ISO a good place to get tires balanced around Charlotte, NC

gray_penguin

gray_penguin

NAXJA Forum User
Location
charlotte nc
Do any of you in the Charlotte NC area have a reliable place to get some 9.50x30x15 tires on sock alum rims balanced? I have had horrible luck finding a place that does it right.

With my last set of tires I took them to place in Waxhaw. They charged me $25 per wheel, took 5hrs and they were worse then when I started. I did not had good luck at 4-wheel parts either, cost $20 per wheel and still not right. I then took them to a guy in Wilmington that did an amazing job and charged me $20 total, but he has since moved.

The set I have now I got from the guy in Wilmington and they were great for a year but now they need to be balanced again.
 
Jesus Christ! $25 PER WHEEL?! I don't pay that much per tire to swap a full set and rebalance. Around here you're looking at $10 - $20 for a full balance.

I wish you were closer so I could suggest a shop.

Also, why are you needing these balanced so often? Are you knocking weights off? I use stick-on weights that never go anywhere. Even when I have knocked weights off I don't notice a huge difference.
 
Find a shop that uses a Road Force balancer if you want the best possible outcome. A 30x9.50 should not be that difficult to balance. I run into balance issues with 33"s and larger where you have to switch to static balance or beads. 30" is well within normal tire size and should NOT be an issue unless you are running a cheap off brand Mud terrain using 1980s technology. A Road Force can tell you if there is an issue with the tire or rim that would keep it from balancing well.
 
The Hunter Road Force balancers will also allow the shop to match the high spot on a tire with the low spot of the rim. They can spin the tire to the best location on the rim that requires the smallest amount of weight.
 
PacificEd said:
The Hunter Road Force balancers will also allow the shop to match the high spot on a tire with the low spot of the rim. They can spin the tire to the best location on the rim that requires the smallest amount of weight.
Click to expand...


Yeah "spin balance". The technician won't be very happy though. Tough luck dude it's your job.

Once piece of advice... Tire monkeys will hate it but if you unobtrusively watch them from outside the bay, it forces them to not take shortcuts like only balancing the tires that are going on the front axle or just using the impact gun to torque wheels. Don't try to chat them up if they aren't willing and don't get right up and stare, but just spend your time outside enjoying sun/smoke/talk on the phone and keep an eye on things. Keeps everyone honest. The best tech will involve you and chat letting you know what he is doing and why.
 
Re: Re: ISO a good place to get tires balanced around Charlotte, NC

Lowrange2 said:
Jesus Christ! $25 PER WHEEL?!
Click to expand...

Not uncommon when you live in a city like some of us do. When I put those AT's on last year, Josh mounted them for me at the race shop and the only place open on a Sunday was a firestone. I paid $20 a tire just to balance them. That was with us pulling the truck up to the bay and unloading the tires for them too.

Big shops suck. Unless you buy them from a chain like discount. Then you get lifetime balance and roations.
 
UNCC_99XJ said:
Not uncommon when you live in a city like some of us do. When I put those AT's on last year, Josh mounted them for me at the race shop and the only place open on a Sunday was a firestone. I paid $20 a tire just to balance them. That was with us pulling the truck up to the bay and unloading the tires for them too.

Big shops suck. Unless you buy them from a chain like discount. Then you get lifetime balance and roations.
Click to expand...

This is one of the reasons why I like living in the bushes.
 
Yeah. The guy was struggling on one of them and didnt want to put forth much effort. He went to his manager and told him it wasn't going to work. I looked at him and the manager and said "I'm paying $80 for 10 minutes worth of balancing. Get it balanced."

There suddenly wasn't a problem after that
 
Lowrange2 - The last set I bought were from 4-Wheel Parts, their ProComp tires, but they were too busy to mount them for me. So, I took them to a guy near where I live. They are the ones that I had the trouble finding someone to balance correctly. The set I have now were good for about a year and now have started wobbling.

I have 295K miles on my jeep, maybe its about time to replace bushings again.

Cnickgo - Thanks for that tidbit of info, I guess I could call around and ask if they use road force balance equipment.

UNCC_99XJ - so you don't have anyone you trust to do a proper balance job either?
 
I have lifetime align and balance on all 3 of my Jeeps from Firestone. Best money I've ever spent...especially since I've had one of them for 15 years!

HOWEVER, running 31 x 10.5 x 15's on my trail rig, I was having a hard time keeping them balanced. I went to Walmart and bought some BBs and dropped 7-8 oz in each tire and pulled off the old lead weights. Made a very noticeable difference. If you have a big enough compressor at the house you can pull, deflate, pop a small part of the bead, fill with BBs, reinflate, and reinstall all 5 tires in a matter of an hour or so.
 
@Grey Penguin

I'll let you know when I find a good shop. I focus mostly on shops in the north side of Charlotte but it seems like most of these kinds of businesses are in the Southend. I'm actually at Autoworks Unlimited in Huntersville right now, so I'll ask them what kind of balancer they use.

What area of town are you in? I have Angie's list and usually use them and a combination of yelp to find reputable shops.

I haven't checked if there are discount tires down here but that's who I'd usually use.

And I've used stick on wheel weights before but went to the clamp ons. One shop I used to go to in Ohio had issues getting the stick-ons to balance properly and said the clamp ons are easier to balance.
 
Those Road Force machines are expensive and most shops will charge a premium price for this type of balance. Otherwise they will use the old standby Coats balancers.
 
Cottontail said:
I have lifetime align and balance on all 3 of my Jeeps from Firestone. Best money I've ever spent...especially since I've had one of them for 15 years!

HOWEVER, running 31 x 10.5 x 15's on my trail rig, I was having a hard time keeping them balanced. I went to Walmart and bought some BBs and dropped 7-8 oz in each tire and pulled off the old lead weights. Made a very noticeable difference. If you have a big enough compressor at the house you can pull, deflate, pop a small part of the bead, fill with BBs, reinflate, and reinstall all 5 tires in a matter of an hour or so.
Click to expand...

I went the BB route with the Coopers. I'll be doing it this way from now on.
 
gray_penguin said:
I found this link:
http://www.gsp9700.com/search/findgsp9700.cfm
That shows what shops use the Road Force machines.

The ones in my area (south charlotte) were both Firestone. They quoted $90 to run 4 tires on the Road Force machine and $51 on the other machines.

Goodyear quoted me $58

The least expensive place I found was $32
Click to expand...


The Goodyear is a lifetime balance.
 
Automotive Specialties in huntersville quoted me 9.50 per tire and 17 for a tire rotation. They don't have a roadforce balancer but they do have a laser balancer to match high spots on the tire with low spots on the rim (so they said). FYI for what it's worth.
 
So...$65 at the shop which would need to be redone every so often, or $8 at Walmart for a bottle of BBs?
 
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