I'm confused - but I have an appointment tomorrow for tires to be mounted
- and - I'm confused which two of the four dots should line up:
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Both documents below say US wheel manufacturers and tire manufacturers are *required* to mark the "low spot" and "high spot" respectively.
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On the back of my stock 16" BMW (BBS) rims, is this nick painted white, which I presume is the marked "low spot" (which, you may notice, is not at the valve stem):
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Yet, on the tires, I see both a red dot and a yellow dot! RED = (apparently the) high point of radial runout on the tire YELLOW = (apparently the) light point (with respect to balance) on the tire
So, that makes FOUR separate spots, two on the wheel and two on the tire:
Wheel valve stem
Wheel white nick (presumably that's the low spot
Tire red dot (presumably that's the high spot)
Tire yellow dot (presumably that's the light point)
OK. Now what should I tell the installer to line up?
Q1: What two spots (of those four) should line up? Q2: Should they remove all these weights first?
- and - I'm confused which two of the four dots should line up: http://i43 .tinypic.com/dcfrea.jpg Both documents below say US wheel manufacturers and tire manufacturers are *required* to mark the "low spot" and "high spot" r espectively.
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On the back of my stoc k 16" BMW (BBS) rims, is this nick painted white, which I presume is the ma rked "low spot" (which, you may notice, is not at the valve stem):
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Yet, on the tires, I see both a red dot and a ye llow dot! RED = (apparently the) high point of radial runout on the tire YELLOW = (apparently the) light point (with respect to balance) on the ti re So, that makes FOUR separate spots, two on the wheel and two on the tire : 1. Wheel valve stem 2. Wheel white nick (presumably that's the low spot 3 . Tire red dot (presumably that's the high spot) 4. Tire yellow dot (presum ably that's the light point) OK. Now what should I tell the installer to li ne up? Q1: What two spots (of those four) should line up? Q2: Should they r emove all these weights first?
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If this will be done by a tire shop, they should know what to do!!!
The problem is they don't care - and - if I don't tell them what to do, they won't do it.
Proof is that they torque all cars to 100 foot pounds (just ask them); and they put in the same air pressure in all four tires (BMW doesn't spec it that way); and the alignment shops don't add 500 pounds of weight (BMW does spec it that way); and they rotate the tires (BMW doesn't spec out a rotation), etc.
Point is, the guy installing tires, in my humble experience, may or may not know how.
Sure, you'd *think* they'd know - but - I've asked them in the past and had to show them articles on how to mount them - but I've never seen both the red dot and the yellow dot on the same tire nor the valve stem not being the corresponding spot on the wheels.
So, in summary - the tire installers do *not* care about properly installing tires (just like the alignment guys don't add the required 500 pounds of weight,
150 in the driver seat, 150 in the passenger seat, 150 in the back seat, and
50 in the rear (plus a full tank of gas, new'ish tires, and proper air pressure).
They don't care. So, we must be armed beforehand with the knowledge.
Hi. You drive BMW and not going to the dealer? And how come you go to a tire shop you don't trust? My friend has a year old M5, all service is does by local dealer always Period. My kid drives late Subaru WRX STI very souped up one. He only goes to tuner shop for any service. If the shop screw up their reputation is at stake. Once they did a fuel line work and when son came home I noticed fuel leak in the garage(one O ring was not properly seated) When phoned they sent flat bed tow truck, they did not want the car to be driven for fear of fire.
They redid the work with no charge and profuse apology for inconvenience caused. After all they are the one who tuned the car top to bottom including set of summer and winter tires.
If you don't want to take your BMW to a tire shop you can't trust then you should drive something like CBMWs are very precision machine that is why they are expensive. Me? I just drive Acura which the dealer does all the schedule routine maintenance. Never had any problem.
If I want BMW I'd lease one and beat the hell out of it and return it when lease is up. That's best way to drive a car like that. Keeping it long and in shape, it is pouring resources to bottomless can..... New ones are not like old ones either. Tried Bimmer user forum?
What kind of stereotype is that? A BMW is just a car.
And, ummmm... you know what they call the dealer? Hint: It starts with "st".
Only a moron goes to the dealer, and even then, only because it makes that moron feel better to pay more. They love to brag how they go to the (st)...ealer for all their maintenance. It makes *them* feel important.
I've *never* found a tire shop I could trust. They *all* torque the lug bolts to the same for all cars. They *all* use air tools (for speed) and only check torque after the fact (when the bolts no longer turn, which means it's too late). They *all* put the same tire pressure in all four tires. None of them match mount unless you force them to. etc.
Your friend is spending far more money than most people for far less service. But, the coffee is free, the lounge air conditioned, and the service manager all smiles!
Ummmm... why not just answer the question? If you don't know the answer to the question, that's OK, but, why not just say so?
I won't say what I'm thinking! :)
A BMW is simply a car. Are you falling for all the marketing braggadocio? It's a nice handling car. But, it's just a car. There's nothing special about it (except the marketing is fantastic. It has people *thinking* it's special). That's a great feat - but - for those who understand it (I bought mine new), it's just a car. Like any other car.
Specifically, it has wheels. Like any other car has wheels.
The question remains: Does *anyone* on this newsgroup actually know how to properly mount a tire with respect to the dots?
I've read the articles - but it's confusing when there is both a red dot and a yellow dot. I'm hoping I'm not the only one on this planet who thinks about this stuff ahead of time.
The only difference with bimmer wheels and normal car wheels is most cages have steel and most (all?) BMWs have (BBS) aluminum wheels.
Which means it's even more important to get it right.
Unfortunately, almost nobody here knows how to mount tires so they blindly trust the tire shops who don't give a chit.
Since nobody is watching the henhouse, they take you for the ride.
I doubt anyone on this ng knows how to mount tires properly, unless they've been trained as a tire professional. And, if they are, they'll tell you that 90% of all tires are put on incorrectly. That's a fact.
The proof is as simple as asking a tire shop the same question you are asking here. You'll get 20 different answers, none of them right.
BTW, you really need a beemer group, not a bimmer group since the beemer guys mount their own tires.
Those dots are unscientific and meaningless. Get your tires balanced by a shop that does road force balancing. The operator won't pay any attention to the dots. If he's good, you'll be good. If not, take it back.
I don't disagree that road force balancing is best, but, how many shops have you seen who spin the rim against a separate wheel before mounting the tire on the rim?
I don't recall the specifics of what to do with each dot but my thoughts are that the dot(s) on the rim is nearly meaningless if the car has been driven more then 15,000 miles on normal roads. Esp the "low spot" dot. It may have been the low spot before the rim was banged around for 15K + miles but whether it's the low spot anymore seems like a crapshoot. If the rims have any road rash, ditto for the "light spot". Of the two, if I was going to attempt to use the spots, I'd use the low spot dot and match it to the tires high spot dot. But instead of telling the shop to "match these two different colored dots" I would get a big yellow grease pencil and just draw a big yellow line on the inside sidewall of the tire and a big yellow line on the inside of the rim where those dots are and ask that they line up those lines when they mount the tire. Most of the shops I've been to would pull that big rim weight off first thing. Those little stick on weights they might leave on till they see how it spins in the balance machine. You have the option of just scraping them off yourself of asking them to before the start balancing it. That's kind of a hard call not knowing if those weights were there mostly because the previous set of tires needed them or if they are there because the rim needed them. I tend to think that BMW would expect the naked rims to be pretty well balanced when new so I'd be inclined to scrape them all off myself before taking them to the shop just so they won't be tempted to leave em one and balance them out with even more weight.
With road force balancing the procedure is to turn the tire on the rim it's mounted on, to where the least weight has to be used to strike the balance. Whether the guy knows how to do it properly, or wants to do it properly instead of just using more weights is unknown. You just can't control everything, so get used to it. The dots are manufacturing QC only, to minimize bad batches, and nobody properly balancing tires pays any attention to the tire dots, because the rims may have a different balance point. And that could be at a point other than the valve stem. It's a crap shoot. So just pick a good balancing shop. If you feel bad vibes, take it back and have them redo it. Usually it's good the first time, but I've had to take my vehicles back a couple times. They rebalanced the problem wheels at no extra cost.
blue bmw wrote in news:ks00t1$41f$ snipped-for-privacy@news.albasani.net:
Only a moron buys a bmw because it make him feel better to pay more for an overpriced POS. BMWs isn.t what they used to be. If you wanted something decent you should have gotten at least an MB C250.
Eh? Two completely different cars. BMW (at least up until a couple years ago) was for people who liked to drive, a MB was for people who just want a more "upscale" car. (in quotes because they're upscale in the US, but not necessarily everywhere else in the world.)
Unfortunately from what I hear the new 3 series is not as engaging to drive as the old one, but I haven't driven one myself yet...
blue bmw wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@is.invalid:
Those dots are a /starting point only/. The theory is that by, for instance, matching the low spot on the rim with the high spot on the tire it will be easier to mount the tire so as to spin smoothly. This is necessary before starting the balancing procedure.
In practice, an aftermarket tire installer will often not have the rim's dots available, and will mount the tire as his personal preference dictates. He will spin the bare wheel, making sure it's actually in-spec for that automaker. He will find the low spot(s) on the rim by eye. He may try matching the high spot on the tire with the low spot he found on the rim. He may try the light spot on the tire opposite the valve stem.
Either way, the idea is to get the tire to spin smoothly before balancing. "Smoothly" means that, as the tire is spun, the tread does not hop up and down or squirm from side to side. As a proxy for that, many tire installers will observe the rubber ridges on the tire that sit immediately outboard of the rims. If this ridge is perfectly even all the way around relative to the rim, he will consider the tire to be mounted properly. To me, having that ridge sit evenly should be backed up by actually studying the tread as the tire spins. This means lifting the machine's guard and spinning the tire slowly while watching the tread. If the tread hops or squirms, then there will be vibration or harshness on the road even if the balance appears to be perfect.
If the tire won't spin smoothly no matter what, then the installer will turn the tire 180 degrees and try again. And then move it again.
THIS IS ASSUMING THE TIRE INSTALLER KNOWS TO DO THIS! A lot of cheapo shops will simply throw the tire on the rim, balance, and be done with it. Little or no checking or matching of any kind.
Proper mounting requires proper tire lubricant. Some aftermarket shops will use inferior substitutes, such as soap-and-water. These will impart an unacceptable level of friction between tire and rim, and prevent the tire from popping in place all the way. This will result in a tread that hops and squirms.
Sometimes drive-tires will rotate on the rim before all the tire lubricant has a chance to squeeze out. To detect this, a chalk or grease-pencil mark should be placed on the tire and rim. If the client comes back complaining of vibration, the installer can check those marks and see if they have come out of alignment. If they have, then the client has ignored the admonition to accelerate and brake gently for a few days.
Many tires returned to tire makers as "defective" are actually fine; they were damaged by poor mounting techique. Tire makers can tell this by the marks the rim leaves on the bead.
A Hunter road-force machine cannot compensate for poor mounting, all it can do is alert the installer that somesthing's wrong. The Hunter machine first requires proper mounting in order to work as intended.
Costco goes through a large vvolume of tires. Their employees receive training directly from the tire makers in the proper mounting procedure. You are more likely to receive correctly-mounted and -balanced tires from Costco than from them than from most tire shops.
And yes, all dirt and old weights should be cleaned off the wheel before new tires are added.
Forgot to add, you're completely neglecting that your tire shop also should have soft pads for their rim clamps, or use a tire machine that doesn't clamp the rim at all (because I ASSume that if you have a BMW that it has alloy wheels)
Nothing makes me stabbier than seeing those dimples in the rim from the rim clamps because the tire guy was too lazy to use the soft pads... but most used sets of alloys that I've bought have them... with corrosion spreading around the marks usually meaning they need to be refinished to look 100%
Again I have a short list of shops local to me that I will trust to mount/balance tires
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