I just got some 15" alloys to replace my steel wheels and had my local tyre shop swap the tyres from the steelers onto the alloys- I noticed afterwards when I got home there were no weights on the outside of the wheels. I did a 130 mile journey the same day at speeds up to 95mph and noticed no vibration etc.
I'm not sure if they put balancing weights on the inside but if not should it pose a problem?

__________________
1993 320TE M104
---------------------------------------------------
past:

1983 230E W123 M102
1994 E300D S124 OM606 (x2)
1967 250SE W108 M129
1972 280se 3.5 W108 M116
1980 280SE W116 M110
1980 350SE W116 M116
1992 300E W124 M103
1994 E280 W124 M104
----------------------------------------------
"music and women I cannot but give way to, whatever my business" -Pepys

I have posted about this NUMEROUS times on mshop.

I have gotten in heated discussions with tire stores regarding this. Most tire store kids will only do a static balance on alloy wheels because they've been chewed out for scratching the outer rim. Static balance is the same type of balance that you get on a bubble balancer and only keeps the wheel from hopping up and down. Dynamic balance uses weights on the inboard AND outboard plane and prevents the wheel from wobbling.

Dynamic balance is ABSOLUTELY MANDATORY on any car with a nimble suspension such as your MB. Tire stores that are savvy and care about what they are doing, will use tape weights just behind the spokes of the wheel to provide the balance point for the outer plane of the wheel. I use MB weights with the clip on most of them unless I don't have the weight size that I need.

I got so put out with the tire stores and so tired of fighting with them that I bought a used computer balancer and do it myself. I could teach a 13 year old in thirty minutes how to properly use the machine. Complexity is not the problem, it is attitude. Most tire stores hire the best tire kid they can find for $5.35 per hour. Most of them don't care about anything except quitting time and payday. There are indeed good tire people out there that realize that they need to have happy customers. You need to find them and educate them if necessary or do like I did and find a used balancer.

Best of luck,

Dynamic and static balance can be achieved by using stick on weights just inside the outside face and on the inside edge of the rim section.

Most modern balancers have a probe to measure the distance of the weight from the wheel centerline and radius from the spin axis, both of which are necessary to compute the weight's moment.

Using this method there are no visible weights on the outside wheel flange, and the flange doesn't get marred from weight clips.

The bottom line is that after the weights are added, the final spin should show "0.00 0.00" on the machine's weight readout.

Most tire shops are aware of this method of balancing, especially if they sell a lot of custom wheels.

Duke

thanks for your replies. I guess it's a 'yes' then! The alloys had weights on them when I brought them into the shop (I got them used from ebay) but I stupidly didn't check after they were fitted as a): they looked really good and distracted me, and b): I was in a hurry to get back to the city.

I guess they took the weights off the alloys to fit the tyres.

Attached Thumbnails

 

__________________
1993 320TE M104
---------------------------------------------------
past:

1983 230E W123 M102
1994 E300D S124 OM606 (x2)
1967 250SE W108 M129
1972 280se 3.5 W108 M116
1980 280SE W116 M110
1980 350SE W116 M116
1992 300E W124 M103
1994 E280 W124 M104
----------------------------------------------
"music and women I cannot but give way to, whatever my business" -Pepys

Good shop practice is to remove external clip-on weights prior to removing the tire. Otherwise they can be dragged along the rim flange when removing the tire, which will really gouge-up the wheels.

If you carefully inspect the wheels from the inside you will probably see one stick-on (double sided tape) weight just inside the spider and another on the inside plane of the wheel drop center.

This would indicate that dynamic balance was accomplished, and the use of stick-on weights in this manner is pretty much SOP for aluminum wheels.

The shop I use lets me watch the process alongside the tech, who I always request by name, and I also believe in tipping "tire busters" for being careful and paying attention to detail - ten bucks a set!

Duke

how much did you pay for your used balancer? was it a hunter? this sounds very appealing if costs are reasonable.

__________________
Jonathan
1998 S600
2001 E430
1994 E320
1991 560SEL
1994 Turbo R

chazola, I have tires installed and balanced at a local MB dealer. They use the 2-piece MB balance weights the same as at the factory ... reduces damage to the wheels and looks proper for a MB vehicle.

__________________
Fred Hoelzle

I bought my wheel balancer in early 2002 for $800. It is a Coates 1001. This used to be one of the most common balancers around. It was freshly calibrated and a good size set of cones and accessories included.

It runs on 220 single phase. It has a Mag function that helps with tape weights but there still is sometimes a little trial and error when placing the tape weight behind the spokes, but it does a great job. On steel wheels or on MB wheels where I have clip on weights it hits it the first time almost every time.

It can be set up for grams or ounces. I have it set for Grams and it has a "fine" mode where its resolution is two grams.

It's an old unit but has worked very well for me.

Have a great day,

Larry's posts inspired me to take the tire balancer plunge....

I purchased a Hunter 741 balancer on e-bay for just over $500. It's nice to be able to get perfect balances every time. I can remember the days while I was waiting for new tires to be mounted on my car thinking "I wonder if I'll get a good balance this time around......." I also tried to tip the guy mounting my tires- that worked well if you could actually talk to the tech that was working on your tire job.

Another significant benefit to having your own balancer is being able to re-balance the tire as the tread wears down. I find that I need to re-balance every 8-10K miles to compensate for tread wear.

i think i will also make the investment soon. if i buy a late model w140 as planned, it will be even more imperative.

what is the best source to purchase a used balancer? a local shop maybe?

__________________
Jonathan
1998 S600
2001 E430
1994 E320
1991 560SEL
1994 Turbo R

I don't know about Tim, but I had a tough time finding a source. This is the kind of thing that I'm not interested in buying off ebay.

Some searching found an automotive test equipment dealer in Dallas. I was going to buy a Hunter like Tims and it turned out that it had a problem, so the guy gave me the 1001 for the same money. Before I picked it up, he had a tech go over it and make sure everything worked right and was properly calibrated. I hauled it home, set it up and I've never looked back. It has performed perfectly.

If you can find a used dealer then you have a much better chance of getting a good machine than taking your chances with an individual. A used equipment dealer will give you a guarantee. Even if it's only 30 days, you know you will have a working machine. After that if you keep it dry it will most likely continue to work for a long time to come.

The Hunter that Tim has would be a very good machine for the home shop. The people that I've talked to that have one won't use anything else. On the 7XX series like Tims the wheel goes on with the axis vertical.

My Coates has a horizontal axis, but seems to do an adequate job. The only downside to the Hunter is that their service people are independent and work on a unit replacement basis. This means that the Hunter man will replace an entire, expensive unit instead of fixing the old one. I think this is why old Hunter equipment is usually less expensive. Hunter service is known to be very expensive. The fact that Hunter makes very good and reliable equipment seems to offset that fact though.

Tim,

Did you get a manual for your Hunter?

Have a great day,

Larry

I did indeed get a manual for my machine, I contacted my local Hunter service representative and he mailed me a copy of the manual and did not charge me a dime. He (Rick Rochon) is has been very helpful - I'm quite impressed with the technical support group available from Hunter. As you pointed out all Hunter techs are independents that have received Hunter training.

I got my machine from E-bay, I would prefer to deal with an auto equipment dealer like you did but I was unable to locate a local dealer. Your Coats 1001 machine is quite a bit more advanced than mine, I actually bid on a couple of the Coats 1001 machines on e-bay but they usually seemed to go for 1 to 2K - you got a good deal on yours.

The Hunter 700 series machines seem to be the least expensive electronic balancer on e-bay - typical prices are $400-600. Hunter and Coats seemed to make quite a few machines that use 3-phase power and you can sometimes get a great deal if you have 3-phase available at your shop site.

The one feature my Hunter does not have that I really need is a MAG function for positioning adhesive weights. I can use stick-on weights but it's a bit of trial and error to get it right...

My machine does have the "match-mode" function - this feature enables the machine to match the rim/tire position to get the best possible balance BEFORE wheel weights are applied. Using this mode I've NEVER had to use more than a half ounce weight to get a perfect balance on a passenger car tire.

I too will some day get a balancer just for the flexiblility of it - being able to balance the tires whenever - and correctly! So this info. is helpful.

In the meantime, I have two current sources that use the "road force" balancing (Discount Tire has it, too) - I am very impressed. My snow tire rims are a little beat (came with the car) and 3 rims are slightly bent (I will have them straightened this summer). The "road force" balance eliminated 99% of any vibration from the bent rims.

I do "know" the guys who do the balancing and I do stand there and talk/watch. And I do tip them.

Cary

Yes, I forgot about reading the part of the Hunter manual about using match mode. You can accomplish this on any balancer with some marking and thinking, but the match mode function on the Hunter makes it very easy to follow. As long as you have your own tire machine it's a straight forward and worthwhile thing to do.

I have a manual tire machine with a pneumatic bead breaker. It works great, but on nice, alloy wheels I won't use it for fear of scratching the wheels. The next thing I would like to get is a rim clamp type tire machine, but they are big bucks.

Have a great day,

A friend of mine works in the Tire Industry and he told me that only 12-15% of the tires are OEM quality, meaning they can be balanced to where the new cars do not have vibrations.

Next time I going with Michlens but the last time, I bought Goodyears and had one of the Goodyear Gemni service center install them. Vibrations. Took them to another tire stores, unable to balance, roadforce a couple of tires over 25.

Took the tires back to Goodyear service center, they replaced 3 under warranty. Improved but vibration was there. Took them to the dealership, vibration good lot worse.

Took the tires to the tire store again, result, vibration gone!


Balancing tires can be very tricky, especially if the tires have hard and soft spots to begin with. Except for the dealer, the other two shops had Hunter machines and they were using the roadforce feature.

__________________
Zafar
94 E320 58000 Miles