How can wheel balancing improve driving comfort? Why balance wheels on a car?

Why is proper wheel balancing so important and how much does it cost? Many drivers treat wheel balancing as a last resort. As long as nothing happens to them and they do not let us know that something is wrong with them, there is no point in moving them. Unfortunately, this is not the right approach to this important matter. While the service is inexpensive if you have chainstays or standard alloy wheels (a little over €1 each), drivers often only perform balancing when needed. Therefore, it is worth answering the questions posed at the beginning of the article and explain why tire balancing should be taken into account when operating a vehicle.

What is tire balancing? Causes of wheel imbalance

How does a perfectly balanced object behave? To visualize this, imagine a basketball player holding a ball on one finger while continuing to spin. Due to the fact that he caught it in the right place, the center of mass around the axis of rotation has not shifted and the ball can still rotate. Of course, this is not an ideal model, but it allows you to observe what balance is. It's the same with wheels. How to recognize an unbalanced wheel? The symptoms are primarily vibrations, especially at high rotational speeds, although this is not the rule. Achieving the perfect distribution of weight on the rim of the rim, the tire changer looks for the right place to insert or insert a weight that will maintain balance.

Wheel balancing and service price

As we mentioned earlier, the cost of such a process is not astronomical. However, this may depend on the material from which the discs are made and their size. However, usually a reasonable price for a steel disc is 1 euro. How much does it cost to change tires on aluminum rims? This is also a very symbolic amount - 15 zlotys. Do you also want to know how much wheel balancing on your car costs? All this will cost you about 40-6 euros. It's not scary, takes little time, and can help you drive more safely.

How to recognize unbalanced wheels? What should I pay attention to while driving?

The uneven weight distribution of the rim and tire results in vibration being transmitted to the vehicle body and steering system. It all depends on which wheels have a defect. If the incorrect wheel balance touches the front suspension axle, then when driving at higher speeds (for example, outside of built-up areas, on uneven surfaces or on highways), steering wheel tremor may occur. You will feel them on your hands. However, that's not all. A characteristic noise will also be heard near the tires, which increases with the speed at which you are moving. What about the rear axle?

Why does a car "suffer" with poorly balanced wheels?

If the problem lies in the rear discs, then it is quite difficult to expect noticeable vibrations on the steering wheel. However, when cornering, the rear can be “thrown”. As if the rear of the car did not keep up with the front and fell out of the arc. Why is that, because the weights that are stuck or nailed are not more than a dozen grams? This is due to the fact that the centrifugal force increases with the speed of the circular motion. It depends on speed and radius, so larger diameter discs are more prone to imbalance than smaller discs.

How to properly balance car wheels?

What are some ways to deal with vibrations? Primarily:

• static balancing;
• dynamic balancing;
• balancing of wheels.

There are two ways to perform this operation: static and dynamic. Static balancing consists in installing a rim with a tire on a spindle and checking its balance along one axis. If one side is underweight, it will go up and the overweight side will go down. In principle, it would then only be necessary to place a load of the appropriate mass on the underloaded side in order to balance the condition on the axle being measured. This procedure can only be performed on slightly unbalanced drives.

How does dynamic balancing work?

However, dynamic wheel balancing is more common. Here, the deviation is checked in several axes, so the wheel must be accelerated and pre-installed on a suitable machine that performs the measurement. The computer not only shows how underloaded the wheel is, but also indicates the exact location of the load. There is also another method called weighting.

Wheel balancing on a car - worth it or not?

Wheel balancing and balancing - differences

Explanation at the beginning - the wheel installed on the car will not be balanced, but balanced. Who cares? Well, the idea of ​​​​this process is to eliminate vibrations that are transmitted to the car due to poor weight distribution. This may not necessarily be a derivative of the rim itself, but, for example, the attachment point on the hub. The car accelerates on rollers, and the vulcanizer places weights to reduce vibrations. Everything would be fine, but wheel balancing will always be more effective than balancing. Dlaczego?

First, after removing the wheel and putting it back on, the vibrations may return. And then you will have to visit the vulcanization again. In addition, a large number of loads carries the risk of falling, which again leads to a deterioration in driving comfort. Balancing just masks the problem, and balancing is the real recipe.

What is the correct balancing of aluminum and steel wheels?

Disks must first be clean. Why? Stagnant dirt makes it difficult to assemble the weights and distorts the results. Therefore, a good vulcanizer will pay attention to the quality of the cleaning of the wheel and clean it if necessary. Another thing is to remove all the weights and check the quality of the rim. In the meantime, it is also worth taking a closer look at the condition of the hub, especially the surface adjacent to the rim and the mounting holes.

What should be remembered before wheel balancing?

If damage is excluded, it remains to install the wheel on a balancing machine and implement the appropriate weights. The whole process of wheel balancing is not complicated and even very simple, but you can make a lot of mistakes. These include, for example, not stripping the rim, leaving the weights, inaccurate tightening of the wheel on the car. All this is of great importance for the results obtained.

When is wheel balancing necessary?

They say that this process can be safely carried out every two years. This is true, but there are a few more conditions that need to be met. First of all: during this time, the distance traveled cannot exceed 10 kilometers. And it happens that we overcome such a distance every year or more often. Fitting new tires discs Wheel balancing is also required. Each entry into a deep recess in the roadway is also a reason for a routine inspection. As you can see, wheel balancing can make a big difference in driving comfort. Tire balancing from time to time will provide a sense of security and protect against problems during long trips. This is not a costly process, so it is even more worth doing.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much does wheel balancing cost in 2022?

The wheel balancing service on the vulcanizer costs about 6 euros. However, prices may vary depending on the location and reputation of the workshop.

What is wheel balancing?

Wheel balancing is a service that evenly distributes the weight of the rim and tire so that the total weight of the wheel, once fitted, is distributed around the center of rotation on the vehicle's axle.

How to check wheel balance?

Symptoms of wheel imbalance are: steering wheel vibration, especially at high speeds, uneven tire wear, hum and noise when driving.

When do you need to balance the wheels?

Wheel balancing is recommended every time the tire is removed from the rim - most often when replacing tires with winter or summer tires. You should also check the balance if there is steering wheel vibration, uneven tire wear or driving noise.