Hello, recently bought new 33 in wildpeak m/t's and was wondering if balancing was necessary. The reasons that I think it might not be is I have heard from one YouTuber (Ronny Dahl) that when he airs down and hits the trail that the tire actually spins on the rim just a little, so with the weights on the wheel will just cause the tire to become even more unbalanced. And other YouTuber Nate with dirt lifestyle does not balance his wheel because he doesn't notice a difference. Just looking for so extra information and opinions.

Thanks

 

Should you balance? Yes. Can you spin the tire on the wheel? Yes. Does it happen often for this crowd? No. You've got to really be in a pinch to spin the tire on the wheel.

That being said- I've had tires balanced and sometimes they take very little weight. I've also rode around without balancing the tires, moreso because I was too cheap to pay the addinasking price than anything. So while you can get away with it, it's best to bite the bullet and balance. They should also be periodically re-balanced if you notice shimmys.

 

yup as above. I have never had a tire spin on the rim and I run 12-15psi. I suppose if it were lower it could happen but rare. unbalanced tires can cause bearings to wear and other issues as well as messed up tire wear.

 

If you don't balance, driving at 50mph or higher for extended distances can be real uncomfortable.

 

Keep in mind....not sure Nate is racking up a lot of pavement miles on his jeep, and that is where you're gonna notice it. My tires are up/down a lot. To me, it's worth balancing from the start, but I'm not a "they have to be balanced every 5k miles" person. That said, if you feel something that gets out of balance, you should address it again. On most my ordinary vehicles I'm balancing every time they go in for a tire rotation just cuz it's not extra work and it's included, but the jeep is a different ball game.

 

Agree with the above. If you spend any time driving on highways (speed) f you don't keep your tires balance your tires could get cupped and ruined pretty quickly.

 

Okay I'm going to go against the pack here and say... it's not necessary immediately after getting a new set of quality tires.

My 37" Maxxis on Method beadlocks didn't require any balancing for almost 2 years, 18,000 miles, and 7 wheeling trips (phew, work has been crazy... I need to get out more). I mounted them in my garage and drove them up to 95 MPH for a while with absolutely zero shimmy, except for the typical 45-50mph JK shake. I think wheeling on the rocks finally took enough tread off from somewhere unevenly for me to get them balanced. However, they still really didn't require it, I only got a slight shake above 85. If i kept it under 80, it was perfect.

YMMV.

 

Has anybody here tried balancing beads and if so did they work well or were they a waste of money?

 

Our company used them in on delivery trucks.. they worked... 1 issue .. occasionally a bead would get stuck in the valve and cause a slow leak.. You must get the correct size bag of beads for the tire size; cost was about $16 per tire. Flats required plug patch so the tire had to be dismounted .. Beads lost .. another bag.

 

Everyone that I've known that tried them didn't care for them.....but these were mainly people with 37+ tires and beadlocks. From what I saw, they mainly stuck to the inside of the tire then they warmed up and were more of a hassle than they were worth. Unless you have some rare situation where a tire store won't touch your stuff, it sure seems like traditional weights have always been the way to go. Sure, from time to time you might lose one, but easy enough to get balanced again. I looked at those closely when I moved to beadlocks due to lack of shops that will balance them, but I finally found a little performance shop that didn't mind so stuck with the traditional method in the long run.