Balancing Beads vs Traditional Balancing Weights

[JasonInDLH]

I just recently order new Tire/wheel combination and one of the choices (through CustomWheelOffset.com) was “Balancing Beads” or “Balancing Weights.” The Beads sounded like a good option, so I chose that without much consideration.

Upon further research it sounds like I made a good choice.

Anyone have any experience with the Beads (pros/cons)?

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[DOOKEY]

Balance beads are tricky. You read pros and cons and there never seems to be a middle ground. Why? Lack of info. I've heard it many times. They are either the best thing ever or the biggest waste of money. I believe people fall into a trap when looking at a chart to pick their required weight.

The charts lie.

I have personally experienced many different wheel and tire combos that require zero OZ's of weight to balance. So what happens when the chart says you need 10oz's of weight to balance your combo? The media has to offset itself. Which isn't a fun situation.

Wheels and tires are out of round. So you need to balance them. We all believe that. But no 2 combos are the same. You can mount up 5 wheel and tire combos and get 5 different weight requirements. Why? Because wheels and tires aren't perfect.

If you have a combo that is so far out of round there is nothing you can do to balance it. I also believe that people get trapped into a false sense of balance when the tire monkey puts the combo on their machine and gets it to read 0.

You have to start with the out of round nature of a wheel and a tire. Years ago wheels and tires were balanced using a bubble balancer. You place your combo on the bubble balancer and you'll see one side is usually closer to the ground than the other side. I call that the heavy side because that is the direction the combo is out of balance.

If you get the heavy side of the tire on the heavy side of the wheel you'll have a difficult time getting the combo to balance. That's why road force balancers were created. You can measure what's going on and adjust the tire on the wheel to get the least amount of hop in the combo.

Then you balance.

In my opinion, that step has to happen for balance media to have a chance at being right. Once you find out how to mount the tire on the wheel you need to put the combo on a bubble balancer to see how much weight you need. You put weight out at the tread and however much it takes to bring the combo level is how much goes inside the tire.

I'm a big fan of media. Especially when we go chunk tread off road. The media will move around and help you out. I feel like installing media correctly is a bunch of work. Mount them up just to measure then tear them down again to install. Not a lot of people like going that distance to get it right. If you're one of those people... pay to have them balanced traditionally with stick on weights.

 

[JimLee]

Beads do nothing for run out or lateral balancing problems. That being said I have beads in the 37's I've mounted on beadlocks, ill have to see when I get them installed if they will work or not. If not, like @DOOKEY stated above I might have to chase the mounting position to get them to work, if that doesn't work I'll take them and have them spun to see if I have any wheel runout or lateral imbalance. Beads seem to work great, under the conditions that they will work in, but they certainly aren't just a dump em in magic solution.

 

[JustDave]

I used them once trying to solve a wobble problem. They did nothing. Ended up taking them out & getting all 4 rebalanced. Hope they work for you.

 

[JasonInDLH]

I used them once trying to solve a wobble problem. They did nothing. Ended up taking them out & getting all 4 rebalanced. Hope they work for you.

I still have my fingers crossed. I have the wheels and tires…just waiting on the Jeep now! Can’t wait to try them out!

 

[Some Random Guy]

Mine work great in my 39’s. As @JimLee said they aren’t magic. If I corner like a race car they immediately get out of balance and I get quite the shake. Sometimes they need a second to redistribute too, so I’ll feel a vibration that immediately smoothes out. 600 miles in and no regrets yet. I might have to rebuild a wheel/tire, it’s got a slow leak. That might suck vacuuming them out.

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