Stacking wheel weights?

Penguin VII · April 8, 2019

I brought my truck into the stealership on Friday for a 50k oil change and service. Cost a small fortune but that's a different story. As part of the service I asked to have my tires balanced and rotated. I've had to get into the habit of doing this pretty much every oil change interval (the balance) since the weights never seem to stick.

Well I got it on the highway headed home and past 60 the thing shook like crazy. I'm used to a bit of vibration, these are 35" RT tires after all. This however was insane. I thought a steering or suspension component went out, till I got home and checked the weights.

Ignoring the mud as I had been off road to the range after noticing the shake. I've never once seen weights double stacked. I've never seen weights triple stacked. Outside the fact that there are a million of the little things on there is this normal? I pulled them off until a local shop can get me in to do the "sand bag" balancing. Total was 2.25 lbs across the 4, that seems a bit excessive.

ksiesel · April 8, 2019

I’ve also never seen them stacked and don’t think it’s a good practice.

What do you mean by sand bag balancing? Are you talking about ceramic beads in the tires like Dynabeads?

Penguin VII · April 8, 2019

19 minutes ago, ksiesel said:

I’ve also never seen them stacked and don’t think it’s a good practice.

What do you mean by sand bag balancing? Are you talking about ceramic beads in the tires like Dynabeads?

The tech said it was a bag they toss in the tire, once the wheel gets to speed the bag breaks apart and the sand settles where it should to balance the wheel. Guy seemed very knowledgable about the subject and said he does them often for that size and up.

I don't know the specific brand but I've heard of a few variations of this idea.

jaxcam02 · April 8, 2019

Im going to assume that you have aftermarket wheels. Just keep in mind that most aftermarket wheels are not created with the same spec tolerances than OEM wheels are. I had to double stack to balance my aftermarkets properly. I really didn't want to but otherwise it was going to require way more weights than necessary to balance. As long as the surfaces are completely clean and the weights stick, I wouldn't worry about two stacks, I would never do 3.

My assumption in your case is one or more of the weights were not applied to clean surfaces (either the wheel or the 1st stack) and detached.

If you ever have the opportunity, throw your wheels on a balance machine without tires and see what the machine says is needed just to balance the wheels.

Edited April 8, 2019 by jaxcam02

ksiesel · April 8, 2019

26 minutes ago, Penguin VII said:

The tech said it was a bag they toss in the tire, once the wheel gets to speed the bag breaks apart and the sand settles where it should to balance the wheel. Guy seemed very knowledgable about the subject and said he does them often for that size and up.

I don't know the specific brand but I've heard of a few variations of this idea.

That sound a lot like the Dynabeads. I’ve used them on motorcycles, but never on a car or truck. I do know that big rigs use them often though.

One issue I had with the Dynabeads is that they are small enough to fit through the valve stem so they could be installed without breaking the bead. The problem with this is that they could get caught in the valve core when checking the tire pressure (no TPMS).

2017Darkness · April 8, 2019

I have 35" RT's as well and work at a dealership. I did not trust the regular oil jockeys to balance my tires... last time I had a line tech do it and they were good for a while. Looks to me like someone had no idea what they were doing and needs a lesson in tire balance in your case. Mine vibrate again, haven't lost any weights, so I think I'm gonna have the local 4x4 tire guys do it.

Edited April 8, 2019 by 2017Darkness

1SLOW1500 · April 8, 2019

Need to zero out wheels first then tire. Back in the day the hunter 3000 was the only machine that did it but it measures the wheel and you.mark it then the tire so it knows where to mount t the tire best to off set the amount of weights. Also higher end tires are pre marked on the lowest spot with a yellow circle this is said to be there you set the valve steam or so I was told. The they need to be road force balanced. But I can tell they went way over on weights.

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Nitrousbird · April 8, 2019

I can't believe there are still places doing wheel balancing without a road force balancer.

Penguin VII · April 9, 2019

Appreciate the feedback everyone. It's good to hear that I wasn't crazy with my initial thoughts. She rides pretty smooth without any weights, so I'm pretty surprised that they used over 2lbs in weights.

I had this done on Friday, called on Saturday, still haven't heard back. Likely their service manager will get a little chat with me. I've got no issue with someone screwing up, life happens people aren't perfect. The fact that they didn't even try and solve the problem for me and haven't returned my calls is the part that annoys me.