Tire Balance For Special Trailer Tires And Wheels

Question:

You certainly can have your trailer tires fully balanced if you wish, but this is not essential. If you buy new tires for a set of rims, you can have them balanced. If you do balance trailer tires, remember that many trailer wheels are centered by the position of the lug bolts these wheels are lug-centric and not by the center bore of the wheel. To get the best tire balance for lug-centric wheels, you should have them balanced by a shop that uses a pin plate adapter. So illogical! All rims/wheels are centered by the lug-nuts. All hubs are sloppy enough to have play on any vehicle... ensuring the user can install the rim/wheel. So your statement indicated that the rim/wheel manufacturer quality or lack there of results in lug holse not concentric with the rim hub? How could the rim/wheel be manufactured without the hub as a reference? The wheel itself could be oblong if the center hub was not the true reference. The logic does not make sense.

asked by: Charlie

Expert Reply:

Tire balancing at many tire shops is done quickly and accurately with vehicle tires using a balancing machine that allows the operator to use the center hub for balancing. It centers the wheel by the hub and spins the tire allowing them to see where weights need to be added. This is possible based on the design of the wheel/rim and the tire.

Special trailer tires are made differently with a stiff sidewall because the tires are made to roll only straight and not turn on a pivoting axle like a vehicle tire. Because of this, trailer wheels don't normally have much of an offset or a need to balance the tires using weights. There is a high spot and a low spot on the tire that is indicated by dots. There is also a high and low spot of the trailer wheel with the low spot normally where the valve stem is. That is why you will often see a dot on the tire opposite the valve stem on new trailer tire combinations like you can see in the attached photo of a similar tire.

It is true that all wheels are held in place by the lugs whether vehicle or trailer, and the hub doesn't center the tire when installed, but vehicle tires are rarely balanced using the lug nuts and trailer tires absolutely must be because the hub center is not going to center the tire for balancing the way a vehicle wheel/rim is. A pin plate adapter is needed for the balancing machine according to all of the trailer tire manufacturers and not all tire stores have this adapter for their balancing machine.

expert reply by: Jason S