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Balancing Compounds

dhcomp

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Interested in balancing compounds for the set of 33x12.50 bfg's i just ordered.

Any of our current vendors offer these products?
 
Just have the wheels spin balanced using standard wheel weights. I've never had any issues having my 35's balanced this way.
 
Was hoping going to a balancing compound would help keep me from having to rebalance.

I'm all for regular rebalancing and rotation, but its hard to justify the cost and time sometimes. This set of tires should take me to 300k if i'm good to them...
 
Are you mounting them yourself?

I've had both my sets of BFG's mounted/balanced at the tire store when I bought them, so I have no idea what that cost for balancing alone is, but while I don't put that many miles on them, the last set that got me about 10 years was never rotated or re-balanced.
 
Nope, as much as i could probably mount them myself (they are 16.5's, so no safety bead), this just isn't something that i want to spend time on.

Planning to get them mounted at a tire place.
 
If you get them spin balanced, one comment I have is to watch the guy doing the balancing.

On the larger tires, if it takes a ton of weight to balance them, and you know the wheels are good, the guy doesn't know what he is doing. The last BFG I had dismounted/remounted (leak from bead, I don't think they made sure it was clean before initially mounting) was done by a new guy.

I watched him balance the tire, and instead of dismounting it and rotating the tire on the wheel, he just kept adding weight. Way too much IMO, but it was free, and not visible, so I don't care, I just know that's not right. Especially since there wasn't that much weight on the tire in the first place.
 
Back when I had my Wagoneer, the wheels would throw the weights off all the time. I ended up with Centramatic balancers. They do work, to a point. If the tires are way out of balance, or super large, they do have a hard time keeping balance. And if the tires are out of round, there's not much you can do either. But otherwise they worked great. Made cool sounds when starting & stopping too.
 
Back when I had my Wagoneer, the wheels would throw the weights off all the time. I ended up with Centramatic balancers. They do work, to a point. If the tires are way out of balance, or super large, they do have a hard time keeping balance. And if the tires are out of round, there's not much you can do either. But otherwise they worked great. Made cool sounds when starting & stopping too.


I read another post you made about those. Considered it, but having a hard time with the cost. If i can throw $50 worth of balancing compound in there, and go with it, i'm interested though.
 
Was hoping going to a balancing compound would help keep me from having to rebalance.

I'm all for regular rebalancing and rotation, but its hard to justify the cost and time sometimes. This set of tires should take me to 300k if i'm good to them...

I have never had to have my tires rebalanced. I just have them mounted and balanced and never worry about it until the next time it needs tires. I "try" to rotate tires every 5000 miles or so and i'm getting right around 50K out of my BFG's. The big thing to remember is that there are two types of hammer on weights, one for steel wheels and another for alloy wheels and it the wrong type are used they might come flying off with speed. I have never liked the stick on weights as wheel to caliper clearance might not allow that style to be used and also most tire shops wont/dont clean the wheels good enough for those weights to stick properly.
 
If you buy tires from a goodyear store you get free balancing and rotations for the lifetime of the tires. Could be worth it if you can manage to get a decent price out of one of our stores. Other companies might offer it as well. You shouldn't need to rebalance more than once every other rotation. I check the balance on my DD and rotate all 4 and swap in new fully synthetic oil every 6k miles becanse i can do it so cheap but the balance is usually fine and requires no changes more than once every 12k miles and even then its like 1/2 an ounce which is unlikely to be felt.
 
Maybe i'm picky, but mine dont' seem to stay balanced for more than 5 or 10k. Last time i had tires from Costco on my rig, i got them balanced every 6k cause they would do it for free, and it helped a Ton.

I bought the tires online, and plan to get them put on at a shop. Yes, more complicated, but i couldn't get close enough of a deal to make it worth sticking to a shop.
 
The lifetime balance and rotate is part of the price of installation and balancing so even if you didnt get the tires from Goodyear they will still do free balancing and rotation for the life of the tires if they were installed at a goodyear store (corporate) i dont know about franchise owners. Costco is fine too and they are the only tire distributor i know that offers nitrogen fill ups. In fact people have gotten flat tires in front of our shop and gotten towed to costco because the price is that much better i guess :dunno: lol. its happend multiple times though.
 
Sounds like i'm checking out a corporate Goodyear store. Thanks for the tip.
 
In fact people have gotten flat tires in front of our shop and gotten towed to costco because the price is that much better i guess :dunno: lol. its happend multiple times though.

Are you dumping nails in the road outside your shop to drum up some business? :whistle: :D
 
I run air soft pellets (lighter ones, .12g I think) in my 33x10.50xR15 Boggers. Smooth at 65MPH. I ran the heavier pellets in some 31x10.50xR15 M/T's on my Jeep for a couple years DD'ing it, they did fine in it too. A friend of mine ran some balancing powder in his Q78 TSL's. He had to run special valve stems with screens to keep the powder from getting into the schrader valve seat when airing down. I was never impressed with how it worked. Another friend has BB's in his Q78's and I think they are too heavy and the reduced volume for the weight affects the balancing, just my opinion though on the BB thing.
 
I've used the Innovative Balancing beads and whatever brand ceramic beads that Indy4x4 on here used to sell with good luck. Work great unless your tires are way out of round or something. Nothing works well for that though.

I had AirSoft pellets in my 11.00R16 Michelin XL's but those were famous for being nice and round as is.
 
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