Used Tires Online

Often wheel balance is confused with wheel alignment however the two are really very different issues.

Wheel balance is to do with each tire and rim assembly totally separate of the vehicle itself. I want to make this clear because often people think the car is out of balance rather than the wheel in isolation.

A wheel becoming out of balance is quite normal, for instance on day one when the tire is fitted to the wheel it is out of balance and needs to be balanced before placing on the vehicle. Balancing involves the wheel been spun on a machine and lead weights added to counteract any heavy or "out of balance" spots in the tire wheel assembly.

Often people think that the wheel balance machine needs to spin as fast as where the shake is happening on the vehicle however this is simply not true. It only needs to spin fast enough to detect where the out of balance point is.

Normally your front wheels are out of balance if your steering wheel is shaking and it could be one of your rear wheels if the whole car is shaking. We are talking about a high speed shake not a shake a low speed which could be a separated tire - if this is your problem you may want to read Car Shaking Causes and Resolutions