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Wheel Balancing. Weights vs Beads

actionplus

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I am getting a set of new rims. (35s on 17" Covert). The tire place said they will be using beads. I am not familiar with these. All I know till yesterday was weights.

Anyone used these beads?
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TOL JEEPER

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Yep! My shop used balancing beads when installing my 35's, too.
They are little glass or ceramic beads that sort of resemble little BB's. The tech throws them inside the tires while mounting and they find their place using centrifugal force as the tire rotates to keep them balanced.
After 12,000 miles I can tell you that I don't have any issues at all.
 

WhereRU_A-A-Ron

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I’ve never heard of these until now. Very interesting!
 

MichaelAnthony

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I can give some advice on different styles of beads out there. I have been using them for years, the ones I picked up this time were stainless beads for my 37" and bead locks. They are not a good idea they are small beads and get caught up inside the valve stems. I would use the ceramic or glass that I have used in the past. Although they do break down and they do cause some residual dust inside the tire. I do like them more than using regular stick on weights. Sometimes with larger tires you can lose a chunk of tire do to several reasons, sometimes if you would have stick ons you would need to rebalance, with beads no worries because the beads will relocate to a different part of the tire. I like them a lot. next time I am going to try and use the plastic air soft beads. I will update after use.
 

Redbaron73

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I have been using beads in my trucks for years. We always start with a good weight balance then add the beads.

Most weight shops will say you can't do that, the beads will ruin the weight and they fight each other.

That defies logic and defies physics. If a wheel tire combo is in perfect balance, then the beads will evenly spread.

If an imperfection of balance exists then beads collect there to offset the imperfections.


If the beads are enough, then a tire machine will zero out. If the beads are not enough, that will be trouble for the tire machine. So what I do, is weight balance when tire is first mounted, then add beads and never weight balance again.

Currently running my 37s bfg ko2/at with this combo. I had the road force done with new wheel tire combo with just weights, then added beads and had them run it again on 1 tire just to prove theory to the tire guy. Don't think he is convinced, but proof was in front of his eyes.
 

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Arrowhead

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Hate em, dumbest thing ever. I'll never allow them in my tires again. They have to rebalance everytime you take off from a stop, and if your in mid turn they can be lopsided and wobble the steering wheel until you get up to speed. I'll take stick ons thank you.
 

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Personally, I've found that it's the tire shops that lack the higher quality balance machines that insist on using beads.
 

Friday2322

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I had beads in the Fierce 35's I used to run for over 50k miles and never had an issue. I would think that one of our off-road trips would have knocked a tire with weights out of balance but I never experienced a shimmy, shake or wobble from 0-85 mph.
 

Kurt0

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Adv Motorbike riders have been doing this for years so that trail side tire repairs still ride afterwords.

it works, and works awesome. Once you get past the normalcy bias of it being weird, you’ll never go back to sticking weights on your wheels.
 

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I had beads in the past and if I go for bigger tires I will probably go for beads again. Beads have to be specialy made for this and not just some bearings you throw in it otherwise they don't work well and are too big and don't equalise the weight properly. The beads made for this are super small (tiny almost like sand) and you need a special Valve fitted (it has a filter screen to prevent beads from getting in the valve and out).

I found the advantage of beads is as your tire wears out, the beads will automatically adjust to the wear and deformation of your tire/belt so even for half worn out tires you would still be in balance when rotating. Obviously, the bad side is they don't work at a few miles an hour and you need at least a minimum speed but the beads I used in the past you couldn't feel the fact they did not work at low speed,. I think the speed at which they start working is so low its irrelevant like they started working around 20km/h or close to that.

I personally prefer beads and I had the problem of uneven wear tires on my pickup and 35's and because of that had to rebalance halfway into the tire life which with the beads I know I wouldn't have had to do because I used the beads on BIas tires in the past and those wore out unevenly naturally yet were still balanced with the beads at speeds. you have to make sure the shop uses the correct amount of beadsfor them to work properly too, the Beads I used were from Frisby Tires in canada and I used 2 bead bags per tire for 35's. Don't remember how many ounces the bags were though would need to research.
 

Redbaron73

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I use counteract beads. They have great support and a full line of product.
 

JasonInDLH

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I’m feeling better with my purchase of beads after reading all your positive experiences. I’ll be interested to see what happens at low speeds while turning as @Arrowhead mentioned. I will be running the beads in 35x12.5 BFGoodrich Mud Terrain KM3’s.
 
 



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