I spent the money to get 4 additional rims, and 4 snow tires. Now, instead of paying the dealer to swap/balance my tires each time the season changes, I just swap the tires myself. But this is the first time I am swapping in my snow tires. They were balanced when I bought them and the rims, but now that I have them on, they seem unbalanced. Question is this - was I supposed to mark where each tire came from on my car, and then make sure I mount them on the same location (ie, right-rear, left-front)? In other words, is a tire's balance based on WHERE it is mounted on the car?
Just leave a day later or earlier. 600 miles is a 10 hour drive. Definitely doable in a day-especially if you have 1 driver. Also you don't need to start at 6 am - you can start at 9pm to avoid the weather. You can also stop halfway. Lots of options that don't involve tires/chains.
see any lead weights they should be you dont see any then they not always better to put the one with the bigest weight to the right rear. and you can get any tire store to balance and if you look real close you can see the way the studs are leanning or how they are wore down giving you a way to tel which side it was on if you hold them up beside car and look at the way the studs lean but on backwards it will pul l them out sometimes if they dont have studs they can go any where you want them. balance for wheel not where placement
Some tire shops do balance tires on the car. Most do not. With early radial tires, it was mandatory to remount the tires on the side they came off of. Not so much any more. I keep my tires on the same side when rotating or changing tires out. When you were moving them around, you may have knocked a weight off. Or depending on how they were stored, they may have developed a flat spot. The flat spot should work itself out as the tires flex from use. If the tires are out of balance, they will need to be rebalanced to correct the problem.
