How to Mount and Balance Car Tires
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.
- Difficulty:
- Challenging
Instructions
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1
Let the air out of the tire you wish to replace. To make quick work of this, get a tire stem removal tool.
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2
Break the bead on the old tire with a bead breaker. Press just beyond the rim for maximum bead breaking leverage.
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3
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.
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4
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.
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5
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.
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6
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.
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7
Consider getting an alignment. This will keep those new tires wearing evenly.
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Comments
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Matthew Lane
Oct 01, 2010
I totally agree with cheeseguy, too simplistic. I worked at a wheel/tire/audio/etc shop for over a year (just part time but still i learned the ropes) and this is WAY too simple. I understand that technically you should be trained or taught how to do it in person before attempting it on your own, but this makes it seem too easy. -
cheeseguy
Mar 03, 2009
Too simplistic. It's a hell of lot harder to break down and work a car tire over the rim, both taking it off and putting the new one back on, than this article alludes to. It also makes no mention of using a vegetable-based lubricant, such as Murphy's soap, for lubricating the bead during removal and installation and Teflon rim protectors to keep from screwing up the rim while using tire tools.
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swopedesign
Oct 03, 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!
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swopedesign
Oct 03, 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!
