Wheel Balancing & Alignment

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  • sahmed
    March 10, 2009 at 6:37 am #524

    Both the below processes will contribute towards the life of your tires and will help to ensure the safety of your occupants when travelling at high speeds.

    Wheel Alignment

    This process basically ensures that your wheels are perpendicular to the road and parallel to each other.
    Symptoms of misalignment – car drifts when travelling without steering input.

    It can be done manually, but this seldom results in a good alignment as manual alignment requires time and patience and possibly several rounds of on-road testing. Most roadside shops will not spend the required amount of time to achieve this.
    Approximate cost AED50

    If done via a computer, reflectors are attached to each wheel and the sensor readings fed into a computer that then recommends the amount of camber/caster/toe adjustments required to achieve perfect balance.
    Approximate cost AED150

    If misalignment has caused uneven wear of the thread, the tires will need to be rotated to even out the wear.

    Be warned that offroad driving will more than likely put your tires out of alignment.

    Wheel Balancing

    Due to the normal manufacture process and wear & tear of normal driving, tires are never exactly the same weight. If you include imperfections in the rim and differences in the weights of the hubs and lug nuts, the total weight variations between tires can be considerable. These variations are further magnified by the speed of travel.

    This is rectified by adding weights to each wheel.
    Symptoms of imbalance – steering shimmies (rocks left to right) when travelling without steering input.

    There are two basic methods: on car & off car.

    As stated, off car is where they take the wheel off the car and put it on a motorized spindle that spins the wheel and tells the operator how many mm the wheel is off from center.

    On car is where an optical device, akin to a camera flash, is attached to one wheel at a time, the wheel is jacked up and spun. While spinning, the light (also called a laser) is used to assess the balance of the wheel including the hub and lug nuts.
    Approximate cost AED165

    Driving offroad will not put your tires out of balance, unless a balancing weight is knocked off the rim.

    (Costs are based on what I have paid in Sharjah)

    roshan
    March 10, 2009 at 2:21 pm #10150

    Thanx bro … good info :thanks:

    mhmdyamout
    March 12, 2009 at 7:03 pm #10195
    quote Sahmed:

    Driving offroad will not put your tires out of balance, unless a balancing weight is knocked off the rim.

    says who??

    when ur deflated there is a chance of having ur rim spin inside the tyre, thus u need to rebalance.

    u dont believe it? get a marker, draw a straight line from the tyre to the rim, deflate to 12psi and drive for some time in the sand.. if you accelerate and brake at some high ratios, ur definately going t ofind the line on the rim is in one place and the rest of the line which is on the tyre in some other place.

    weird enough what i quoted u for was the only sentence i read in what u wrote..

    sahmed
    March 13, 2009 at 7:27 am #10196

    Yup, that’s absolutely right – the rim would spin inside the tyere putting it out of balance…. – never done it though but heard about it…

    I overlooked that.

    On a separate note, wouldn’t that cause problems with the valve stem getting misaligned vs the hole in the rim?

    mhmdyamout
    March 13, 2009 at 7:32 am #10197
    quote Sahmed:

    On a separate note, wouldn’t that cause problems with the valve stem getting misaligned vs the hole in the rim?

    shane, a small suggestion from a brother who woke up in a good mood today, its nice to know ur vehicle and its capabilities and its very good to have a variety of information onhand when it comes to what we do in the desert, but once u go waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay into details, it kinds kicks the fun out of it..

    try to pay less attention to minor details, focus on ur safety and absolute fun.

    my 2 fils.

    cheerz

    sahmed
    March 13, 2009 at 8:04 am #10198

    I just do this for the entertainment value B-)

    humsafar
    March 16, 2009 at 1:28 pm #10236

    No. shan valve sem cannot be misaligned, since we we are using the tubeless tyres and the valve stem will move with the rim and not with the tyre.

    sahmed
    March 16, 2009 at 1:38 pm #10238

    Cool.

    humsafar
    March 16, 2009 at 2:09 pm #10239
    quote Sahmed:

    Cool.

    whats the temperature????

    renegade
    March 17, 2009 at 10:54 am #10259
    quote humsafar:

    quote Sahmed:

    Cool.

    whats the temperature????

    :))

    DD
    March 17, 2009 at 12:00 pm #10261
    quote stanlyc7:

    quote humsafar:

    quote Sahmed:

    Cool.

    whats the temperature????

    :))

    u seems to b in a good mood hamsafar.. i liked it…

    n ur reminding me about some one…

    humsafar
    March 17, 2009 at 12:10 pm #10262

    well,

    Artificial Intellegence amlagamated with Artifical Smile

    Ahhhhhh!!!!!

    Suddenly I become Sad.

    No bonuss this weekend as well. Coz GM is on Official trip for week.

    More than me my Pathfinder is waiting for it.
    :((

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