alignment/balance

[jtroush2002]

eventhough I WILL sound dumb its something that I've always thought about
when my car starts to pull left or right that means I need an alignment right.
So why is a balance on the tires needed? So they dont start bouncing or vibrating? (or something like that)
Do I need to balance them everytime the tires come off the wheels?
what if 3 tires are balanced and 1 isnt? will that mess up my alignment or throw off the balance of the other tires?
what if I take out the little pieces of metal they put on the inside of the wheels after they have been balanced?


and yes I know dumb question but having no male role model in my life I have to teach myself this crap
can someone shed some light

 

[BennyBlown2v]

Alignment means static wheel alignment. Put simply, the way the wheels point and tilt when the car is stationary. Wheel balance IS required everytime the tire is removed from the wheel. The weights are used to balance the asyemetry of the wheel/tire so it is not lopsided, if you take them off, the tire is NO LONGER BALANCED. An unweighted, or improperly weighted tire (that is "out of round") will make a "thuuuump thuuuump thuuuump" while driving down the raod.

Driving for long periods of time (1000k's of miles) with a improperly balanced tire may affect static alignment somewhat, but in general it will just wear down bushings, bearings, and other moving suspension components due to the added vibration.

 

[DTNODYA]

Whenever you get new tires put onto your rims, they need to be balanced (each wheel/tire). There is no ONE reason why but it makes the tire not wobble, not pull, shimmy/shake, etc. If all your tires are balanced except one then it could make it shimmy, pull, etc. Then again, sometimes a tire doesn't need to be balanced.

By balanced we are talking about putting a wheel/tire on a machine that spins it at some speed and then tells you where different weights (in grams) need to be put on the rim to balance it. However, sometimes (one of my wheels is like this) the rim doesn't need any weights because it just happens to be balanced.

So that's my short explanation ... just curious though, why do you want to take off the weights? You want your tires to be balanced for the reasons previously mentioned plus good tire life.

 

[jtroush2002]

thanks for the helpful info

Whenever you get new tires put onto your rims, they need to be balanced (each wheel/tire). There is no ONE reason why but it makes the tire not wobble, not pull, shimmy/shake, etc. If all your tires are balanced except one then it could make it shimmy, pull, etc. Then again, sometimes a tire doesn't need to be balanced.

By balanced we are talking about putting a wheel/tire on a machine that spins it at some speed and then tells you where different weights (in grams) need to be put on the rim to balance it. However, sometimes (one of my wheels is like this) the rim doesn't need any weights because it just happens to be balanced.

So that's my short explanation ... just curious though, why do you want to take off the weights? You want your tires to be balanced for the reasons previously mentioned plus good tire life.

I dont want to take off my weights, I was just curious as to why some of my wheels have some weights and some dont and why they were placed were they are.
that plus sometimes I felt like these shops were trying to give me the shaft with all these little costs when buying new tires.

 

[03ghoststang]

thanks for the helpful info



I dont want to take off my weights, I was just curious as to why some of my wheels have some weights and some dont and why they were placed were they are.
that plus sometimes I felt like these shops were trying to give me the shaft with all these little costs when buying new tires.

well sometimes when tires get balanced dynamically only one side might reruire wieghts could be the inner or outer part or i dont need anything cause its just balanced, but 98% of the time they will require weights on both sides.

And having your balance checked everytime you do a tire rotation is a good idea