o0norton0o
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- Joined
- Apr 27, 2015
- Messages
- 2,158
They suck..... and here's why. I had truck tires that had almost no mileage on them but they were 9 years old. I mounted them myself because tire places won't mount or even HS balance a tire if it's over 8 years old. (insurance thing they say, but they really want to make you buy new tires) So,... I mounted them myself by hand, but they were not well balanced. I used the balance beads and here's my results.
When your vehicle is stopped, your tire is not balanced. As the tire rolls, it moves the beads around and the beads work because you have dampers. Any shock to the wheel (and beads inside) is resisted by the damper. That resistance to the wheel movement can not resist the beads movement, so the beads move until the force is balanced.... That is the way the beads work. If you don't have good damping because of old shocks, the beads work less efficiently.
Next, Every time you hit a pot hole and your tire gets a shock to it, the balance is upset until the wheel has to roll forward a certain amount of rotations to reestablish the balance again. The more out of balance your tire is, the longer the tire has to roll to regain the balance. That means that your tire spends time out of balance from pot hole hits and every time you slow down to a crawl and beads settle to the bottom of the tire. If you have a tire that is really far out of balance, you can drive for miles before it settles down into balance from the beads (I know from experience)
In my own case, eventually I met a guy who has his own tire machine and high speed balancer and he agreed to unmount one side of my truck tires, suck out the beads, and high speed balance my truck tires. One of my 4 tires was 3.5 ounces out of balance and I believe that was the tire that made the balance beads a poor solution for balancing my tires. It was to the point where it was very noticeable how long it took for my tires to settle down and the ride to feel smooth....
Once I had high speed balanced tires, my truck always rides smoothly now because tires with high speed balancing with fixed weights are always in balance and don't need to roll forward to work the beads into a balanced position every time the tire stops and restarts.... The essence of it is that if your tire balance is already close, the tire will rebalance quicker than a tire that is more out of balance before adding any balance solution.
You have to wonder how balance beads work during hard braking? Do these thousands of beads that are moving forward and are fixed to the inside of the tire now go rocketing forward around the inside of the tire when you panic brake?? How is the tire balance maintained under heavy braking??
I wouldn't use balance beads after my own personal experience trying to make them work. A high speed balanced wheel is always better......
When your vehicle is stopped, your tire is not balanced. As the tire rolls, it moves the beads around and the beads work because you have dampers. Any shock to the wheel (and beads inside) is resisted by the damper. That resistance to the wheel movement can not resist the beads movement, so the beads move until the force is balanced.... That is the way the beads work. If you don't have good damping because of old shocks, the beads work less efficiently.
Next, Every time you hit a pot hole and your tire gets a shock to it, the balance is upset until the wheel has to roll forward a certain amount of rotations to reestablish the balance again. The more out of balance your tire is, the longer the tire has to roll to regain the balance. That means that your tire spends time out of balance from pot hole hits and every time you slow down to a crawl and beads settle to the bottom of the tire. If you have a tire that is really far out of balance, you can drive for miles before it settles down into balance from the beads (I know from experience)
In my own case, eventually I met a guy who has his own tire machine and high speed balancer and he agreed to unmount one side of my truck tires, suck out the beads, and high speed balance my truck tires. One of my 4 tires was 3.5 ounces out of balance and I believe that was the tire that made the balance beads a poor solution for balancing my tires. It was to the point where it was very noticeable how long it took for my tires to settle down and the ride to feel smooth....
Once I had high speed balanced tires, my truck always rides smoothly now because tires with high speed balancing with fixed weights are always in balance and don't need to roll forward to work the beads into a balanced position every time the tire stops and restarts.... The essence of it is that if your tire balance is already close, the tire will rebalance quicker than a tire that is more out of balance before adding any balance solution.
You have to wonder how balance beads work during hard braking? Do these thousands of beads that are moving forward and are fixed to the inside of the tire now go rocketing forward around the inside of the tire when you panic brake?? How is the tire balance maintained under heavy braking??
I wouldn't use balance beads after my own personal experience trying to make them work. A high speed balanced wheel is always better......
