BROWSE HOW TOs

How to Mount and Balance Car Tires

By eHow Cars Editor

Rate: (5 Ratings)

It's important to keep your tires well maintained and properly mounted and balanced; after all, it's those four small rubber patches that keep you grounded on the road. Mounting and balancing car tires requires special tools and an experienced technician to do the job right. Here are the basics of what's involved in mounting and balancing the tires on your car.

Flag Article

Instructions

Difficulty: Challenging

Things You’ll Need:

Bead breaker
Tire irons or mounting machine
Spin balance machine

Step1

Let the air out of the tire you wish to replace. To make quick work of this, get a tire stem removal tool.

Step2

Break the bead on the old tire with a bead breaker. Press just beyond the rim for maximum bead breaking leverage.

Step3

Make sure you select the right size tire for your rim. If this isn't right, nothing else will be either. Make sure to have a new valve stem put in as well.

Step4

Use tire irons or a mounting machine to put the tire on the rim. Be sure not to damage both rim and tire during the process. The mounting machine might be part of the spin balance machine, in which case follow the directions on the mounting machine.

Step5

Put the tire into the spin balance machine. Follow the manufacturer's directions and place the wheel weight where required. A spin balance machine is a large piece of equipment that can be found at any tire shop.

Step6

Properly inflate your tires. Consult your vehicle owner's manual for proper PSI inflation and check your tire pressure monthly to avoid an unsafe condition.

Step7

Consider getting an alignment. This will keep those new tires wearing evenly.

Comments

swopedesign said

Flag This Comment

on 10/3/2007 This article should be updated. For example, though a car may call for a 15" tire, all 15" tires are not correct for that car, although most will fit onto the wheel. Consider a pickup that calls for 265/75R16 tires. We could mount a low profile tire on that 16" wheel...it fits! But it's not correct. A careful edit of this article should do the trick!