Changing my own tires
- Thread starter lBasket
- Start date
The dots indicate the light spot of the tire, as determined by the manufacturer, and should be aligned close to the heaviest spot of the wheel, which is where the valve stem is. Lately, tire manufacturers have stopped applying the paint marks for some reason, but some still do it. Some mark with a solid dot and a O mark. The O mark is to align with the valve stem.
Years ago I had a set of 31x10.5x15 Michelin LTXs mounted by a guy who didn't pay attention, didn't care or didn't know what those paint marks are for, and that shop never could get one tire balanced. I gave them 3 attempts, and I think they used up to a pound of weight at one point, but they just couldn't do it and wouldn't swap the tire for me, so I wrote them off. I took it to another shop with a good tire guy who simply knocked the weights off, dismounted the tire and remounted it with the dot lined up, then balanced it with about 2oz or less. I had questions, and he taught me about the paint marks.
If you find someone willing to do the work, most good tires can be mounted without needing added weight, but you usually windup moving the tire around a few times trying to find the sweet spot.
There can be two different color dots. Red and yellow. They mean different things. It's good to know if you have dots.
The red dot marks the highest point around the tire. The yellow dot marks the lightest point of the tire, and aligning this with the wheel’s heaviest point, often the valve stem, aids in achieving a balanced tire.
The red dot marks the highest point around the tire. The yellow dot marks the lightest point of the tire, and aligning this with the wheel’s heaviest point, often the valve stem, aids in achieving a balanced tire.
Ive seen the bubble balancer in action, it was very inconsistent.
Exactly. I have a couple of tires with high spots that I'm working with right now. I believe it's called radial runout. It's not bad, but the first thing to do is rotate the tire on the wheel 180* to see if it's the wheel or the tire. I suspect the tires, but I'll know more tomorrow when the wheel balancer guy comes over again (4th time). I really don't want to have to go get the tires shaved. If I do I want Mickey Thompson to pay for that.
That was the Harbor Freight balancer. My recollection is that we couldn't get the same readings twice ever. It would stay put right where you let go of the tire.
When I installed my Baja Bosses, I lined up the dot with the valve stems. They don’t need balancing.
@Apparition, btw, how the hell did you get so many posts?! 73,000+!!!! Dang man.
He travels a lot for work, and spends his "free" time posting here and digging up crazy shit on Youtube (and other places) that he then shares, here...
Ahhhh, have you ever visited the random memes thread, Jeremy?
Yeah, I asked him once what he did for a living because it appeared that he played on the forum all the time.
Actually, no! This is not my life, just my Jeep life. It’s Ryan’s life!
Yep this sucks already. Getting a tire off was like 40mins of figuring out what to do and 5 mins of doing it. Getting it on is hard and I got stuck I'll try again tomorrow 
Yep this sucks already. Getting a tire off was like 40mins of figuring out what to do and 5 mins of doing it. Getting it on is hard and I got stuck I'll try again tomorrow
I am now in for the entertainment … carry on.