Wheel rim repairs itself?

[Dave Thomas]

Went to get front wheels balanced today at a small local garage, last time i went to Kwik-fit in town where the guy said one of the rims was out of"true" and had done his best but i would proberbly still get some steering wheel shake and i did.Today there was no mention of a rim out of "true" and it only cost £3 a wheel. Tried it out up to 75mph,( sorry officer i ment 50) and  not a twitch, so which explanation is it, has the rim repaired itself or, the guy at Sh##e-fit (as i now call it) could not do his job properly, i know which one my money would go on.

[Adrian Southgate]

I'll stand over em with a big stick until they do what they are told, even if its just as an experiment.

[Adrian Southgate]

And no retail tyre fitter will use them because they don't make any money on balancing.

Rip off britain?

I think next time I have a tyre done I'm going to fit it myself.

[Adrian Southgate]

My old BT transit I took it in for new tyres and the fitter never even spun them up, just put them back on, never had a moments bother with it. Evidently there are spots on the tyre to compensate for the valve, he said the trick was to get the dot next to or opposite the valve, cant remember which. As long as the rim is straight it won't need balancing.

It could be an old wives tale about the dot, but I know he never balanced those van rims.

[Adrian Southgate]

Local ATS mobile fitter did my new rims in the workshop in pairs.

1st pair perfect, 2nd pair all wobbly. Between the first pair and the second someone had done a steel rim and the weight indicators were still set for steels (edge mounted as opposed to sticky) He didn't notice at all, I had to point it out to him. Same fella did the spare, all the boys took the pi$$ out of him.

That being said the guys there are top blokes and let me use the four poster occasionally if its empty.

[Dave Adams]

if they only add weights to a wheel that already has weight on it they are a pig to balance, only stripping weights off and starting again will give good results.

[Big Vern]

Likely the nob end at sh##e-fit had no idea what he was doing. Were the weights in different places around the wheel rim?

Wheel would need to be seriously bent to be unbalance-able. The 17's on my MX5 are all comedy shapes but I still managed to balance them. Only really ever had trouble balancing Aston wheels - thery're so sensitive to small imbalaces.