I got my tires changed recently and my mechanic said the back balanced up perfectly. In other words he didn't put any weights on the wheels. He says it's rare to see and I didn't think to ask him to show me on the balancer. My front balanced up a bit off and he put on one small weight.

What are the odds that a tire balances up perfectly?

I talked down this shop on price of tires and installation and I'm hoping they aren't tryint to teach me a lesson on who to bargain with... Thoughts?

P.S. I took rims off the bike myself and walked them into the shop rather than taking him the whole bike so I haven't had them back on the bike yet to ride on.

 

It's not completely weird to have a tire that balances true. Occasionally you get one.
Now if he said BOTH of them were spot-on, you might have a good argument!
If you've done business there before and reasonably trust the guy, I'd say it's OK.

 

yeah i wouldn't think that would be a very funny way of screwin with somebody

 

Happens a good bit actually, but seems to depend on the tires. I get many Pilot Powers that way and they mount up no problems and balance out nice. Sometimes, if they seem TOO heavy o one side, I'll rotate the tire around and then they balance with less, or no, weight. I did that yesterday on a set of Pilot Roads for a guy. The front seemed way out of whack, so I rotated it and it was good.

 

I neverbeleive that a rim and tireare perfectly balanced. The rim and tire are perfectly symetrical so they should balance equally, but you have the air stem on just one side of therim and nothing opposite of it. So if the rim and tire are perfectly symetrical, then you should only need a small weight on the opposite side of the stem. It won't through it off much, but I would test it myself. I do my tires on my own also.

 

Not sure about all manufacturers, but on Pirelli tires there is a speciffic mark on the tire to line up with the stem (it is NOT labeled). The mark is the label for the rubber compound (sc1, sc2 etc.). I never knew this until i was told by a Pirelli rep and i have since been lining up that mark with my stems every tire change. Since doing that i have found that around every third set of tires balances perfectly (i balance my own).
Just throwing this information out there for you. Not sure if it is relevant or not.
Is it the same bloke that put your last set on? are they the same make/model of tire? if so, you could have a similar scenario to mine. Or maybe you are just lucky?
If it were me (i'm abit neurotic) i would take it to another shop and pay the $5.00 to have it balanced (but then maybe those guys will lie to you too????!???) just for peace of mind.
This is exactly why i bought my own balancer

 

It does happen often. I worked in a tire shop for a number of years and worked on a lot of performance tires. Most good tires have some kind of mark on them that should be lined up with the valvestem. When woking on really nice stuff, you can take the time to turn the tire on the rim a little to get the least amount of weight to be added. And sometimes get one that doesn't need any which is great if you get one.

 

Ride the bike. If it's off balance, you'll feel it at higherfreeway speeds. If he balanced the front, he most likely balanced the rear too and it is possible to have a wheel/ tire assembly not needing any weights. The dot on the tire goes at the valve stem and is the lightest spot of the tire to compensate for the valve stem. Most tires have a heavy spot due to their manufacturing process and where the belts overlap. As far as balancers go, an electronic balancer is good enough bot not the best. It only balances down to 10 grams. A static balancer with really good bearings can get it as close as 1 or less (even perfectly balanced)grams like mine does. BTW, I made my own fairly cheap and it's very accurate; better than the electronic balancers. Check the DIY section for more info.

 

Took the bike out and got her up to speed with no vibration. Tire is perfectly balanced!

 

there ya go