all of the steel trailer rims I have mounted tires have some minor run-out in both directions. That is to say that the beads aren’t perfect parallel to the hub bore and the hub bore isn’t perfectly centered in the rim. So as you watch it spin, you can watch the edge of the rim move slightly back and forth and slightly up and down. The steel car/truck tires I have balanced did not do that. That’s what I means by straight and true. Be the beads are straight with the bore and bore center is true to the wheel’s center.

with a trailer rim that has run out in both directions the balancer can get it balanced for that orientation. Change the orientation and the balance will change due to the runout. So it’s not going to be a perfect balance, but usually from what I’ve seen, it will be out 0.25-0.50 oz at the most. So you’ve changed it from a 2 oz imbalance to a 0.5 oz imbalance which is a big improvement and worthwhile IMO.


I mounted some tires for our pop up years ago and didn’t balance them. Our shop Forman at the time would let me use the tire machine but wouldn’t let me use the balancer because using the weights is technically stealing. Can’t argue, so I just lined them up and put thousands of miles on them. Never felt a shake. Never saw any odd wear. Never wore out a bearing. It was fine.

years later I got new tires and mounted them and did a static balance (still a spin balance, just not a dynamic spin balance) and used my own stick on weight. When I spun them I could see the run out and saw that both out by around 2 oz. So I stuck on what it said and they read zero. So I turned them on the spindle and they didn’t read zero anymore. Close but not quite. Good enough and I took about 2 oz of imbalance out of them. And for a 12 inch tire at 70mph that’s a lot of force.

with that said, there is no difference towing it. And if a weight falls off I’ll never know it other than by seeing it.

my car trailer is very similar. I did the same static balance on those. The trailer still shakes at 45 mph because of the flexible frame. Feels like a tire that is out of balance but it’s just the frame going into a harmonic and you feel it when towing. No difference between the old tires that were not balanced and the new ones that are. But still, they all took around 2oz to balance. Trailer tires and rims just aren’t as good as car/truck because most people will never feel it.


balance them when you can is my thought. Campers especially. They break just by looking at them wrong so why make it worse with tires that are not balanced.

but as a driver, I doubt you’d ever feel it unless there is a really big imbalance (like a tire coming apart)

 

One of the tires on my camper was consistently higher PSI as viewed on the F-350's screen (Ford TPMS). All four tires started at the same PSI before I hit the road. I don't remember the exact number for how much higher but it was less than 10 PSI. Something about that prompted me to take it back to Discount Tire to have it rebalanced. They couldn't get it to balance right. After working on it a while they figured out that the rim was bent. New rim, same tire, no issue.

 

I get it, thanks for the additional explanation.

I do know we had an adapter for the balancer that would allow the wheel to be secured by the lug holes. Rarely ever used it.