Wheel Balancing: Essential Far A Smooth Drive

For a better and smoother driving experience, it is necessary to maintain the tires and one of the aspects of maintenance is wheel balancing. The act of balancing the wheels has become more crucial today as the cars are being made lighter, in comparison to those made earlier. The heavier cars help in dampening the vibrations before the driver could feel them. Also, the technology in tires used these days is such that even the slightest imbalance can also be felt.
   
As the car becomes old, the wear and tear makes the tire imbalanced. The tires can be balanced by using various techniques and adequate tools. Few of the techniques are:

• Match mounting: This mainly involves mounting the assembly to match the high point locations marked on the tire and the radial run out spot. This is basically done to minimize the balance weight needed to correct the imbalance.
• Wheel weight placement: The wheel weight placements are design specific, i.e. it depends upon the design of the tire. Clip-on weights are used on the steel or alloy wheel. Mixed weights, i.e. combination of both clip-on and adhesives are used behind the face of the wheels. Adhesive weights are used for chrome wheels.
• Force Variance: This mainly refers to recovering a tire with inconsistent sidewall stiffness, by remounting it to optimal position.

 Various wheel balancing tools are:

• Computerized balancers: It can be a balancer pin plate kit, computerized wheel balancer, truck cone kit, automotive wheel balancer.
• Tire Changer: It can be basic tire changer or a high performance tire changer.
• Wheel weight hammer: It is useful for installing, removing and tightening the clip-on wheel weights.
• Tire Mounting Clamp: It is used for positioning the rim into the drop centre and also prevents the scratching or damaging of rims.
• Pneumatic wheel lift: It is used to mount wheels on most balancers without an effort. It is helpful as the risk of injury gets minimized.
• Wheel gauge balancer: It balances the wheels by measuring the pitch circle diameter. It also includes metric scale.
• Wheel Caliper: It is used to measure the width of wheels and rims during the balancing act.
• Portable bubble balancer: It is ideal for light-weight automobiles. One can carry it on the go.

All these tools and techniques are useful in balancing your wheels and help in making your journey comfortable.