When I first bought the car, I noticed that the lead weights had been fixed on the inside edges of the rims (i.e. nearest the center of the car). That meant they were almost invisible from the side.

When the tire shop reinstalled my tires after I had the rims chromed, they "dynamically" balanced the wheels (instead of a "normal" balance), and put the new weights just behind the spokes. Because each wheel had four or five seperate weights, that made them very visible, and ugly.

I'm about to get replacement rear tires installed, and I'm wondering if I should ask them specifically to mount the weights on the inside, or leave it to the tire shop to do what's best. Anyone know whether it makes any difference - inside, center, or outside mounting?

 

I don't have the service manual here with me, but I remember reading that they should be placed on the flat narrow ridge in the center section inside the wheel.

UPDATE: Page from service manual posted below.

[Edited by KenS2K on 02-16-2001 at 07:37 PM]

 

Actually, Dynamic refers to spinning the wheel during the balance process. Static balance is when they just but the wheel on a bubble cone thing.

The types of dynamic balance that I am familiar with are:

Standard: Weights on outside and inside edges of rim
Mag: Weights in middle and inside of rim
Inside only: self explanatory

The best balance is achieved by Standard, and then Mag. The wider the wheel, the more problems you can have with mag or inside only balancing.

 

Regardless of where they ultimately place the weights, dynamic balancing is really the only way to balance a wheel as far as I'm concerned. Years ago most shops got away from this, and MacPherson strut suspended wheels became almost impossible to balance.

I owned a BMW 2002 at the time and was lucky enough to find an aeronautical engineer who had had the same problem. He bought an old spin balancer, rebuilt it and started a weekend business balancing wheels, especially performance type cars. Over the years I lost contact with this gentleman, but luckily, spin balancing has come back in vogue. And before I'm flamed by someone, I know our suspensions are not MacPherson struts.

 

Well, I just had the tires replaced. The guy said he was doing dynamic balancing, and the weights went on the center and inner edges of the rims. I guess that's the Mag method that Bobway mentioned. This suggests that my wheeels weren't dynamically balaced at the Honda factory if the original weights were all on the inside of the rims. Interesting.

 

I asked the same question about a month
ago or so. Please search for that topic
if you like.

One person replied that if you get many
square shaped weights in different places
around the wheel, this means they haven't
done a good job.

 

http://www.gsp9700.com/pub/images/pdf/4538t.pdf

See this article on balancing specifically the Hunter 9700 and inside balanacing.

 

The best balance job I ever got was a dynamic while still on the car. That balanced the rim, tire, rotor and all. It was so smooth. Never found another place that could do it.

 

Here's what the service manual says:

 

Same here. There's a local shop that does it for me on my other cars. On-the-wheel balancing gave me smooth rides that had previously eluded me.