INTRODUCTION
“Most of the car owners go for wheel balancing these days, Should I also go for it? What really it do to my car? What are the advantages of wheel balancing??? ” If you are reading this article; It is most probable that you also have above questions on your mind. The real case of this is that “Out of balance” tires cause car to vibrate at some speeds (typically between 50 - 70 mph). Tire is said to be out of balance when one part of the tire is heavier than the others places. Strictly saying, 1 oz of imbalance in a front tire is well enough to start a clear vibration in your steering wheel at around 60 mph.
WHEEL BALANCING EQUIPMENT
To precisely balance tires or wheels, tire seller or the repairing store must have a modern and precisely calibrated “spin balancer”. These apparatus should be competent of getting static (stopped) and dynamic (rotating) balance. Anyway, the old “bubble wheel balancer” can do a well-mannered work by getting static balancing correctly, but the dynamic balance only can be achieved by spin balancer equipment. This is especially vital with today's heavier tire rim sets, and totally necessary to run flat tires that have thick stiff side walls.
The majority of wheel balancers nowadays have self calibrated electronics with precision to hundredths of an ounce. Digital displays also put together information faster to read and realize, so the probability of making a fault is less. Modern equipments have automatic data-entry for wheel width/diameter save the time.
The majority wheel balancers nowadays function at lower speeds. This help to expand the life time of the motor and reduce the risk to the operator. But the old equipments operate faster at roughly about 500rpm equals to 55-60mph to produce a efficient signal. Anyway, further precise electronics in modern wheel balancers are competent of picking up the vibrations at lower speeds at about 100rpm equivalent to 10-5mph. Following image shows a modern wheel balancer.
WHEEL BALANCING
For the balancing purpose, Technician will mount the wheel on balancing instrument which will spin the wheel to find the heavier area. Then the technician will balance the heavy part by attaching small “lead weight” on the contradictory side. Most of the people are amazed by feeling smooth their car after balancing the all four wheels.High quality tires/wheels will go out of balance rarely. But as most of we are general public in every way, we are not always rich enough to afford those highly prices tires (As an example, I use 8 to 10 $ used tires for 2nd car at my home, the old Datsun 120 Y). So it is always better to balance the wheels at least in 6 months intervals or more frequently if you can.