I rotate my tires every 7500 miles. But I only get them rebalanced at this interval if I get my rotation done at my tire shop (both services are offered for free). When I don't want to deal with the long waits at my tire shop, I just rotate them myself and skip the balancing. Is this bad practice? How critical is it to have my wheels regularly rebalanced? Thanks
Unless they were balanced on the car (which no one really does anymore) rotating them shouldn't cause any problems. If you don't have any vibrations while driving I'd leave them alone.
Not critical at all. Unless they throw off a weight, the wheels should never need to be rebalanced until you get new tires. This business of constantly rebalancing the tires at every rotation simply results in more money in the hands of the tire shop & a not-insignificant probability that a correctly balanced wheel will be changed to an unbalanced wheel by an incompetent hack in the tire shop.
You've obviously never had Goodyear tires.
nate
The tire dealer I go to rotates every 5K miles. If I have any thoughts about balance they recheck that also. No cost. I stay with them because of the great service and also they come up with the best prices. Benifits of a small town. WW
You've obviously never had Goodyear tires.
nate
******** Have had, but never repeated. Even then, I found them better than BF Goodrich
The place I usually go (a somewhat national chain called Discount Tire) throws in free lifetime rotation and actually wants me to do this every 10k or so. Lifetime balancing is extra, but if they have to work on a tire they balance it; or if I tell them it feels like my hoss threw a shoe, they'll balance (and take a look at) a suspected problem tire at the same time. Part good customer service (tin general, they act as though they want my *future* business, a standout attitude in a world devoted to cost-minimizing the current transaction), part enlightened self-interest with respect to the warranty, I guess.
--Joe
I have used Discount Tire for years and like their products and service on the whole. I had two occasions where they rotated my tires and the discs warped within a month or so after they did it. (With Torqstix). The next time I went by, I asked them to do it manually with a torque wrench, which they gladly did. I feel better about it, and no warped discs this time.
Anyway, back to sort of the original question: Getting your tires balanced at 10 or 20 thousand instead of at every 5000-mile rotation is not like neglecting an oil change that long. If they're not displaying a vibration or a "shimmy" they're probably alright. (Spots of excessive wear in the tread can also be a symptom, but I guess that you have to ignore a lot of other symptoms before that one shows up!) A lot of people don't even do routine balancing, just when a tire is first installed or is repaired, or symptoms of imbalance show up.
Incidentally, it helps to know where your wheelweights are supposed to be (note that some of them can be on the inside of the rim). Ever notice how many wheelweights you find in the gutter? They all came from somewhere... A discreet mark made with a pencil or a magic marker, or a digital camera photo, can lend some weight (sorry...) to a suspicion that there is a vibration, or at least convince the tire shop that you suffer from obsessive compulsive maintenance disorder, possibly inspiring them to more-careful work.
--Joe
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