I've searched & read for an hour, but haven't found exactly what I'm looking for. I bought my current truck in December 2012. 2nd day I owned it, I drove from Houston to Dallas, and I had to stop on the way to balance my tires. Since then, I've balanced every-other month because the vibration I get bugs the heck out of me. After each balance, I notice a difference, but there's always a slight vibration at certain speeds. Also, those certain speeds are different after each balance. I bought new tires in October 2013 because a couple different shops told me that my tires were old and worn to the point that they were too hard to balance. But even with these new tires I still have to balance too often IMO. My first set of tires were the Michelin "E" rated highway tires (the nice, expensive tires). My current set are the same size, 285/75/16, but I can't remember what they are. I know their a "D".

I'm starting to think my problem isn't with the tires, but rather with a rim, or a couple/few rims. Is it possible for my rims to be so far out of balance that it's affecting my ride? With a 16" rim and a 32" tire, I would think the rims would have to be pretty bad to throw its tire out of balance to the point that it's a problem, but I'm sure I'm wrong. Any thoughts?

 

Have you rotated the tires, and does that affect it any? Also, they may be out of round. A good tire shop can check rim straightness and 'road force variation'.

Art's Automotive, We Don't Just Install Tires -- Correcting For Road Force Variation and Lateral Force Pull.

Front wheel bearings ok?

 

Yup, I would have the tires road forced checked.

Also should rotate them every 3000 miles.

 

IDK about your fundamental issue but I'm a HUGE fan of dynamic balancing media. Specifically I prefer Dyna Beads, but there are others. Tire Balancing Products

I roll a set of 37" swampers, these suckers are notoriously hard to balance and not even round. But in the I think 5 years I've had them I've never had them balanced and never had a vibration from a tire balance issue.

 

With my 35"s I went to these and no issues.

Centramatic Wheel Balancer, Tire Balancers for DFW Trucks

 

I have the tires rotated every time that I have them balanced, but I never really paid enough attention to determine which wheel seemed to cause me the most problems. Now that I think about it, I think I have one rim that I typically get the "that wheel was hard to balance" comment. I'll pay attention to that the next time I'm in the shop. I went through the entire front end a couple weeks ago, and everything was in good shape. Those beads looked interesting, but the reviews I read weren't very convincing.

 

I drive 2500 miles per week in trucks. We have Equal installed in the tires, great stuff. When we put new tires on (each year), they just vacuum out the Equal and put into the new tire. Plus no wheel weights to lose, no parts to break.

 

VERY good information in that link.

Thanks!

Pop

 

I run military tires, use wheel weights (stick on inside of the wheel) and have no issues...

 

Never heard of equal before Neal. Good post, anybody use this in there pickup's?

 

That EQUAL is pretty interesting. Now does EQUAL eliminate tire rotations also or do you still have to do that?

 

We still rotate tires every 5K, once every two weeks ...What's real interesting is when you pick up mud on the rims (particularly the inner part of the rim). I had about an inch or two splattered all over one rim on the steer axle and you could not tell it was out of balance when I drove the truck. Equal absolutely works, it ran me about $16 a tire to use it (but it would be cheaper on smaller pickup truck sized tires...I believe about $8 a tire). But after the install, got 50K of serious highway driving on the tires and changed to new tires, they just vacuum it out of the old tire and dump it in the new tire. I also have it in my coach tires, 12r22.5 Toyo's.

 

Yup still gotta rotate, rotating is about tread wear, balancing doesn't remove the need for rotations but it sure as heck makes them last longer.

FWIW a while back I had to make the decision on how I was going to balance my tires. I did the research between all kinds of various dynamic balancing methods Dyna Beads, Equal, other brands, BBs, Airsoft pellets. water, etc. it's all been done. I landed on the beads cause what is used needs to be three things. Move/roll easy, very dense(heavy), and very hard/durable. Being a high density ceramic they are heavier and harder then other options, and the Equal is more of a powder which doesn't move/roll as easy.

My biggest worry is that over time they would beat themselves into a powder. A little while ago though I had to have a flat fixed this made us deal with the beads. They looked brand new, and scooped out very easy to go right back in after the repair.

Edit, biggest issue with inside tire balancing media is that it tends not to work as well on wide low profile tires, but yours are narrower then mine.