CoralDoc

I just got my rear wheels back after having new Bridgestone SO2 OEM tires fitted on my OEM rims. There appears to be a LOT of stick-on lead on one of the rims. I know that you can sometimes rotate the tire on the rim to find the place that requires the least amount of balance weight, but I don't want to hassle my tire tech unless I should. So, how much is too much?

Ryephile

when it comes to balancing weights, less is better. If the wheel/tire combo are inherently balanced, the handling will be more predictable. If you have a small weight, losing it will not destroy the smoothness. If your old S-02's didnt have much stick-on lead, then the new ones shouldn't be too much different. Perhaps you got bad examples, or the shops balancer is off. It's not a big deal really, I'm just being ideal. As long as the tire is smooth going down the highway, you're fine.

Schatten

yes, you can request that the tire be moved around. It doesn't take long at all - just break the bead and turn it a bit. However, what I do worry about is excessive weight that is counter-balanced: where you have two weights in separate parts on one side of the wheel. That means they just didn't get it right.

shingles

Try looking up a local tire dealer that has one of these:
Hunter GSP9700

http://209.176.154.132/

What I've noticed is that when I've had balancing done on this machine there seems to be less weights used over all as it matches the mount points of the tires and the wheels(I can't explain it as well as the web site).

The Discount Tires by my works had this. It definately was a much better balancing machine as it was even able to tell that one of my rims was bent slightly(which I knew because I had it repaired). The end result was a MUCH smoother ride as well.

-S

CoralDoc

Thanks for the feedback. The Honda dealer that I used does indeed have the fancy Hunter GSP9700 machine. One of the wheels is balanced like Schatten mentioned - more lead (42g) is placed at one location and then a little (7g) is placed about 100 deg. around the rim. Also, in the past, my wheels balanced out with 40g or less stick on weight. This time 84g (3 oz.) was used on the other rim. I need to have the car aligned soon, so I'll talk with the techs about this when I go in either later this week on next week.

Happy New Year everyone!