Chris Williams' Journal

There has been a few threads of late about the problems of incompetent tyre fitters.

About 2 years ago I (foolishly) replaced my 14" tyres with a cheap, generic brand of tyre. ( I've since got new hubs and 15" wheels but are yet to install them - another story.)
Anyway the tyre mob put them on and 'balanced' them. I got the "well you can't expect to be able to balance 40year old wires with tubes successfully" story and they proceeded to cover the front and back of the wheel with weights in an attempt to balance them.

"That's the best we can do with these crappy old wheels" So in my ignorance I accepted that and drove off thinking 'gee, I'd better get these wheels replaced'.

Fast forward 2 years of putting up with not being able to drive over 80kph without it shaking itself to bits and listening to the commentary here about balancing issues AND after reading the flyer that came with my new wheels, I started to doubt the competency of the tyre fitters.

Last weekend I took the B on an epic trip to the south coast and before I left I took a large weight off the wheel that had the most weights on it.
On the trip down I thought I could feel the ride was a little better. When I got to my inlaws place I went out to the car and stood there looking at it contemplating and thought 'Bugger it! Just do it! it can't be worse than it is.'

I jacked up each side and took each wheel off in turn and took a total of 650grams - 11 in all of the wheels plus the 70g I took of the day before, over 700grams.

Result? It's like it's a different car! I took it for a test drive and took it up to 140kph and it was as smooth as silk (well, canvas then) but the thing is I can't believe these guys have been doing this to spline wheels for decades and the've been doing it so wrong.

So if you've got issues with wheel balance on spline hubs try taking all your weights off and see how you go. I can't believe the result. 40year old rims with tubes and cheap tyres with NO weights and it's almost perfect.