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unbalanced tire

savan

savan

11B
Joined
Nov 10, 2011
Location
San Mateo
Moto(s)
Feisty red head 2004 MV Agusta Brutale 750s, Sold Back from the dead 2000 RC51, Sold 94 VFR 750
What happens if you ride on an unbalanced tire?
 
Depends on how fast you go. Any where from making a good tire bad to death.
 
also depends on how far off the balance is and the road surface u r on. ud be hard-pressed to feel 1/2oz off on city streets.
 
Navas said:
Rear
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The last 2 bikes I've bought didn't even come from the factory with weights on the rear wheel and no place I ever took my last bike to for a new rear tire ever added any. Dealers or otherwise. I've been told by many that it's not necessary on the rear.

I'd say don't worry about it, but my last two bikes haven't been sportbikes either. Still, the Triumph was sport-oriented (Sprint ST 1050) and I never had any issues riding it without the rear wheel being balanced whether I was pushing it or not. Same for my current BMW.
 
No weights on the last 4 sets I have changed on 4 separate bikes. Ran them up to 100mph with no wheel hop or anything noticeable. ZRX 1200, SV650, Monster, and another SV650.
 
I'm wondering about this too.

So, if you have your wheel balanced (with tire on it). Since the tire wears, wouldn't it get out of balance?

If the tire weight isn't significant, then couldn't the wheel weights just remain in their place during a tire change?

When my car tire is balanced, they put it into some machine. I don't see them putting weights on it. So I'm wondering how that can balance my wheel.
 
sv2007 said:
So, if you have your wheel balanced (with tire on it). Since the tire wears, wouldn't it get out of balance?
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That's what happened to the Continental Trail Attack tire on the front of my KTM. It took a bunch of weights to balance it properly (over 2 ounces) when it was new. But now that it has worn a bit, it's gone out of balance. I removed the weights and it's better than with them, but still obviously out of balance. The local moto shop says they'll re-balance it for me for $20 if I bring it in off of the bike. That's what I plan to do before I ride very far on the bike.
sv2007 said:
When my car tire is balanced, they put it into some machine. I don't see them putting weights on it. So I'm wondering how that can balance my wheel.
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For motorcycle tires, they stick a special axle through it and put it on a low friction balancing stand. The heavy side goes right to the bottom. They stick a weight at the top and repeat until the tire will stay in any position without rotating by itself. For cars, the machine tells them how much to put where. They put weights on, even if you don't see them do it.
 
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They eventually get out of balance as they wear. And no one notices.

I balanced tires for 4 years. If it was within 0.25 grams, we didn't put any weights on. No one ever came back to complain about the balance being off.
I had a number of people come back to complain about the tire not being balanced, only to put it on the balancer and have it read 0. There's a good chance if you think your tire's balance is causing problems, your bike has other issues.
 
sv2007 said:
I'm wondering about this too.

So, if you have your wheel balanced (with tire on it). Since the tire wears, wouldn't it get out of balance?

If the tire weight isn't significant, then couldn't the wheel weights just remain in their place during a tire change?

When my car tire is balanced, they put it into some machine. I don't see them putting weights on it. So I'm wondering how that can balance my wheel.
Click to expand...

ya, the balance prob changes a small amount as the tire wears. but its such a small amount that its hard to feel. and really, if your tire is wearing funny, ull feel that more than an imbalance.

the tire weight is significant. but now w/ modern tire manufacturing processes esp w/ sportbike tires, the amount that the tire itself is out of balance is not much. so really, ive seen people balance their wheels (rotors mounted) without a tire, then jus leave it at that.

an auto tire balancer is just a machine that measure the dynamic balance of the assembly by spinning it. sometime the machine says that the assembly doesnt need any extra weight. of course, the machines are not really more accurate than 1/2oz. balance a wheel/tire on the machine, remove it from the machine, put it back on the machine, and measure again... itll prob be off by 1/2oz. its also very dependent on how u centered the wheel on the machine.
 
Broken shift key?
stangmx13 said:
the tire weight is significant. but now w/ modern tire manufacturing processes esp w/ sportbike tires, the amount that the tire itself is out of balance is not much. so really, ive seen people balance their wheels (rotors mounted) without a tire, then jus leave it at that.
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I wish this worked for tires with tubes in them. I suspect that the tubes might be causing more of my balance problem than the tires. Either that or Continental tires tend to come quite a bit out of balance, because I needed lots of weights for both the Trail Attack and the TKC-80's.
 
An unbalanced wheel is usually not noticeable at speeds below 40mph. At higher speeds you will usually notice some hopping or vibration.

Every combination of tire + wheel is different. Sometimes they need weights to balance, sometimes not. Sometimes any pre-existing weights are in the right spot, sometimes not. I depend on the static balancing stand and gravity to tell the story.
 
if you're a mere mortal, you probably won't notice. everybody balances their tires. hardly anyone needs it.

you won't notice it all at street speeds, especially on crap pavement. if you do a lot of track days or are a racer, you probably will notice it at speed.

ymmv. some guy i know either purposely or accidentally did an experiment with tire weights. he had a really off tire and just didn't balance it. said he never noticed a difference until he was going fast enough to warrant a felony moving violation.
 
Balancing a tire is about the easiest thing you can do on a bike. Don't see why one would opt out of doing it.

Just use the axel and get a couple of bearings at the hardware store. Put the axel through the bearings and place them on a couple of buckets or cynderblocks. Let the tire quit rotating then tape wt /wts to the rim till it won't rotate when you re-position the tire then stick them to the rim. If more than one wt, suggest splitting them onto both sides of the rim; especially on the front.
 
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