This is a general automotive question, but is now becoming relevant as I am about to do my 10K service on my Gen III Prius V. I have frequently been told (on other cars) that balancing is essential when rotating. My question is, I fail to see how tires can come "out of balance" between rotations. I mean, if they're balanced before I take them off the car, how does putting them on a different axle affect their balance. I realize that the wheel hub might be out of balance, and that the tires might wear in such a way to compensate for this. Of course, balancing the wheels off the car wouldn't do anything to fix this. So, why should I balance them. On the empirical side, I recently rotated the tires on my wife's Honda Odyssey. Right after rotation, at least one was vibrating significantly at highway speeds. I then had them balanced and now it seems all is well. So I guess the question comes down to this. Should I balance at each rotation or just as needed?
Good idea. I wanted to add that the factory usually does a very good job of balancing. If they are OK and you have them rebalanced anyway they may end up with problems you don't have now.
Good points as I had thought about this myself. We normally get our tires from Sam's and get the road hazard warranty that includes tire balance and rotation. They check the balance each time they rotate. Do not know if they have ever adjusted a balance weight or not but remember seeing them put the tires in the balancing machine. I am rotating my wife's tires myself as they are the OEM that came with the car. I have not had a vibration or handling issue but had wondered about the need to balance. Makes sense to me that if you are not having a vibration or handling issue that there is no need to check the balance.
At my second free oil change at 15,000 miles, the head service rep came in the waiting room and said "did you know you still have your original factory wheel balance weights on, and that your wheels need to be balanced." I was like, Ummm YEAH I knew that. It only has 15,000 miles and it rides smooth as glass as evidenced from my gas mileage and none of the tires have been dismounted. He was like "well you need to get those factory wheel weights off there" like they had cooties or something and that "he" rebalanced at every rotation. I told him that's nice if he wants to do that on "his" but that I have never done or heard of doing that in my 37 years of driving. I also said this apparently was not an issue during the free 10,000 oil change and if the factory weight were a problem, they should be yanking them off and re-balancing when they take delivery from the factory. It was an obvious add on $$ service ploy but I took the opportunity to give him a hard time about it. I wasn't born yesterday. Now it's obviously not going to "hurt" to do this but why mess with it if it's not broken. Just another reason why I do all my own service and only take it in for stuff i cannot do myself. I know "everyone" is fishing for ways to make money but crap like this just makes me stay away more.
Moving a balanced wheel from one position to another will not cause it to become suddenly unbalanced. I vote for "just as needed." One exception, though, would be a case where the wheels are balanced on the car, therefore taking into account the balance of more than the wheel/tire. In this case, moving to another position might cause an out of balance condition.
Those weights are intended for transportation from the factory only. You really should get them replaced ASAP.
But it did hurt, it hurt the service rep because he didn't get his commission for selling you an unneeded service, it hurt the dealership by reducing their profit and it hurt your credit card company by not cycling more money through their system. Don't you feel guilty now? It did help you though, because you now know that if that guy's lips are moving there is a good chance he is lying.:cheer2:
LOL, That's pretty much what he implied. Great words to live by, not excluding preventative and normal maintenance of course. I'm surprised he didn't want to change the headlight fluid as well. Now I feel terrible. I think I'm going to cry.:Cry: OK forget that.
