many places have them.

Mon Jul 30, 2012 8:17 am

Maybe you lost a weight from the wheel after it was balanced.

Mon Jul 30, 2012 10:03 am

Once they're balanced they're balanced unless you manage to flat spot a tyre, damage a wheel or lose a weight.

I have found tyres sometimes get a bit of a wobble if the car has been stood for a while, but it normally sorts itself out after a few miles.

Mon Jul 30, 2012 1:03 pm

If mine are out the wobble doesn't disapear after getting up to an even faster speed, it just gets scarier and scarier, ie. probably wobbles more. Just saying.

Mon Jul 30, 2012 2:06 pm

If they are going to sort themselves out you need to get them HOT

Ive never heard of a balancer with a stud pattern that you bolt a wheel to? But I do know every tyre fitters ive ever been into uses a standard balancer that locates the wheel on a cone

Mon Jul 30, 2012 2:16 pm

Try swapping the wheels over from front to rear.

Mon Jul 30, 2012 2:37 pm

http://www.garageequipment.co.uk/acatal ... heels.html

This is the adaptor for normal machines, you then have to buy the correct size spigot ring.

I have my own wheel balancer and i can tell you it doesn't balance wheels, it gets the close but not spot on. Put a wheel on, balance, take it off. Put it back on and it will say it needs a weight. With the bolt on system it gets it spot on every time.

Tue Jul 31, 2012 2:12 pm

Speedtouch wrote:Try swapping the wheels over from front to rear.

I can't, they are different rear and front

can that happen if the car stationary for 2 weeks? then again the jeep is stationary for months and no problems whatsoever, but maybe the tyres on that stronger or something, anyway, will pop in the garage for balancing next time.

Tue Jul 31, 2012 4:15 pm

Try swopping the front wheels over from side-to-side then...

Mon Oct 22, 2012 4:37 pm

just to update, balanced the front wheels before a long journey and it all went smooth, no shaking whatsoever, may be one of the weights fell off. did about 1500 miles in less than 2 days and very pleased with the car, no coolant loose no oil leak, the only thing is differential leaked a little, but that was an issue before.

Mon Oct 22, 2012 5:22 pm

Good, mines wobbling these days!

Mon Oct 22, 2012 7:20 pm

I've had weights fly off before today, it does happen.!

Mon Oct 22, 2012 10:40 pm

Wheels on E30's are hub centric so cone adaptors are the best way to centre, but the bolt pattern clamps are the best as they replicate the installed condition.

For the best-best balance you should use a balancer with road force variation measurement (Hunter GSP-9700 for example), this as the name suggests measures the force from the tyre for a given displacement around its circumference. Cheap tyres are often not very round and have inconsistencies in lay up - overlap of the belts. It's possible with these machines to match the inconsistency of the tyre with any minor run out of the rim to minimise the forcing.

This measurement will also show up flat spots, I did a short investigation at work a couple of years ago that showed balancing a tyre when it had a flat spot could put the overall balance out by up to 20g when the tyre got warm and the shape came back. We're talking very high performance low profile tyres here, but the theory applies even to our cars. There aren't many of these machines in the country unfortunately.

Long and the short though is to get your tyres warm to get rid of any flat spots and then get it in the air ASAP when you pull in to get them balanced. Don't drive it straight up there after two weeks sat on the drive.

Mon Oct 22, 2012 11:23 pm

Very interesting, thanks ndg.