tyres,which way round?.

Balancing on the vehicle would not compensate for any damage to the steering or suspension. As such components do not rotate the question of balancing is irrelevant. However the effects of a less than perfectly unbalanced wheel may be more obvious if there is steering/suspension damage or wear.

The advantage of balancing on the vehicle is that it is a way of enabling any imbalance of rotating parts other than the wheel/tyre to be treated without dismantling and balancing each individually. That imbalance may not be the result of damage sustained. Most rotating on-vehicle parts will be sufficiently closely balanced to normal commercial tolerances during manufacture to behave satisfactorily. Inevitably some will not and on-vehicle balancing is a way out. Replacing a wheel stud is one possible way of unbalancing a hub perfectly innocently.

The major disadvantage as previously mentioned is that the wheels/tyres are then potentially location and orientation specific.

We don't know the full story behind the reported 'cure'. Let's not jump to conclusions. It might just be the case of a less competant operative of the off-vehicle balancing or a faulty balancing machine.

We had the wheels balanced on our Discovery by one of the 'quick' tyre places and it stil shook at 70mph. When we had it in for some service work the garage suggested a place has a clamp that rather than holding it on the machine via the centre hole uses a clamp that fits on the wheel stud holes. They said sometimes the centre hole is not dead centre. Anyway, had it done and all signs of wobble have gone at any speed. Richard

I had a BMW 5 series (E39 model) and the only way to get a decent ride was to have the wheels balanced on-car, after they had been done off-car. If you fit a perfectly balanced wheel, then "trim" the weights to compensate for any other rotational imbalance. This is becoming mnore frequent on modern cars with lightweight ally suspensions, due to their being an insufficient mass within the suspension itself to provide a damping effect for rotational imbalance in hubs, driveshafts etc.

Indeed.

My BMW had bad vibes just after having had its rear wheels re-balanced, another garage's balancer showed an exact imbalance of 61grams in the same location relative to the added weights, on each wheel! On investigation, it transpired that the balancer in garage no.1 had a bow in the mounting shaft!! Badger.

On or around Thu, 21 Jul 2005 08:14:32 +0000 (UTC), "Badger" enlightened us thusly:

course, if they were doing the job properly, they'd balance the hubs, shafts etc. individually, then it wouldn't matter which bits are bolted on which car.

It wouldn't surprise me in the least, however, if some bright spark hasn't decided that it costs 20p less per car to resolve all the balancing into the wheel.

Quite. "This technique successfully cured an out of true wobble on a car I had which had been kerbed" - a car which has been 'kerbed' and needs wheels balanced 'on the vehicle' to bring it true has been 'damaged'.

erm.. yea, quite right.

Regards. Mark.