Should You Double Check the Balance After Dealer Tire Installation?

[darrell]

Good video on the use of the Marc Parnes balancer. For 12 years I owned a NoMar tire changer and Marc Parnes balancer. A couple of years ago decided to no longer change my own tires so sold the equipment. One suggestion is to balance the rim without the tire mounted. You can do once by just marking the inside of the rim how many weights you need at that spot. Then mount your tire, balance again to find the heavy spot of the rim and tire together. Then rotate the light spot on the tire to the heavy part on the rim. Tires are so well made today you might find the only thing out of balance is the rim itself and leaving the weights on the rim will actually be very close to the weights you need added each time. If a little off permanently leave the rim balance weights and add 7 - 14 grams on another part of the rim to balance. I had a set of spoked rims for one of my R1150GSA bikes trued at Woody’s Wheels in Denver. I asked him to also balance the rim by tack welding weight to the inside which he did. Every tire I mounted after that required at most 7 grams. I never added any weights as 7 grams is such a small amount. Few dealers are willing to take the time to do this but if they did they might find they seldom need to add weights once they have balanced a rim one time.