Balancing & alignment - How often?

[Taco]

Good morning Almosters!

A question popped into my mind this morning after feeling a bit of vibration on the steering wheel.

How often do you all feel the need to get your balancing & alignment re-done? Do you start having vibration (and/or pulling to any direction) after every drive, or after every few drives, or almost never at all after going off-road? Of course, the question is under the assumption that you did not have any incidents while on the sand and no major potholes etc during on-road driving.

Cheers!

[presa]

When I was using 275/70/16 KO with stock FJ extreme rims, I got a lot of straight traction, but the tires rotate over the rims, making me need balancing every 3 (good) drives.

With geolanders I dont get the same straight traction, but my balancing is lasting much longer, like 10,000km (before was like 1,500km).

If you had a popout or something is worse, since you may have sand within the tires and they surely rotated from initial position.

[Taco]

When I was using 275/70/16 KO with stock FJ extreme rims, I got a lot of straight traction, but the tires rotate over the rims, making me need balancing every 3 (good) drives.

With geolanders I dont get the same straight traction, but my balancing is lasting much longer, like 10,000km (before was like 1,500km).

If you had a popout or something is worse, since you may have sand within the tires and they surely rotated from initial position.

Thanks for sharing your experience. I did not have a pop-out or any incidents off-road yet and I've only been to 2 drives so far. I do find it weird that such vibration started just after 2 drives but of course, this could have something to do with the unsuitability of my current set-up, which is the car's default, 18" rims with 265/60 terrible tyres.

I should most probably get the balancing checked after the next drive as anyhow I noticed that the valves are not aligned with the red dots on the side-walls so need to get the tyres re-fitted anyways...

[JockJKU]

When I was using 275/70/16 KO with stock FJ extreme rims, I got a lot of straight traction, but the tires rotate over the rims, making me need balancing every 3 (good) drives.

With geolanders I dont get the same straight traction, but my balancing is lasting much longer, like 10,000km (before was like 1,500km).

If you had a popout or something is worse, since you may have sand within the tires and they surely rotated from initial position.

Thanks for sharing your experience. I did not have a pop-out or any incidents off-road yet and I've only been to 2 drives so far. I do find it weird that such vibration started just after 2 drives but of course, this could have something to do with the unsuitability of my current set-up, which is the car's default, 18" rims with 265/60 terrible tyres.

I should most probably get the balancing checked after the next drive as anyhow I noticed that the valves are not aligned with the red dots on the side-walls so need to get the tyres re-fitted anyways...

it could just be as simple as a weight came loose and fell off.

i drive a jeep so get balanced when i get a new set of tyres and then don't bother after that! The ride in my jeep is so horrendous on road that a little gentle shaking is actually soothing!

[presa]

When I was using 275/70/16 KO with stock FJ extreme rims, I got a lot of straight traction, but the tires rotate over the rims, making me need balancing every 3 (good) drives.

With geolanders I dont get the same straight traction, but my balancing is lasting much longer, like 10,000km (before was like 1,500km).

If you had a popout or something is worse, since you may have sand within the tires and they surely rotated from initial position.

Thanks for sharing your experience. I did not have a pop-out or any incidents off-road yet and I've only been to 2 drives so far. I do find it weird that such vibration started just after 2 drives but of course, this could have something to do with the unsuitability of my current set-up, which is the car's default, 18" rims with 265/60 terrible tyres.

I should most probably get the balancing checked after the next drive as anyhow I noticed that the valves are not aligned with the red dots on the side-walls so need to get the tyres re-fitted anyways...

I was told here:
Mark with a pen a dot in the same place as the valve. If after a drive it moved means that the tire is rotating on the rim.

Aside from that is recommended to do balancing every 10k km :)

Or maybe, as Jock told, just a weight went loose.

[Taco]

it could just be as simple as a weight came loose and fell off.

i drive a jeep so get balanced when i get a new set of tyres and then don't bother after that! The ride in my jeep is so horrendous on road that a little gentle shaking is actually soothing!

Thanks for the feedback! I'm still used to the comfort and on-road driving experience of road oriented vehicles so the smallest noise or vibration annoys me + gets me worried that something is wrong. I guess I need to adjust my expectations and as [mention]alshamsi_m[/mention] suggests, just increase the music volume :)

I'll check to see if I can figure out if a weight simply came off, I'd expect there would be some discolouration or some sort of shade difference/mark etc where it used to be. If it keeps creeping me out I'll get the balancing re-checked and tires re-fitted to the rim after a couple more drives.

I was told here:
Mark with a pen a dot in the same place as the valve. If after a drive it moved means that the tire is rotating on the rim.

Aside from that is recommended to do balancing every 10k km :)

Or maybe, as Jock told, just a weight went loose.

I did come across a similar recommendation in the older posts actually, suggesting to mark the location of weights :) I'll do this for both the tire rotation over the rim and weight locations, just out of curiosity to see if anything changes.

It has only been about 2000km since the last balancing so unless something has gone wrong I should have plenty time till the next one. But in any case, I've zero expectations from my current set-up anyways, so I'd not be surprized...

[Booy]

I don't do balancing anymore - oval rims are difficult to balance grin

[Taco]

I don't do balancing anymore - oval rims are difficult to balance grin

Eliminate the possibility of a solution to disregard the problem, that's new for me secret laugh